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Religion and insanity
#1
Religion and insanity
So, I'll try to do this, even though I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this post.

I talked to my boyfriend and he wanted to see what the people here think of his story. I've talked about him a lot, I know, but this was something that has really had a big impact on him on a psychological level.

To start with, I need to give you a little background on him. His parents are divorced. That's actually pretty common nowadays, but what makes it unusual is that the Mormon church, the church he was raised with, they're perfectly ok with the divorce. Usually, the Mormons look at divorce about the same way Catholics do and divorced members are pretty much shunned. However, in this case, they were perfectly understanding. You see, his biological father has paranoid schizophrenia. I guess it wasn't too bad at first, but as time went by he got more and more violent and unstable and just plain crazy. Things finally came to a head when he got arrested for posting some really crazy shit online. You can read about part of it in this article on him:

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/2483/uta...b-hinckley

While the church excommunicated him for threatening their leadership, the government was more worred about other stuff. Lee tells me he had other violent tendancies. He had built up a small arsenal of weapons and he had written a bit of a manifesto explaining how he was going t blow up the state of Missouri and drive to Canada on a bulldozer. There's also the neglect of his family; he made his wife stay home, barefoot and pregnant most the time, but he wouldn't work either. They were in pretty extreme poverty and if not for the generocity of the LDS church, they probably would have had to move into a homeless shelter or something along those lines. It got even worse after the divorce was legal; he claimed that his youngest son wasn't biologically his and was the love child of an affair between his wife and an alien. Then he claimed that the government killed his whole family and because of that he doesn't have to pay child support.

Well, he went to jail but when he went to trail, things got complicated. They couldn't try him because he wasn't mentally competent to stand trial unless he was medicated. The last he had heard, the lawyers wanted to force him to take the medication, but weren't making much progress.

So, imagine growing up in that environment, ok? In fact, for Lee it was even worse, because he had all that garbage on top of the fact that he's trans and dealing with a lot of the same angsty feelings a lot of us have at young age. It's hurt him a lot and I feel like I'm doing all I can just to let him know that there are good people out in the world who will unconditionally love him, and assure him that he won't be anything like his bio did (we call him FF).

Well, a few days ago, we found him. Lee's brother found him on facebook and it also looks like he's running some kind of Mormon group on google. Yep, he's still as crazy as ever, still determined that the LDS church is delusional and evil and that they're the pawns of Satan. And, yep, sure enough, he's claiming he's the real profit of God. Fortunately, Lee has reached a point in his life where he can look at this stuff and not really feel a connection to him anymore. Still, I can't help but think, how much of this pain and suffering that he and his family endured, how much would have been avoided if not for some of these religious beliefs?

EDIT-No, it doesn't look like he was running the group, but he made a post on it that indicates he's still a crazy as ever:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgro...y87et29ZPw
I live on facebook. Come see me there. http://www.facebook.com/tara.rizzatto

"If you cling to something as the absolute truth and you are caught in it, when the truth comes in person to knock on your door you will refuse to let it in." ~ Siddhartha Gautama
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#2
RE: Religion and insanity
(January 27, 2013 at 6:22 pm)TaraJo Wrote: EDIT-No, it doesn't look like he was running the group, but he made a post on it that indicates he's still a crazy as ever:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgro...y87et29ZPw

I actually think he's more sane than you give him credit for...
If a Catholic speaks out against the pedophile preists, would you dare call that person insane? I think your answer would be "no", am I correct?
If one of the Hitler Youth spoke out against the tyrany he witnessed, would you call that person insane?
.
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#3
RE: Religion and insanity
(January 28, 2013 at 2:22 am)catfish Wrote:
(January 27, 2013 at 6:22 pm)TaraJo Wrote: EDIT-No, it doesn't look like he was running the group, but he made a post on it that indicates he's still a crazy as ever:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgro...y87et29ZPw

I actually think he's more sane than you give him credit for...
If a Catholic speaks out against the pedophile preists, would you dare call that person insane? I think your answer would be "no", am I correct?
If one of the Hitler Youth spoke out against the tyrany he witnessed, would you call that person insane?
.

I think the difference is that we have actual, demonstrable evidence that pedophile priests exist, and that the Hitler Youth were bad. We don't, because of this, give credence to every random person who makes an assertion without evidence. The moment this guy is able to corroborate his story, things will be different.

As it is, what we've got here is a, by all accounts, degenerate crazy person who's off his meds, rambling about the evils of one church while apparently trying to start his own. Not the most credible of witnesses.
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee

Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
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#4
RE: Religion and insanity
(January 27, 2013 at 6:22 pm)TaraJo Wrote: Still, I can't help but think, how much of this pain and suffering that he and his family endured, how much would have been avoided if not for some of these religious beliefs?

I don't think a lot, insanity isn't exclusive for religious people.
Ofcourse, some of the religious people blend in like a chameleon.
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#5
RE: Religion and insanity
(January 27, 2013 at 6:22 pm)TaraJo Wrote: You see, his biological father has paranoid schizophrenia.

He had built up a small arsenal of weapons and he had written a bit of a manifesto explaining how he was going t blow up the state of Missouri and drive to Canada on a bulldozer.

It got even worse after the divorce was legal; he claimed that his youngest son wasn't biologically his and was the love child of an affair between his wife and an alien. Then he claimed that the government killed his whole family and because of that he doesn't have to pay child support.

This has nothing to do with religion. An atheist with paranoid schizophrenia could say the same things. Nobody's entirely sure what causes schizophrenia but there's some evidence that there's a biological aspect to it.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Schizophren...auses.aspx

This doesn't automatically mean that your boyfriend's going to end up schizophrenic, though.

There are probably more religious sufferers than atheist sufferers for the sole reason that there are more religious people than atheists.

(January 27, 2013 at 6:22 pm)TaraJo Wrote: They were in pretty extreme poverty and if not for the generocity of the LDS church, they probably would have had to move into a homeless shelter or something along those lines.

Your boyfriend's childhood would have been even worse if it hadn't been for the LDS church's generosity.
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#6
RE: Religion and insanity
From what I've seen in my father, who actually had a father who was schizophrenic, religion is the main contributing factor to him denying modern medical intervention in any and all parts of his physical body.

His reasoning is that god made our bodies, and doctors are just students of our bodies who try to override gods natural order to make themselves gods. No joke. And he's definitely not the first christian I've come across with this problem, there's many who are mentally ill and refuse treatment thus suffering their families to their fate with a deeply ingrained religious blockade keeping them from being well.

What's more is it is absolutely impossible for me to get him to go to the doctor for his diabetes, and hence his mental state has suffered greatly from the health problems he now faces. In 2011, he called me to tell me he'd be stopping eating and drinking and that he would crawl in a hole and die, which would not be considered suicide in gods eyes. Didn't work, he's still around. But the things he said on the way out triggered his mentally fragile son to begin his own mental breakdown which is still ongoing and very real--only he's suicidal.

Hell, I've even been told that god will heal me if I pray it with the faith of a child and he wills it. Then when I wasn't healed I was told that it was for the best, that god knows best, and that my illness could have altered my future and saved me from an even grimmer future or death. Hence I should be thankful for my illness, take it in stride, and stop complaining.
If I were to create self aware beings knowing fully what they would do in their lifetimes, I sure wouldn't create a HELL for the majority of them to live in infinitely! That's not Love, that's sadistic. Therefore a truly loving god does not exist!

Quote:The sin is against an infinite being (God) unforgiven infinitely, therefore the punishment is infinite.

Dead wrong.  The actions of a finite being measured against an infinite one are infinitesimal and therefore merit infinitesimal punishment.

Quote:Some people deserve hell.

I say again:  No exceptions.  Punishment should be equal to the crime, not in excess of it.  As soon as the punishment is greater than the crime, the punisher is in the wrong.

[Image: tumblr_n1j4lmACk61qchtw3o1_500.gif]
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#7
RE: Religion and insanity
(January 29, 2013 at 6:17 am)missluckie26 Wrote: From what I've seen in my father, who actually had a father who was schizophrenic, religion is the main contributing factor to him denying modern medical intervention in any and all parts of his physical body.

His reasoning is that god made our bodies, and doctors are just students of our bodies who try to override gods natural order to make themselves gods. No joke.

Most Christians accept medical treatment and there are Christians who are doctors and nurses.

Francis Collins, an Evangelical Christian -

Quote:is an American physician-geneticist noted for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project

Your father's beliefs aren't run of the mill Christianity, then.

(January 29, 2013 at 6:17 am)missluckie26 Wrote: And he's definitely not the first christian I've come across with this problem, there's many who are mentally ill and refuse treatment thus suffering their families to their fate with a deeply ingrained religious blockade keeping them from being well.

It's possible that some of the people who are mentally ill refuse treatment because it's a symptom of their illnesses. I just looked up schizophrenia as an example but the quote includes other conditions which can result in the same thing -

http://www.everydayhealth.com/schizophre...iance.aspx

Quote:There are many reasons why people with schizophrenia do not seek, or get, the help they need.
According to Ken Duckworth, MD, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston, one crucial reason is anosognosia or an inability to recognize one's own illness. Dr. Duckworth says that half of people with schizophrenia simply don't realize that they're sick. They genuinely believe delusional ideas, such as that they're being watched, followed, or ordered around by external forces. This lack of recognition of one's symptoms and disease also occurs in people whose brains have been affected by strokes, injuries, tumors, and diseases like Alzheimer's.

Many people have delusional ideas which have nothing to do with Christianity.

David Icke

Quote:According to British writer David Icke, 5- to 12-foot (1.5–3.7 m) tall, blood-drinking, shape-shifting reptilian humanoids from the Alpha Draconis star system, now hiding in underground bases, are the force behind a worldwide conspiracy against humanity.[7] He contends that most of the world's leaders are related to these reptilians, including George W. Bush of the United States, and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.[8] Icke's conspiracy theories now have supporters in 47 countries and he frequently gives lectures to crowds of 2,500 or more.[9] American writer Vicki Santillano ranked the notion that "Reptilian humanoids control all of us" as one of the 10 most popular conspiracy theories.[10]
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#8
RE: Religion and insanity
There were undoubtedly religious aspects to all of this. I think the biggest one is that the guy's wife stayed with him because the church looks down on divorce, even when he was losing it and becoming increasingly abusive and violent. The marriage only ended when he did/said something that made his wife think he was going to kill one of he kids.

Also, they believed that demon possession actually existed, and if you think someone is possessed by a demon, you don't seek medical help; you look for religious help (which usually comes in the form of prayer).

But the part that upsets Lee the most is his grandparents. You see, before his parents got together, his biological dad had been married previously. During that marriage, he was even more abusive to the point that he was punishing people by tieing them up and just leaving them there. And the crazy guy's parents, instead of addressnig his problems, they just encouraged him to go out there and get married and have that family that good Mormon families are supposed to have. When he found a woman who was willing to marry him, they conveniently forgot to mention any of his history of violence and let her walk right into years of abuse.

And I think there can be some amount of link between delusions and religious beliefs. If you look up his profile on google, he specifically claims to be the "Only member of the Mormon Church alive today who has ever earned the honor of meeting Jesus Christ in person." And it's worth mentioning, if someone told you they were talking to an invisible friend in the sky and he told them to do crazy things, most of us would think he's crazy. Yet religion is filled with stories about prophets getting messages from god telling them to do absurd things and we think that's perfectly normal. I mean, think about it: Jerimiah walked around Jerusalem with a yolk over his shoulders, preaching to the people because god told him to. If I went to downtown Houston today and there was a guy walking around with a yolk over his shoulders, preaching to the people, would you think he's crazy? Would you entertain the thought that his message might be divinely inspired? And if not, why would you believe a previous person who did the same thing was divinely inspired?

Yes, the generosity of the Mormon church did help his family survive. I have to give them credit for that. That generosity doesn't take away from the damage the church has done, though, most notably the church funds a lot of extreme homophobia and they're probably the reason the Boy Scouts are so staunchly homophobic. Also, they only help their own; had this been a Catholic family or a Jewish family or an atheist family, they would have just let them starve. I think the bad outweighs the good.
I live on facebook. Come see me there. http://www.facebook.com/tara.rizzatto

"If you cling to something as the absolute truth and you are caught in it, when the truth comes in person to knock on your door you will refuse to let it in." ~ Siddhartha Gautama
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#9
RE: Religion and insanity
(January 29, 2013 at 11:21 am)TaraJo Wrote: Yes, the generosity of the Mormon church did help his family survive. I have to give them credit for that. That generosity doesn't take away from the damage the church has done, though, most notably the church funds a lot of extreme homophobia and they're probably the reason the Boy Scouts are so staunchly homophobic. Also, they only help their own; had this been a Catholic family or a Jewish family or an atheist family, they would have just let them starve. I think the bad outweighs the good.

My family had a similar situation. My mother was counseled by her priest to stay in an abusive marriage, which she did for 18 years.
I agree that though the church may provide help, the damage of pressuring members to stay in unhealthy, abusive relationships outweighs any charity they may give. It is irresponsible to counsel someone to stay in an abusive situation because god would be upset by a divorce. It's negligent to not consider the well-being of the kids. It's far better to come from a broken home than being forced to live in an abusive one.
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#10
RE: Religion and insanity
(January 29, 2013 at 11:21 am)TaraJo Wrote: There were undoubtedly religious aspects to all of this.

I agree. I think the source of delusions can be very complex, though.

(January 29, 2013 at 11:21 am)TaraJo Wrote: But the part that upsets Lee the most is his grandparents.

I found this article by a mental health counsellor. It indicates that it's not just religious people who refuse to believe there's anything wrong with their kids.

Parents Denial Of Their Child’s Mental Health Issues Doesn’t Make It Go Away

Quote:Parents can be my biggest allies or worst enemies when it comes to dealing with children and adolescent clients, and their denial of their child’s mental health issues only complicates everything. I see so many kids who can benefit from intense therapy and maybe even medication, but their parents ignore the seriousness of the situation and write it off as defiant behavior, active imagination or they just hope their child will grow out of things such as torturing animals and setting fires. Denial is a defense mechanism and while it’s okay to be skeptical, being in denial is almost always unhealthy in the long run.

(January 29, 2013 at 11:21 am)TaraJo Wrote: And I think there can be some amount of link between delusions and religious beliefs.

I agree that there can be some amount of link but it seems to depend on what the individual concerned latches onto. (The following is something I posted in another topic where the subject of schizophrenia turned up - I've been googling for examples of delusions)

http://www.intropsych.com/ch12_abnormal/...renia.html

Quote:In July, 1998, a man named Russell Westen, who had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, entered the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., with a handgun, killing two security guards before he was shot and injured himself. As it turned out, the man had refused to take his medications. He was delusional, claiming that the President was conspiring to kill him. Once he claimed that the satellite dish in his little town in Montana was spying on him for the CIA. His parents said that he believed secret powers were trying to control him through the TV set. The man's symptoms read like a textbook description of paranoid schizophrenia. Not all paranoid schizophrenics are dangerous; most of them are not. However, when they begin to act on their fantasies, like this man did, they can become dangerous.

So not all delusions are based on religion although many are.

The next bit is not from the other topic. David Icke has very odd ideas, some of which come from religion while others come from science fiction.

We're all holograms ruled by reptiles (and the Queen's fuelled by children's blood) — claims David Icke

Quote:Looking around at the 5,000 fans who packed Wembley Arena at the weekend for his biggest ever show, I had to wonder whether he was not the only oddball.

They had travelled from all over the world to hear the 60-year-old former BBC sports presenter tell them how they — and the rest of us — are merely holograms living in a virtual reality that has been hacked into by alien beings, who control us with the help of a ruling elite of reptilian humanoids.

I may also do a disservice to his audience, not all of whom buy into every word. But there were gasps, as if a penny had dropped, when he claimed the Queen and Prince Philip, like the Queen Mother before them, are kept healthy with the blood of young children.

And that the Olympic opening ceremony was a giant Satanic ritual to produce the human energy on which our reptilian masters feed.

His conspiracy theory is a mix of New Age beliefs and TV shows and moves such as V and The Matrix.

(January 29, 2013 at 11:21 am)TaraJo Wrote: And it's worth mentioning, if someone told you they were talking to an invisible friend in the sky and he told them to do crazy things, most of us would think he's crazy. Yet religion is filled with stories about prophets getting messages from god telling them to do absurd things and we think that's perfectly normal.

Many people seem to believe what David Icke says. I found this video on YouTube which supposedly shows Richard Dawkins shapeshifting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McNtpCphYvU
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