Why Religion causes brain damage / mental illness / VIDEO

Guilt is the mind crippling lesson. It's attraction explains so many things because it seems convincing at a visceral level. I must be in pain because I did something wrong!

 

Well they say if you smoke in front of your kids they will likely smoke. I am sure second hand smoke is a problem at a young age.
I have known people who swear a lot to say they grew up in a home where it was a given to hear some four letter word at least a day.
But I will say this, religious people can be quite naggy, they can press their beliefs on others, especially friends and family who are not and yes I have been told I will go nowhere after death while they will enjoy all the perks never seen on earth. Kinda makes me wonder, a really rich man who has everything and worries about nothing, did he slip into heaven and come back with lots of stuff or what?
Is there certain parts on earth that are heaven and all we have to do is find their home and break in,,, ya, heaven!
Earth is what you make it, heaven or hell, at least I think. Right now I feel like I am in heaven, have been in he'll when I lived in the colder parts of Canada where I didn't like the winters but I had to be there for work.
If you find your Right home and work and are surviving nicely then your home can be your heaven, no?
So while people tell me I am a bad person for not being religious why do I feel like I have been rewarded for something? Yup I had to work and still do but why am I not living out of a box under a bridge?
Here is my take on it. Let's say we die after being a cruel person, then we die with nothing good of us left behind, that's hell, but if we live a good life and there is some good we did left behind then that's the heaven we go with,,, Knowing peeps will remember us in a good way but after it's all said and done our souls are all cleaned and we just float around like the wind, forgiving each other for the big and small bads we did because we all have something.
Really my bet is we can consider our religious selves the cleanest souls around because we believe and are messengers but seriously, do you think all religious people are that squeaky clean? Really, many prisoners become religious and that's after they already took a life and ruined a family or two, how can they ever clean that up?
Ya religion is a confusing thing. Too many variations of it. Too many stirring young minds and many very cult like, but most with a threat that if you don't you will be nothing, that's the ultimate wrong in my mind.

 

A choice in perception. We believe in order to see and see in order to believe.
Perception is not knowledge but can lead to it. Heaven and earth shall pass away, (cease to exist as separate perceptions.) We first dream of peace, then awaken to it.

 

And upon this we can agree....it's often not what we think we see ~

I came back to give one to gongy, like for the first time ever, because I felt it was unfair to co-play the dismissive game entirely and because I actually do think things people say here over (yeah haha nuts for that like gong says..)
I wondered if I could make some point by describing the monster that god controls?

I am a person that can do pretty much with a person what I want. Me and my beastly (beastly children) colleagues can change your vital signs, your level of consciousness, pain, how long or how short, barring accidents and murder, that you live. We can change your iq, bring you to sanity and cast you down jacobs ladder with about the same effort as getting coffee or luring a nurse.
The candystripers and vampires get told the poofy version "you don't know that person. You can't tell by the outside the good or evil, the pain or the whole story. Treat them all as if you were their only friend, because you might be. Never be mean to or harm them, or you are worse among the worst." (Plenty of you have heard this speech)

So, you got this body...awake or not...and you can do to it whatever you want. You know where it's keys, fuses and gears all have their pin point. The poofy speech doesn't really mean anything to you but an ethic, one which you are ultimately responcible for. You say what's ethical and someone is supposed to know but what? 2% of cases have any advocate that could detect, challenge or mess with you? It's something to tell people tho.

But you got a minkey to do with as you please and there's no one else to ask.

The shadow of a doubt, that there is a higher power and your thoughts about it are the only thing you really have to consider?

La ~

"G-d saves" even if you look like somebody that should be done with. Now, gongy, even if there is - not - would you prefer a "clear and adapted" atheist at such a human moment (how monstorous! Adapted to what well creatures ought not to be) <or> a soul with a doubt, sense of guilt, fear of accountability? Someone who believes in humans (haha) or someone who is less than certain something bigger might not be just right on top of them?

It is my experience that an atheist on a surgery table half believes in a g-d, because that is the place where their belief in man is at an all time low...

Not to debate, just to add to your philosophical pallete ~ I myself think life and the world seems much, much safer for most people because of what you think is a "delusional" or "crazy" belief. Not as simplistic as "a club over one's head".... but you see where I'm pointing my finger, because there's nothing exactly to put it on.

It's an incomplete thought, but something to think that if not you, others may be thinking. Before gen x and smothering overpopulation, we were free and had only "G-d" to go by. Now, the population that was never wanted gets all their deepest guidance from mongoloid level sense of "authority approval" so much that they are often aware of it their selves.

Not just "I hope my doctor believes in a vengeful g-d" but also, "Am I nothing more than a fear/approval responce seal, blowing horns in the right order to avoid rejection?"
Because if that answer is yes, it is a pretty bereft soul and apt to show signs and behaviorsof immense suffering.

I guess I have also talked us to a place (again) where "It ain't the 'ligion, it's the person" but none the less - just where my thoughts went last time I farted in your general direction.

Ahahaha! You have "shaman" as part of your name, does that mean you are trting to be an iconoclast or a fraud? "Shaman" is a life that acknowledges the higher or divine as first, present and visceral? Because it is.

 

Would these arguments be convinving to a starving african child? All they have to do is imagine they are in heaven and it will be?
Sometimes one's perception has rather more present "opposition" that no amount of fruiting around in one's own head will conquer. A russian might be another person to ask if "life is what you make it". Lord knows the chinese have been trying to convince their selves of that for centuries out of desperation.

 

Well for one I am not speaking to starving children. The appropriate response to starving children is to feed them don't you think? Heaven is the appearance of reality without the judgmental perspective not an idealistic fantasy. None are without pain no matter their perspective but you can be in pain and not anguish over it which multiplies suffering. None of us are called to task beyond our means.

 

"So you're telling me the kids of Africa are going to hell for not believing in a god they never even knew existed?"

 

So basically, life is not "what you make it" for everyone, but if they don't "anguish" over it, it is better mentally.

 

Haha that had nothing to do with it. If you can't understand a conversation dumpling it's best just to sit quietly and plot a more viable attention effort.

 

<< eaven is the appearance of reality without the judgmental
perspective not an idealistic fantasy>>

Oh. I thought heaven was on some whole other plane than earth, not some philosophical fantasy that can be destroyed by an opportunistic microbe or tiger. Nothing to do with the imaginary dribble of "pop psychology".

 

No I said we have a choice in perception or where you place your attention. Just as you have no choice in what your inheritance is but it is possible to recognize it. We are a nexus of thought and sensation. The perception of heaven does not end the worlds problems but it doesn't send you on fools errands either. First cause no harm and you become a locus of harmlessness. What is real cannot be caused to become unreal and what is not real does not exist, however in misperception our illusions are always at risk for disillusionment.

 

If you noticed the speech brackets you'd understand I was neither saying anything myself, nor was I adding anything to the conversation. No, I simply quoted a statement that's quite soundly true.

 

I have always kept in mind that it is quite possible religious belief is a delusion, often a dangerous one, and/or there is a genetic disposition to believe in that which is not real.

 

There is a genetic disposition to believe. Belief is essential in developing perception. Perception is not knowledge but can lead to it. There is a probability of believing in things that are not real because we use imaginary scenarios to direct action. Religious belief is a way to organize thought using special vocabulary but many people are weak on communication in common tongues, that is they don't understand what is being said or how to communicate effectively their own thoughts and this goes for religious texts and sermons. Experience is your nervous systems response to stimulus and does not in fact teach you about the world but about your own constitution.

I agree that we can be deceived but deception is easy to identify if you remember that anxiety in relating to any subject is caused by the misapprehension of what is so. The truth sets us at ease as reality itself is secure.

 

Yes, but not in relation to believing in that which is clearly not real. We are genetically predisposed to believe in that which can be verifiably proven to exist.

Indeed, and there is no clearer indication of self-deception than the religiously deluded mind.

 

My point is there is a probability for everyone not just the religiously minded to believe in things that are clearly not real again in anticipating probable events for example with the question what might be his response.

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The clear way to distinction is the quality of your own experience. Anxiety is caused by the misapprehension of what is so. If your verdicts are disturbing to you then you have deceived yourself as reality supports it's constituents. Again experience is your nervous systems response to stimulus not someone else's.

 

Philosophy and Religion > Christianity >
Why Religion causes brain damage / mental illness / VIDEO >

From the about section of the following video about belief,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtupcIqQNyM"]Ani Difranco Amazing Grace - Fisher of Men - YouTube

 

Don't understand what you are trying to impress.
The quoted section doesn't address belief. Every instance describes new awareness.

 

The reason why you don't understand the "trying to impress" thing is because there is no trying to impress.

The quoted section's very first two lines address belief!

Sheesh.

 

Sheesh I wasn't drawing conclusions but seeking information and you lent clarity with your gracious response. I take it now as adjunct to what I was talking about.