I'm In Shock

[Joyous1]

I found out yesterday that a friend of mine who was recently hospitalized against her wishes told her psychiatrist and social worker that she is pregnant by the holy spirit. They tested her and she is not pregnant at all, of course, but I am still in shock.

 

Her sister and I have been working for the past year to convince authorities that this woman (I'll call her Ms Pac Man) was mentally ill and needed professional help. Every time the social worker stopped by to check in Ms Pac Man put on a good show of being sane. She refuses to believe there is anything wrong with her and was able to convince the social worker as well.

 

I knew she had problems, but this is more bizarre than I had imagined. At lease now everyone realizes how sick she is. She will be declared incompetent tomorrow and forced to take medication. Hopefully she will begin to improve.

 

The weirdest part is that she often sounded like any other fundy, living by faith and praising god for everything. Heck, she didn't sound that much different from me when I believed. Now I will never be able to hear a fundy talk without thinking of Ms Pac Man and her imagined pregnancy. I dont' think I will ever be able to consider reconverting without wondering if I'm losing my sanity.

[white_raven23]

Wow.

 

I share your relief that everyone around Ms Pac Man now knows she has a real problem.

 

Makes you wonder......is Pat Robertson a complete asshole, or someone who needs to be medicated?

 

Maybe fundamentalism will one day be regarded as a mental illness.

[BlueGiant]

How did she get hospitalized? I thought that you had to be considered a danger to yourself or another to get the guys in white coats after you.

[Kryten]

Maybe there's a name for that condition-- something like IVBS...

(Imminent Virgin Birth Syndrome)

[RedPillAddict]

You know I dont like to be called Ms. Pac man, crisis.

[Pariah]

Bizzare.

 

I heard somewhere that people can display many of the side effects of pregnancy just by believing they are pregnant, not sure if its true.

[Ro-bear]

Maybe fundamentalism will one day be regarded as a mental illness.

 

I don't think fundamentalism will ever be itself recognized as a mental illness, but I certainly think it is symtomatic of mental illness in many cases.

[Vixentrox]

She really IS pregnant, you just gotta faith in it!

[Brother Jeff]

Wow.

 

I share your relief that everyone around Ms Pac Man now knows she has a real problem.

 

Makes you wonder......is Pat Robertson a complete asshole, or someone who needs to be medicated?

 

Maybe fundamentalism will one day be regarded as a mental illness.

 

From http://www.betterhumans.com/Columns/Column...13/Default.aspx

 

Imagine that you're a psychiatrist. A new patient comes to see you and says that he regularly talks to an invisible being who never responds, that he reads excerpts from one ancient book and that he believes wholeheartedly that its contents must be accepted implicitly, if not taken literally.

 

The patient goes on to say that that the world is only 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs never existed. He brazenly rejects modern science's observations and conclusions, and subscribes to the notion that after death he will live in eternal bliss in some alternate dimension. And throughout your meeting, he keeps handing you his book and urging you to join him, lest you end up after death in a far less desirable alternate dimension than him.

 

Is this a mentally healthy person? If you were a responsible psychiatrist, how could you answer yes? These symptoms border on delusional schizophrenia, which the American Psychological Association's DSM-IV describes as involving a profound disruption in cognition and emotion, assigning unusual significance or meaning to normal events and holding fixed false personal beliefs.

 

So, should you insist on follow-up appointments along with some strong medication? Well, quite obviously, the patient is a religious fundamentalist. So he would most likely not be diagnosed with a psychological problem. In fact, such a diagnosis could land you in hot water; the patient's religious beliefs are constitutionally protected.

 

Yet, perhaps it's time this changed, and that we made religious fundamentalism a mental and cultural health issue. People should be able to believe what they like, but only so long as their convictions don't harm others or, arguably, themselves. Fundamentalism, however, breeds fanaticism and often leads to terrible violence, injustice and inequality. If society can force drug addicts into rehabilitation because they're a danger to themselves and the public, then we should be able to compel religious fundamentalists to undergo treatment as well.

 

Religion as virus of the mind

 

The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins considers religion an opportunistic and dangerous virus of the mind. Comments such as these have a long history, as religion has been a particularly popular target in the post-Enlightenment age. Marx claimed that religion was the opiate of the people. Freud claimed that it was an infantile need for protection in place of the parent. Ayn Rand thought that belief in God was demeaning to man. Nietzsche put it this way: "Is man one of God's blunders, or is God one of man's blunders?"

 

Dawkins' theory has much merit. He describes religion as a "meme," an idea that gets passed from person to person and generation to generation like a virus that infects hosts to reproduce its genes. Under this view, religion is a potent memeplex that works at a cultural and psychological level. Some psychologists even believe that the human brain is hardwired for spirituality, perhaps to help rational and intelligent organisms remain sane and functional while dealing with the confusions of existence.

 

Regardless, the human psyche has proven fertile ground for religious memes, which have evolved and withstood selective pressures over time and, as a result, now "organize" their hosts in such a way that institutions, including the legal system, have come to their protection. Evangelical memes -- such as those of Jesuits and Jehovah's Witnesses -- are some of the best at reproducing.

 

When faith goes bad

 

Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with this. Under memetic theory, any idea that gets reproduced is a meme. So when do religious memes go bad? What distinguishes fundamentalism from other types of religious belief systems?

 

Philosopher Daniel Dennett, in an essay called "Protecting Public Health," provides some guidance. "As science and technology eliminate the barriers and friction that have heretofore constrained our human powers and thereby limited the scope of our moral choice, mankind's need for a reasoned, consensual, and open-minded ethics will become ever more pressing," he writes. Dennett is concerned with the fallacies and misinformation that people cling to -- including conspiracy theories, superstitions, mysticism, astrology and, especially, fundamentalism. He states, "Fanaticism of every sort, on every issue, is bound to compete for our attention...[and] unfortunately, many people cling to the simple wrong answers, and are even prepared to die -- and kill -- for them."

 

Intervening in people's thinking, however, is a sensitive issue, as it touches upon freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression. People have the right to be foolish, naive or dogmatic, just as they have the right to smoke cigarettes and drink too much alcohol.

 

So at what point do a person's convictions become a health issue? In my opinion, the answer is this: A belief becomes cognitively unhealthy when the believer's free will and normal critical processes have been damaged by the belief system's dialectic. I argue that fundamentalist religions, insofar as they cripple a believer's ability to have free will, exhibit rational choice and appropriately assess the nature of the physical environment, have already passed this threshold.

 

Danger to society

 

Moreover, the effect of fundamentalism on society is as detrimental as the effect of fundamentalism on believers. Fundamentalists are the ones who fly planes into skyscrapers and murder doctors that perform abortions. They are the ones who deny the existence of proven physical phenomena while rabidly insisting on the existence of clearly unsubstantiated marvels.

 

They are also incapable of recognizing that they have a problem, and are often amongst the most intolerant people on this planet, commonly referring to non-believers as pagans, heathens, or infidels.

 

And historically, underdeveloped sciences, mystically perpetuated pseudo sciences and false assumptions about the nature of reality have resulted in misery and countless social injustices. The more rational the understanding that humans have about their existence, the better off they are in dealing with the hazards of life and developing humane moral philosophies.

 

Acceptable belief systems

 

Of course, some beliefs and worldviews are more debilitating than others (both to the believer and to the society around them). Orthodox and literalist theologians apply a very limited worldview to reality, often basing their perceptions of existence on ancient texts and mythologies. Fundamentalist Judeo-Christians are no exception, as many still believe in Creationism, a 6,000-year-old earth and Noah's Ark.

 

But what about more moderate beliefs? What about belief in an immaterial soul? Or that Jesus performed miracles? Is it mentally unhealthy to believe such things? When do we cross the line and infringe upon constitutional rights?

 

Ultimately, belief in the soul or Jesus's resurrection is not so unhealthy as to render believers dysfunctional. Some of the brightest and most creative contributors to society were (and are) staunch Christians. It was Bach, after all, who composed music for the glory of God.

 

Furthermore, most people in the West rarely think about the deeper ramifications of their existence and humanity's relationship with God. Sermons are no longer fire and brimstone threats but, instead, poignant stories about why we should love and help our neighbors -- issues that I would categorize as self-evident truths, and hardly the monopoly of religious doctrine.

 

Modern religions are useful in that they have taken on the character of moral philosophies which help followers with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships. Religions form an important, if not essential, role in society. They offer community, existential explanations, compassionate and valuable moral codes and an outlet for the human need for spirituality. (Personally, I am agnostic, as I recognize just how sublime and mysterious the universe really is.)

 

Also, neither modern scientism nor any other contemporary belief system is perfectly healthy. In fact, stubborn Western empiricists could learn a lot from Eastern philosophies. As Freud once said, "It is a mistake to believe that a science consists in nothing but conclusively proved propositions, and it is unjust to demand that it should. It is a demand only made by those who feel a craving for authority in some form and a need to replace the religious catechism by something else, even if it be a scientific one."

 

The differentiating factor must be this: A belief system is a mental disorder when it causes believers to deny the observations of empirical methodologies. With fundamentalists, this involves denying the nature of the physical world as it is being presented in favour of archaic and unyielding irrational orthodoxies; their brains have been infected and debilitated with unsubstantiated nonsense.

 

Kill the meme, not the patient

 

Since I'm arguing for categorizing something as a disease, it only makes sense for me to also propose a cure. And it is this: Engineer fundamentalist memes out of existence.

 

Fundamentalists have been mobilized by an unconscious meme that seeks to protect and propagate itself at all costs, even at the expense of a host's mental well-being. Viruses do exactly the same thing, often killing a host as they seek out transmission vectors.

 

The best way to prevent a meme from gaining a stranglehold on a host is to prevent it from reproducing in the first place. With religious fundamentalism, I propose two key elements for memetic immunization.

 

The first is responsible and accountable education and reporting of information to the public (including educational institutions, the media and the government). Children who are taught Creationism rather than natural selection, for example, are being primed for memetic infection. The second is raising the standard of living of all people. Assisting Third World nations would help alleviate problems of disenfranchised youths who become desperate and turn to religious fanaticism.

 

As proof of this strategy, we need only look at how the Taliban recruited members: They attracted poor and uneducated boys who easily accepted radical Islam as an outlet for their frustrations. And without proper education they were unable to properly distinguish religious gibberish from fact.

 

An important point needs to be made here, however: Killing a cultural artifact is not analogous to killing people. Culture is not self aware. Irrational fundamentalists should be treated as we treat others suffering from psychological ailments and offered immediate help. We should see them as suffering from a disease and help them to accept a more moderate religious stance and develop a more balanced life.

 

Hopefully, this will return to them free will, rationality and self-respect. In my opinion, these are the elements that give human lives meaning and purpose.

 

Maybe fundamentalism will one day be regarded as a mental illness.

 

I don't think fundamentalism will ever be itself recognized as a mental illness, but I certainly think it is symtomatic of mental illness in many cases.

Amen, Brother!

[snookums]

Its a phantom pregnancy

 

its sad at the same time.

 

Speaking of fundamentalism oneday being a mental illness...extreme bias is being consider for inclusion to the DMS

 

Pardon the cut&paste but the orginal article expired. Please Read it to include religion fanatism as yet another bias.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

By Shankar Vedantam

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, December 10, 2005; Page A01

 

The 48-year-old man turned down a job because he feared that a co-worker would be gay. He was upset that gay culture was becoming mainstream and blamed most of his personal, professional and emotional problems on the gay and lesbian movement.

 

These fixations preoccupied him every day. Articles in magazines about gays made him agitated. He confessed that his fears had left him socially isolated and unemployed for years: A recovering alcoholic, the man even avoided 12-step meetings out of fear he might encounter a gay person.

 

 

 

Darrel A. Regier of the American Psychiatric Association favors research but says it is not clear that establishing a diagnosis would be useful. (By Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)

 

 

 

On washingtonpost.com | On the web

 

 

"He had a fixed delusion about the world," said Sondra E. Solomon, a psychologist at the University of Vermont who treated the man for two years. "He felt under attack, he felt threatened."

 

Mental health practitioners say they regularly confront extreme forms of racism, homophobia and other prejudice in the course of therapy, and that some patients are disabled by these beliefs. As doctors increasingly weigh the effects of race and culture on mental illness, some are asking whether pathological bias ought to be an official psychiatric diagnosis.

 

Advocates have circulated draft guidelines and have begun to conduct systematic studies. While the proposal is gaining traction, it is still in the early stages of being considered by the professionals who decide on new diagnoses.

 

If it succeeds, it could have huge ramifications on clinical practice, employment disputes and the criminal justice system. Perpetrators of hate crimes could become candidates for treatment, and physicians would become arbiters of how to distinguish "ordinary prejudice" from pathological bias.

 

Several experts said they are unsure whether bias can be pathological. Solomon, for instance, is uncomfortable with the idea. But they agreed that psychiatry has been inattentive to the effects of prejudice on mental health and illness.

 

"Has anyone done a word search for 'racism' in DSM-IV? It doesn't exist," said Carl C. Bell, a Chicago psychiatrist, referring to psychiatry's manual of mental disorders. "Has anyone asked, 'If you have paranoia, do you project your hostility toward other groups?' The answer is 'Hell, no!' "

 

The proposed guidelines that California psychologist Edward Dunbar created describe people whose daily functioning is paralyzed by persistent fears and worries about other groups. The guidelines have not been endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM); advocates are mostly seeking support for systematic study.

 

Darrel A. Regier, director of research at the psychiatric association, said he supports research into whether pathological bias is a disorder. But he said the jury is out on whether a diagnostic classification would add anything useful, given that clinicians already know about disorders in which people rigidly hold onto false beliefs.

 

"If you are going to put racism into the next edition of DSM, you would have enormous criticism," Regier said. Critics would ask, " 'Are you pathologizing all of life?' You better be prepared to defend that classification."

 

"I think it's absurd," said Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and the author of "PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine." Satel said the diagnosis would allow hate-crime perpetrators to evade responsibility by claiming they suffered from a mental illness. "You could use it as a defense."

 

Psychiatrists who advocate a new diagnosis, such as Gary Belkin, deputy chief of psychiatry at New York's Bellevue Hospital, said social norms play a central role in how all psychiatric disorders are defined. Pedophilia is considered a disorder by psychiatrists, Belkin noted, but that does not keep child molesters from being prosecuted.

 

"Psychiatrists who are uneasy with including something like this in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual need to get used to the fact that the whole manual reflects social context," said Belkin, who is planning to launch a study on pathological bias among patients at his hospital. "That is true of depression on down. Pathological bias is no more or less scientific than major depression."

 

Advocates for the new diagnosis also say most candidates for treatment, such as the man Solomon treated, are not criminals or violent offenders. Rather, they are like the young woman in Los Angeles who thought Jews were diseased and would infect her -- she carried out compulsive cleansing rituals and hit her head to drive away her obsessions. She realized she needed help but was afraid her therapist would be Jewish, said Dunbar, a Los Angeles psychologist who has amassed several case studies and treated several dozen patients for racial paranoia and other forms of what he considers pathological bias.

 

Another patient was a waiter so hostile to black people that he flung plates on the table when he served black patrons and got fired from multiple jobs.

 

A third patient was a Vietnam War veteran who was so fearful of Asians that he avoided social situations where he might meet them, Dunbar said.

 

"When I see someone who won't see a physician because they're Jewish, or who can't sit in a restaurant because there are Asians, or feels threatened by homosexuals in the workplace, the party line in mental health says, 'This is not our problem,' " the psychologist said. "If it's not our problem, whose problem is it?"

 

Opponents say making pathological bias a diagnosis raises the specter of social engineering -- brainwashing individuals who do not fit society's norms. But Dunbar and others say patients with disabling levels of prejudice should be treated for the same reason as are patients with any other disorder: They would feel, live and function better.

 

"They are delusional," said Alvin F. Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has long advocated such a diagnosis. "They imagine people are going to do all kinds of bad things and hurt them, and feel they have to do something to protect themselves.

 

"When they reach that stage, they are very impaired," he said. "They can't work and function; they can't hold a job. They would benefit from treatment of some type, particularly medication."

 

Doctors who treat inmates at the California State Prison outside Sacramento concur: They have diagnosed some forms of racist hatred among inmates and administered antipsychotic drugs.

 

"We treat racism and homophobia as delusional disorders," said Shama Chaiken, who later became a divisional chief psychologist for the California Department of Corrections, at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. "Treatment with antipsychotics does work to reduce these prejudices."

 

* * *

 

Amid a profusion of recent studies into the nature of prejudice, researchers have found that biases are very common. Almost everyone harbors what might be termed "ordinary prejudice," the research indicates.

 

Anthony Greenwald, a psychologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, and Mahzarin R. Banaji, a psychologist at Harvard, developed tests for such biases. By measuring the speed with which people make mental associations, the psychologists found that biases affect even those who actively resist them.

 

"When things are more strongly paired in our minds, we can respond to them more quickly," Banaji said. "Large numbers of Americans cannot as swiftly make the association between 'black' and 'good' as they can between 'white' and 'good.' "

 

Similarly, psychologist Margo Monteith at the University of Kentucky in Lexington found that people can have prejudices against groups they know nothing about. She administered a test in which volunteers, under time pressure, had to associate a series of words with either "America" or a fictitious country she called "Marisat."

 

Volunteers more easily associated Marisat with such words as "poison," "death" and "evil," while associating America with "sunrise," "paradise" and "loyal."

 

"A large part of our self-esteem derives from our group membership," Monteith said. "To the extent we can feel better about our group relative to other groups, we can feel good about ourselves. It's likely a built-in mechanism."

 

If biases are so common, many doctors ask, can racism really be a mental illness?

 

"I don't think racism is a mental illness, and that's because 100 percent of people are racist," said Paul J. Fink, a former president of the American Psychiatric Association. "If you have a diagnostic category that fits 100 percent of people, it's not a diagnostic category."

 

But Poussaint said there is a difference between ordinary prejudice and pathological bias -- the same distinction that psychiatrists make between sadness and depression. All people experience sadness, anxiety and fear, but extreme, disabling forms of these emotions are called disorders.

 

While people with ordinary prejudice try very hard to conceal their biases, Solomon said, her homophobic patient had no embarrassment about his attitude toward gays. Dunbar said people with pathological prejudice often lack filtering capabilities. As a result, he said, they face problems at work and home.

 

"Everyone is inculcated with stereotypes and biases with cultural issues, but some individuals not only hold beliefs that are very rigid, but they are part of a psychological problem," Dunbar said.

 

The psychologist said he has helped such patients with talk therapy, which encourages patients to question the basis for their beliefs, and by steering them toward medications such as antipsychotics.

 

The woman with the bias against Jews did not overcome her prejudice, Dunbar said, but she learned to control her fear response in social settings. The patient with hostility against African Americans realized his beliefs were "stupid."

 

Solomon discovered she was most effective dealing with the homophobic man when she was nonjudgmental. When he claimed there were more gays and lesbians than ever before, she presented him with data showing there was no such shift.

 

At those times, she reported in a case study, the patient would say, "I know, I know." He would recognize that he was not being logical, but then get angry and return to the same patterns of obsession. Solomon did not identify the man because of patient confidentiality.

 

Standing in the central yard of the maximum-security California State Prison with inmates exercising around her, Chaiken explained how she distinguished pathological bias from ordinary prejudice: A prisoner who belonged to a gang with racist views might express such views to fit in with his gang, but if he continues "yelling racial slurs, assaulting others when it's clear there is no benefit" after he leaves the gang, the behavior was no longer "adaptive."

 

Prison officials declined to identify inmates who had been treated, or make them available for interviews.

 

Chicago psychiatrist Bell said he has not made up his mind on whether bias can be pathological. But in proposing a research agenda for the next edition of psychiatry's DSM of mental disorders, Bell and researchers from the Mayo Clinic, McGill University, the University of California at Los Angeles and other academic institutions wrote: "Clinical experience informs us that racism may be a manifestation of a delusional process, a consequence of anxiety, or a feature of an individual's personality dynamics."

 

The psychiatrists said their profession has neglected the issue: "One solution would be to encourage research that seeks to delineate the validity and reliability of racism as a symptom and to investigate the possibility of including it in some diagnostic criteria sets in future editions of DSM."

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

what do you recon? could this have the fundies talking about using it to detain people who are biased agaisnt them?

[Amanda]

Soul in Crisis, I really see you as a wonderful friend!

 

I can understand your concern about this lady... as I feel for her too.

 

I'm curious to know, how she can be well in just 9 months, as this sounds significant to me?

 

How is she going to explain that she isn't getting a fatter stomach, and why isn't the baby born in 9 months?

 

I wish your friend the best, and hope she is finally getting the mental health care she seems to desperately need! Maybe you'll share a future post of a positive outcome from all this. Who knows? Maybe your friend will be well and posting with us here. :wink:

[Fweethawt]

I have a step-sister-in-law who used to claim that God made love to her.

[Joyous1]

Wow, great responses. When Ms Pac Man started to get really sick I remember posting to the Catholic forum I was part of then. I posed the question how can you tell the difference between religious addiction and religious devotion, hoping for advice on helping my friend. Their responses were overwhelmingly defensive in nature, and no help whatsoever. That may have been the beginning of my deconversion, now that I think about it.

 

How did she get hospitalized? I thought that you had to be considered a danger to yourself or another to get the guys in white coats after you.

 

She was evicted from her apartment and had nowhere to go. Her sister and I had carefully planned for this moment, and guided her into a shelter for those in mental health crisis. We had been working with the county for the past year, and kept all parties informed. The counselors who run the shelter recognized schizo symptoms right away, and Ms Pac Man was a danger to herself as homelessness is pretty hazardous in Minnesota in January.

 

Today they will be able to start forcing meds into her, hopefully that will help.

 

How is she going to explain that she isn't getting a fatter stomach, and why isn't the baby born in 9 months?

 

With Ms Pac Man you never know. She might decide that it was really the devil who told her about the pregnancy, and it was all lies. Or she might ignore reality altogether and claim she already had the baby and the angels took it.

[Poonis]

I wonder if she could be broken out of her fanaticism, not by telling her it isn't so, but by promoting her fanaticism to the extreme.

 

Ask her when it is due, and have people on stand by with banners and cake and the like, only to have her world toppled when there is no baby.

 

You'd probably have to worry about suicide then, but I think her fanaticism would be broken.

[Amethyst]

*Sends hugs*

 

I'm sorry to hear that, but at least she is getting the help she needs now.

[BlueGiant]

With respect to the suggestion that pathological bias go into the DSM's next edition. I'm no psycologist, but it seems to me that these cases of "pathological bias" are more manifestations of another disorder, (paranoid of meeting one race or another for instance) that is already in the current edition. It just happens to come with a something-ist flavor to it. Could someone explain what any sort of ism has to do with this, except a bid to be provocative, get the guy's name in the newspaper, and a blatant attempt to get funding through controversy?

 

Makes sense why she was hospitalized in that context. Hope it sorts well for her.

[Mike D]

It's a good thing your friend lives in modern society. If she claimed to be pregnant by the HS 1500 years ago her fellow Christians would have dragged her by the hair into the town square and stoned her for blasphemy. Or I guess if she was Catholic they would have accused her of being possessed by demons Thank gawd for modern science!

[Joyous1]

I wonder if she could be broken out of her fanaticism, not by telling her it isn't so, but by promoting her fanaticism to the extreme.

 

Ask her when it is due, and have people on stand by with banners and cake and the like, only to have her world toppled when there is no baby.

 

You'd probably have to worry about suicide then, but I think her fanaticism would be broken.

 

This sort of thinking presumes that Ms Pac Man will see reality and come to a logical conclusion.

 

I used to think this way, but after watching her illness unfold I see the error of my presumptions.

 

She cannot perceive reality clearly, nor can she form logical conclusions based on her perceptions.

 

Only medication will help at this point.

[Kryten]

Let's not overlook the most obvious and logical possibility-- that she really IS pregnant, and since the father is invisible and cannot be detected or proven, so is the child.

[snookums]

Could someone explain what any sort of ism has to do with this, except a bid to be provocative, get the guy's name in the newspaper, and a blatant attempt to get funding through controversy?

 

 

 

You're probably right about the guy wanting to hype up it up to get funding. I regret posting the article in this thread..sorry! Its another topic...whether its of value in the containment of 'fanatism' - self harm and harm to other ie. Fred Phelps?

Religious hysteria is more on track but again not helpful to

SoulinCrisis Waves..you sound like a great friend...pardon my insensitivity

[Joyous1]

I regret posting the article in this thread..sorry! Its another topic...whether its of value in the containment of 'fanatism' - self harm and harm to other ie. Fred Phelps?

Religious hysteria is more on track but again not helpful to

SoulinCrisis Waves..you sound like a great friend...pardon my insensitivity

 

Nothing to pardon snookums. I thought the article was interesting and relevant to the discussion, even though BlueGiant is probably right.

 

Don't worry about being helpful. It is helpful just to be able to right down my rant here and let it out, getting so many throughtful and funny responses is a bonus.

 

Your phantom pregnancy line made me chuckle.

[aynalhub]

The best way to prevent a meme from gaining a stranglehold on a host is to prevent it from reproducing in the first place. With religious fundamentalism, I propose two key elements for memetic immunization.

 

You think you're sane, eh?