On Friday 15 November 2002 00:41, you wrote: > Indeed, I've heard the same. One could argue that for someone to believe in > something (religion) so intensely as to shun all moral explanation against > this hypothesis and to persist in those beliefs without any proof is akin > to schizophrenia. But that's a whole new kettle of fish. > ~SAM
It all depends on the definition of sane... As usually it's a religious force who imposes "truth", the faithfull will remain normal ... :) Manipulating the definion of normality is dangerous and only begets the temptation to use it to use other people... We have examples of self-proclaimed atheist societies where this was used for political manipulation: psiquiatric institutions in the former USRR, or even some private institutions in USA that would do that for a hire.. (the case of the frontal lobotomy of Getty's son, ordered by Getty himself (wich probably was age demented by that time, but has people obey to anyone who has a fat checkbook...) We could also invoke memetics and say that religion is like a mental disorder that spreads through a population... A meme infecting minds as they are vulnerable to certain statements, emotions and tautological arguments. My experience in a former religious life, is that the mentally ill are drawn to the religious life... There's even a rare neurological sickness (caused by accidents and brain defects in certain parts of the brain ) in wich the patient has trancesdental experiences and direct contact with god. Interestingly, you can reproduce that experience with some mushrooms or roots from the amazon florest, there's even a cult in Brazil that uses them... (more incredible, is that its alucinations are individualistic... someone that believes in buda, will feel Buda... Jeovah, etc... there are people (usually atheists) that say they talked with aliens and space ghosts :))) This drug will even eliminate addictions.. There are heroin, tabaco, etc addicts that will have their addictions eliminated after a section with the so called sacrament... Wich is very, very interesting.... for "the god in our brains" seems to clear our deepest fears and pain. Yours faithfully, Andri Esteves
