RE: Psychosis - another reason to be anti-theist
March 12, 2015 at 6:34 pm
(This post was last modified: March 12, 2015 at 6:48 pm by watchamadoodle.)
(March 12, 2015 at 4:28 pm)rasetsu Wrote: I've been thinking a lot about my religious beliefs today. I feel I need to go one of two ways: deeper into my Hindu faith (I've felt there's a certain superficiality to my Hinduism), or I could go the other direction and embrace atheism. Unfortunately I'm stuck, and one of the reasons that I am stuck is because of psychotic delusions which have religious overtones.I felt the same way the last several years. Intellectually, I accepted atheism, and I accepted that my religious experiences were psychosis, but I also knew that I wasn't really an atheist. I knew that atheism was just a lie that I told myself, because I couldn't cope with woo. Then a few months ago, I was forced to test one of my key delusions, and it failed the test. Then - poof - all my delusions vanished at once, and I was finally an atheist. Intellectually I know that woo is possible, but it doesn't matter to me now.
However, just a few nights ago, I started reading about Gnosticism in Ehrman's "Early Christianities", and I could feel my old woo-delusions returning. I suspect that if I tried to learn and practice Gnosticism, then I might become delusional again.
So I would suggest atheism instead of Hinduism - even though it's hard to be an atheist. (Of course that is just my opinion. Everybody is different.
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