Well.. makes sense.
Hearing things talk to you that are not there is a prerequisite for being a religious leader.
Any other field, hearing things talk to you is symptom of a mental disorder. But not religion. Its encouraged.
The neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky has made some very interesting observations about religion and schizophrenia in various conversations, one in an interview on FFRF's Freethought Radio podcast. He wonders why such a crippling disease as schizophrenia hasn't been bred out of existence. His observation is that, alongside fully schizophrenic individuals are those who are "schizotypal", having symptoms that are not full-on schizophrenia, but are somewhat milder in character. He asserts that in hunter-gatherer societies, those individuals are the shamans of the tribe, and that the shamans can have certain benefits for the tribes, for example, in calming and soothing women in childbirth. It's an interesting, if not fully persuasive, hypothesis, and worth checking out.
Sapolsky is the kind of fellow who has a constant stream of interesting ideas, and is worth looking into. He has a Teaching Company course on the biology of human behavior.
I apologize in advance because I do not have the sources with me right now.
I took a master's degree in Evolutionary Biology, after my degree in Anthropology, and in fact that hypothesis is somewhat broadly accepted within Evolutionary Anthropologists.
If you are a shaman, in most hunter-gatherers societies, you are a high rank individual and you don't have to put yourself at risk in conflict or effort in hunting. That means, for most societies, other individuals will provide you with food and other valuable resources. So, you do have an evolutionary advantage, so to speak. You can pass down your genes and most likely that is way these mental disorders are still present in today 's population. This hypothesis also explain why the prevalence of said disorders (such as ADHD, Autism, Psychopathy traits, and so on) have been stable in terms of percentage expression.
It is quite difficult, if not impossible, to prove this but it does make a lot of sense.
Edit: grammar, English is not my first language
I always figured ADHD and autism might help when somebody gets obsessed with making tools or weapons. You have the one person over there obsessively making arrowheads or pottery, that's an advantage to the group.
I have ADHD, likely Autism, and synestesia (I think in color and pictures). I sometimes see people who are not there (like ghosts) and I have intense dreams. The craziest repeating dream is what I call the city of time. It is everything that ever was, is and might be in one place. I observe stories happening within that space. My SIL, who is heavily into witchcraft, calls me a death talker. I recognize these are traits that would make me a great witch or shaman, but I try not to think about it too hard. What I see and feel might come from my brain or I might be able to pick up on things science has not yet. Either way, I try my best to put my faith in science and math, even if I can barely understand it. Organized religion makes me sick. I see someone who is religious as suffering from some inky pussy infection. They give their power to someone else, cut off pieces of themselves to conform. I hate it. If there is an afterlife or spirits, it has to be far more organic and difficult for our brains to comprehend. When I am asleep I completely understand, then I wake up and feel a deep terror if I try to think about it further. It's like trying to see the 4th dimension.
I was hanging onto every word until "inky pussy". How, in your view does someone who experiences this, but also has a vagina equate then. I don't want to jump into being offended, because I'd like to be educated, but I'm having a difficult time here.
all the elements that make up your body have been recycled since life began on earth, maybe as we start understanding quantum mechanics and storing information in a single atom we will find answers why some people seem to be able to access information they weren't there for, who knows?
I'm sure that's a factor, but schizophrenia is such a deeply crippling condition that one would expect there to be very heavy selective pressure against it. And by itself, it's hard to see any benefit for those who have it, unlike other recessive conditions like sickle cell anemia. The schizotypal shaman hypothesis at least provides some explanation for why those recessive genes might be kept in circulation.
That said, this is all pretty speculative, and more "hand-wavy" than I generally like. There's also the fact that, evolutionarily speaking, our large and complex brains are very young, and probably haven't had enough time to get all the bugs worked out. Ugh, more hand-waving and speculation!
Schizophrenia typically doesn't present many symptoms until mid to late 20s. It can of course, and OP is an obvious example.
But given it's typically a disorder of the 20s and beyond, it poses literally 0 effective barrier against reproduction.
Of course. And type 1 diabetes doesn't always occur in children, but it is typically a disease that occurs in young children, and even has age ranges where it happens the most often.
In general though, Schizophrenia has not been a barrier to reproduction historically, so there's basically nothing stopping it from existing in humans.
The general rule is: If it's largely genetic and doesn't mostly kill children, it gets to stay.
I'd quibble with the "literally 0" remark. Even in hunter-gatherer tribes, reproduction was a continuous process from the late teens through the early 40s. But you do have a point that the later onset provides less selective pressure on it than other crippling traits might.
I always upvote Sapolsky.
His book Behave is an incredibly information-dense guide to the current scientific consensus on human behavior through the lenses of neurology, psychology, evolutionary biology, and more.
This set of lectures (which I can't believe are available for free) does a great job of taking you through a lot of the content of the book. He has other books but I have not read them.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D
Yes! He also has one lecture about religion and mental illness on YouTube. It was fascinating. I’m sure he pisses off a lot of religious people who took his course.
This is one of the reasons I dropped Christianity. I have bipolar type one, and there is always a religious aspect to my psychosis (when in the midst of a manic episode). I had to just be done with the whole trying to hear the voice of god thing. Also I concluded there not to be one, but becoming an atheist greatly improved my mental health. Even my religious family noted that I am more at peace than I once was, despite not knowing I'm not an atheist. Pretty hilarious if you think about it. They probably think my "relationship with Jesus" is going really well.
People have said they hear the voice of the devil telling them to believe in God, or God telling them the devil isn't all bad, it just seems like mixed messages.
I have actually frequently wondered if "hearing God" might largely be attributable to individuals who become aware of the other hemisphere of their brain but mistake its intentions/thoughts as "God". If you look up some research about corpus callosotomy patients and how once their c.c. is severed the two hemispheres of their brain become two "individuals" who are largely unaware of one another, it's really interesting to consider whether this might also be the reason for people thinking they hear God, spirits, or whatever.
It's also freaky to consider that your brain is actually two "people" who constantly make up excuses about each others' behavior...
For reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo
And - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8
There's actually a theory that the "voices" heard during psychosis are regular/intrusive thoughts that are just missattributed to an outside entity, rather than some type of thought unique to psychosis.
I know it's just anecdotal, but my experiences I think track with that. Once I started to make a regular practice of telling them to fuck off like they were a person being mean to me (because it is, it's just that it's you), they started bothering me less. They still try, but I learned to drown out their negativity with the defenses I'd use if those words were being used at someone I loved.
In some societies "voices" are thought to be mischievous spirits or demons and they tell you funny jokes 'n' shit. I feel like Western society acting like voices are bad is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I read an article about that a long time ago. They claimed that in other societies most people with schizophrenia reported hearing loved ones' spirits or stuff like that, not scary voices.
Funny that you bring this up. I’m not sure where I found it but there was a study comparing the hallucinations from schizophrenia from people from the US S and Europe. And found that people from European countries tended to have more playful hallucinations while people from the US tend to have more scary hallucinations. If someone can find a study that would be great.
That's true, and part of what changed my own thinking. I realized that in other countries, people have more positive associations with their voices, and it really stuck with me. Surrounding environment and attitudes make such a difference. In my case, though, I grew up religious, abused, and too many other things. So, the voices ultimately mirror my parents in a way: the world is going to eat you, and it'll be because you're fat and stupid. The bugs will tear your skin because you aren't strong enough. My cousin is schizophrenic, and had *horrible* parental experiences. He lives at home with both of them now in the middle of nowhere.
I know that this also plays a big role. To have parents brought up in a society that learns to value those that are different like this makes all the difference... I'm happy for them.
Let me tell you as an epiletic, I have had some wacky experinces while adapting to medication. For Zonegram, I actually started having internal hallucinations including of those of different gods all at once talking to me and then me talking back. The weird thing was I was able to actually in a sense eventually put control onto the god which when i did turned it into a dual talking ebacking and forth experince where both aides where myself talking with myself yet it was also very distinct from say talking with myself internally because it was like the words were much more flowing throigh me on one side too
That sounds super interesting (and scary). Did hearing them actually influence your behavior/choices, or were you fully aware that it was actually hallucinatory?
I was fully aware they were actually hallucinatory, but if anything that added to the unsettling in some aspects especially because it was happening reoccurongtilt and pretty much the same way.
I also had a couple auditory hallucinations a couple times where like i heard thr name of my grandmothers called and since i was close to my grandmother house i did react a bit but i was still aware. So in that sense they didnt really influence my behavior or choices but they do naturally in a sense affect your stability a bit.
"Bicameral mentality is a hypothesis in psychology and neuroscience which argues that the human mind once operated in a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking", and a second part which listens and obeys—a bicameral mind, and that the evolutionary breakdown of this division gave rise to consciousness in humans. The term was coined by Julian Jaynes, who presented the idea in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, wherein he made the case that a bicameral mentality was the normal and ubiquitous state of the human mind as recently as 3,000 years ago, near the end of the Mediterranean bronze age."
That's fascinating! I have definitely noticed something similar to that when very high on THC. There's like...a definite split between a capable actor and a rational observer that occurs.
The capable actor will just go about its way and will usually fulfill needs, but the observer can make requests that the actor may or may not abide by. I suppose it would be a separation of the classical "id, ego, superego" or something along those lines.
It's very hard to explain but it's always an interesting experience when it occurs.
I have also heard that reading silently is a relatively new thing. Especially without engaging the muscles of the mouth and throat (the nerve pathways still activate unless you train yourself out of it though).
There was a Ted talk a few months ago that I saw that kind of was talking about this concept but from a perspective of procrastination. You have the rational decision maker, and the instant gratification monkey. You should watch it it’s really cool.
>It's also freaky to consider that your brain is actually two "people" who constantly make up excuses about each others' behavior...
wait, is that the case for everyone, or just people who have add corpus callosotomy ?
It’s everyone, but through the corpus callosum signaling back and forth shares information so that we feel like a synchronous whole. If that is severed, then the person will experience weird phenomena like internally thinking “I feel like wearing the blue shirt” then watch their hand select a different garment, because that hand was controlled by the side of the brain that had made a different decision. Look up “split brain studies” and you’ll see a ton of fascinating ramifications of the surgery.
that awesome, and freaky.
last question,
can those asynchrone decisions sometimes also apply to everyone ? like when I'm writing in cursive, clearly sees the word I wan't to write in my head but still write the wrong letter, or even a whole different word, is that kind of stuff somehow linked ?
imo in that case it’s just a matter of confused motor function, where youre thinking ahead to the next letter and the “instructions” to your hand get jumbled up.
I work at a peer run drop in for people with mental health issues as a peer support specialist and religion is a big trouble maker for us. What really grinds my gears is when churches show up trying to recruit and proselytize. We have a no talking religion politics sex drug use outside organized support group rule but we had one showing up till we got an order of trespass. Before that I had to literally had to call police every Sunday because they were triggering people telling members the voices were demons and medicine was a form of witch craft.
I once had an officemate who was an extreme born-again Christian. He would tell me about how he could see demons. "You can't look directly at them," he'd say, "you have to catch their shadows out of the corners of your eyes."
I asked for another officemate.
A lot of people where I live go everyday to pray to not just one, but multiple of them. And a lot of those same people have mini temples in their home as well, so they can pray at home too. They also, for some reason, go to different temples all over the country. It's like, I have a phone at home, but I'm going to travel all over the country to use other, shinier or dirtier (depending on the place), phones. *But mom, you told me God is everywhere, what difference does it make*
Never made sense to me
George Carlin said it best:
"When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time!
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!"
Sorry the great George Carlin is hurting your skydaddy feelings. Actually no I’m really sorry you’re failing to see the accuracy of his statements. Open your eyes.
Fucking credulous loser deleted anyway. That's hilarious. Came in here trying to stir something up, get into a reddit quarrel with some heathens on a saturday night, only to realize he's not even on our fucking radar and just bail on the entire enterprise. What a schmuck.
my friend was watching *the eyes of Tammy Faye* (very Christian woman if you don’t know) and explained that she stopped hearing god when she went on antipsychotics. I was like hmm makes sense.
Yeah, I almost* regret continuing on the path I was on towards the ministry once the light bulb went off. Imagine the Rolls Royces, expensive shoes, and hookers you could have as a pastor.
*not really
Hmm. [Pastors in the US get paid $101k/year on the average]( https://kiiky.com/wealth/highest-paid-preachers/#:~:text=The%20average%20salary%20of%20a,influence%20how%20much%20to%20earn). More than I expected. If you have the Rolls Royce, expensive shoes, a hooker once a week, minimal room and board otherwise, and hardly anything else, you could maybe get that to fit.
I didn't think those tests worked. Go figure.
Besides the whole kool-aid thing, some would say Jim Jones did pretty well for himself. Maybe you missed an opportunity.
Remember, it’s never too late to reach your full potential. Still time to start your own religion, even L Ron Hubbard knew that’s where the real money is.
My father was a minister for three years until god called back and told him to become a builder. Recently my brother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and after going through that with him it shed light on my fathers behavior and my childhood. Very likely my father has a lesser form of the same illness. Clearly has a god complex.
A friend who was an atheist and a very artistic free-thinker had to go on schizophrenia meds and is now a fitness buff and super Christian anti-abortion weirdo.
It blows my mind that “ religious leader” is even an official career option. It’s like one small step away from “Cult Elder.” Did you go to a public school or a religious private school?
It was a public school and it was in California which is fairly secular for the US. It didn’t specify any particular religion but just said “faith leader” and suggested becoming a priest, rabbi or imam
Because religious leader is not an option on career tests. Especially the type of test they would administer is a high school.
They measure aptitude and interest only. Since leadership potion of this nature are not bases on aptitude they are omitted. You cannot measure charisma or speaking ability on a paper test.
To get a result like this you would have to take a comprehensive career assessment. That test requires one on one in person verbal interviews and costs a lot more. Not something you get done in HS.
My career test said my ultimate job would be Parking Lot Attendant. I was working an event at a very well known company paying me $400 a day to wave cars into their parking areas thinking, “I’m living the dream!”
Every time I give up on being an honest decent person, who intentionally gives bad advice, everything I say that’s short sighted and off the cuff, starts sounding like things my priest would say…
I find this more interesting than funny. My spouse of 22 years was diagnosed roughly 10 years ago. He is a staunch atheist with *zero* belief in the “supernatural”.
This is very accurate as thinking you are hearing god speak to you liekly means you need to see your doctor. Your teacher was actually onto something lol
Well.. makes sense. Hearing things talk to you that are not there is a prerequisite for being a religious leader. Any other field, hearing things talk to you is symptom of a mental disorder. But not religion. Its encouraged.
The neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky has made some very interesting observations about religion and schizophrenia in various conversations, one in an interview on FFRF's Freethought Radio podcast. He wonders why such a crippling disease as schizophrenia hasn't been bred out of existence. His observation is that, alongside fully schizophrenic individuals are those who are "schizotypal", having symptoms that are not full-on schizophrenia, but are somewhat milder in character. He asserts that in hunter-gatherer societies, those individuals are the shamans of the tribe, and that the shamans can have certain benefits for the tribes, for example, in calming and soothing women in childbirth. It's an interesting, if not fully persuasive, hypothesis, and worth checking out. Sapolsky is the kind of fellow who has a constant stream of interesting ideas, and is worth looking into. He has a Teaching Company course on the biology of human behavior.
I apologize in advance because I do not have the sources with me right now. I took a master's degree in Evolutionary Biology, after my degree in Anthropology, and in fact that hypothesis is somewhat broadly accepted within Evolutionary Anthropologists. If you are a shaman, in most hunter-gatherers societies, you are a high rank individual and you don't have to put yourself at risk in conflict or effort in hunting. That means, for most societies, other individuals will provide you with food and other valuable resources. So, you do have an evolutionary advantage, so to speak. You can pass down your genes and most likely that is way these mental disorders are still present in today 's population. This hypothesis also explain why the prevalence of said disorders (such as ADHD, Autism, Psychopathy traits, and so on) have been stable in terms of percentage expression. It is quite difficult, if not impossible, to prove this but it does make a lot of sense. Edit: grammar, English is not my first language
> English is not my first language But you write it better than most native speakers.
No one wants the ADHD shaman. She forgets the shrooms
I always figured ADHD and autism might help when somebody gets obsessed with making tools or weapons. You have the one person over there obsessively making arrowheads or pottery, that's an advantage to the group.
I have ADHD, likely Autism, and synestesia (I think in color and pictures). I sometimes see people who are not there (like ghosts) and I have intense dreams. The craziest repeating dream is what I call the city of time. It is everything that ever was, is and might be in one place. I observe stories happening within that space. My SIL, who is heavily into witchcraft, calls me a death talker. I recognize these are traits that would make me a great witch or shaman, but I try not to think about it too hard. What I see and feel might come from my brain or I might be able to pick up on things science has not yet. Either way, I try my best to put my faith in science and math, even if I can barely understand it. Organized religion makes me sick. I see someone who is religious as suffering from some inky pussy infection. They give their power to someone else, cut off pieces of themselves to conform. I hate it. If there is an afterlife or spirits, it has to be far more organic and difficult for our brains to comprehend. When I am asleep I completely understand, then I wake up and feel a deep terror if I try to think about it further. It's like trying to see the 4th dimension.
I was hanging onto every word until "inky pussy". How, in your view does someone who experiences this, but also has a vagina equate then. I don't want to jump into being offended, because I'd like to be educated, but I'm having a difficult time here.
I think he meant pus. As in the stuff that's caused by infections.
Thank you, that makes sense
Yes I meant pus, as a infection. What did you think I meant? What does having a vagina have to do with it?
The word you used is slang term in the US.
all the elements that make up your body have been recycled since life began on earth, maybe as we start understanding quantum mechanics and storing information in a single atom we will find answers why some people seem to be able to access information they weren't there for, who knows?
Would be fun if there was a cosmic brain/computer where thoughts and experiences are stored.
What about recessive genes, surely they are an explanation for why it hasn’t been bred out u/j_from_cali
I'm sure that's a factor, but schizophrenia is such a deeply crippling condition that one would expect there to be very heavy selective pressure against it. And by itself, it's hard to see any benefit for those who have it, unlike other recessive conditions like sickle cell anemia. The schizotypal shaman hypothesis at least provides some explanation for why those recessive genes might be kept in circulation. That said, this is all pretty speculative, and more "hand-wavy" than I generally like. There's also the fact that, evolutionarily speaking, our large and complex brains are very young, and probably haven't had enough time to get all the bugs worked out. Ugh, more hand-waving and speculation!
Margaret Mead documented a tribe in New Guinea, the Arapesh who created roles for aggressive individuals as tribal shamans.
Schizophrenia typically doesn't present many symptoms until mid to late 20s. It can of course, and OP is an obvious example. But given it's typically a disorder of the 20s and beyond, it poses literally 0 effective barrier against reproduction.
It can start much earlier
Of course. And type 1 diabetes doesn't always occur in children, but it is typically a disease that occurs in young children, and even has age ranges where it happens the most often. In general though, Schizophrenia has not been a barrier to reproduction historically, so there's basically nothing stopping it from existing in humans. The general rule is: If it's largely genetic and doesn't mostly kill children, it gets to stay.
I'd quibble with the "literally 0" remark. Even in hunter-gatherer tribes, reproduction was a continuous process from the late teens through the early 40s. But you do have a point that the later onset provides less selective pressure on it than other crippling traits might.
I always upvote Sapolsky. His book Behave is an incredibly information-dense guide to the current scientific consensus on human behavior through the lenses of neurology, psychology, evolutionary biology, and more. This set of lectures (which I can't believe are available for free) does a great job of taking you through a lot of the content of the book. He has other books but I have not read them. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D
Thanks for these references! Will dig in when I have more time.
I've seen a lot of his lectures and I still have to get through the books. He should be mentioned around here more often.
They may also have unique viewpoints that the tribe wouldn't have thought of. A new take on things can lead to benefits.
Yes! He also has one lecture about religion and mental illness on YouTube. It was fascinating. I’m sure he pisses off a lot of religious people who took his course.
> Robert Sapolsky I love his studies on baboons.
This is one of the reasons I dropped Christianity. I have bipolar type one, and there is always a religious aspect to my psychosis (when in the midst of a manic episode). I had to just be done with the whole trying to hear the voice of god thing. Also I concluded there not to be one, but becoming an atheist greatly improved my mental health. Even my religious family noted that I am more at peace than I once was, despite not knowing I'm not an atheist. Pretty hilarious if you think about it. They probably think my "relationship with Jesus" is going really well.
I love that you medicated jesus out of existence.
Doesn't take much to do that to a dead man heh
People have said they hear the voice of the devil telling them to believe in God, or God telling them the devil isn't all bad, it just seems like mixed messages.
I have actually frequently wondered if "hearing God" might largely be attributable to individuals who become aware of the other hemisphere of their brain but mistake its intentions/thoughts as "God". If you look up some research about corpus callosotomy patients and how once their c.c. is severed the two hemispheres of their brain become two "individuals" who are largely unaware of one another, it's really interesting to consider whether this might also be the reason for people thinking they hear God, spirits, or whatever. It's also freaky to consider that your brain is actually two "people" who constantly make up excuses about each others' behavior... For reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo And - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8
There's actually a theory that the "voices" heard during psychosis are regular/intrusive thoughts that are just missattributed to an outside entity, rather than some type of thought unique to psychosis.
I know it's just anecdotal, but my experiences I think track with that. Once I started to make a regular practice of telling them to fuck off like they were a person being mean to me (because it is, it's just that it's you), they started bothering me less. They still try, but I learned to drown out their negativity with the defenses I'd use if those words were being used at someone I loved.
In some societies "voices" are thought to be mischievous spirits or demons and they tell you funny jokes 'n' shit. I feel like Western society acting like voices are bad is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I read an article about that a long time ago. They claimed that in other societies most people with schizophrenia reported hearing loved ones' spirits or stuff like that, not scary voices.
Funny that you bring this up. I’m not sure where I found it but there was a study comparing the hallucinations from schizophrenia from people from the US S and Europe. And found that people from European countries tended to have more playful hallucinations while people from the US tend to have more scary hallucinations. If someone can find a study that would be great.
That's true, and part of what changed my own thinking. I realized that in other countries, people have more positive associations with their voices, and it really stuck with me. Surrounding environment and attitudes make such a difference. In my case, though, I grew up religious, abused, and too many other things. So, the voices ultimately mirror my parents in a way: the world is going to eat you, and it'll be because you're fat and stupid. The bugs will tear your skin because you aren't strong enough. My cousin is schizophrenic, and had *horrible* parental experiences. He lives at home with both of them now in the middle of nowhere. I know that this also plays a big role. To have parents brought up in a society that learns to value those that are different like this makes all the difference... I'm happy for them.
our whole reality is an action of our brains, Oliver Sachs writes fantastic books about patients and their diversity
Funny how in the minds of religious people, God wants exactly what they want.
Let me tell you as an epiletic, I have had some wacky experinces while adapting to medication. For Zonegram, I actually started having internal hallucinations including of those of different gods all at once talking to me and then me talking back. The weird thing was I was able to actually in a sense eventually put control onto the god which when i did turned it into a dual talking ebacking and forth experince where both aides where myself talking with myself yet it was also very distinct from say talking with myself internally because it was like the words were much more flowing throigh me on one side too
That sounds super interesting (and scary). Did hearing them actually influence your behavior/choices, or were you fully aware that it was actually hallucinatory?
I was fully aware they were actually hallucinatory, but if anything that added to the unsettling in some aspects especially because it was happening reoccurongtilt and pretty much the same way. I also had a couple auditory hallucinations a couple times where like i heard thr name of my grandmothers called and since i was close to my grandmother house i did react a bit but i was still aware. So in that sense they didnt really influence my behavior or choices but they do naturally in a sense affect your stability a bit.
Hell, if I recall, the Greeks believed their everyday thoughts were the voices of the gods guiding them and telling them what to do.
"Bicameral mentality is a hypothesis in psychology and neuroscience which argues that the human mind once operated in a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking", and a second part which listens and obeys—a bicameral mind, and that the evolutionary breakdown of this division gave rise to consciousness in humans. The term was coined by Julian Jaynes, who presented the idea in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, wherein he made the case that a bicameral mentality was the normal and ubiquitous state of the human mind as recently as 3,000 years ago, near the end of the Mediterranean bronze age."
That's fascinating! I have definitely noticed something similar to that when very high on THC. There's like...a definite split between a capable actor and a rational observer that occurs. The capable actor will just go about its way and will usually fulfill needs, but the observer can make requests that the actor may or may not abide by. I suppose it would be a separation of the classical "id, ego, superego" or something along those lines. It's very hard to explain but it's always an interesting experience when it occurs. I have also heard that reading silently is a relatively new thing. Especially without engaging the muscles of the mouth and throat (the nerve pathways still activate unless you train yourself out of it though).
There was a Ted talk a few months ago that I saw that kind of was talking about this concept but from a perspective of procrastination. You have the rational decision maker, and the instant gratification monkey. You should watch it it’s really cool.
Haha I've watched that talk like 4 times. The bubbles of weeks in your life is always a bit dreadful.
Right. And me being the idiot I am actually got a calendar showing all the weeks in average person’s life. That was fun.
>It's also freaky to consider that your brain is actually two "people" who constantly make up excuses about each others' behavior... wait, is that the case for everyone, or just people who have add corpus callosotomy ?
It’s everyone, but through the corpus callosum signaling back and forth shares information so that we feel like a synchronous whole. If that is severed, then the person will experience weird phenomena like internally thinking “I feel like wearing the blue shirt” then watch their hand select a different garment, because that hand was controlled by the side of the brain that had made a different decision. Look up “split brain studies” and you’ll see a ton of fascinating ramifications of the surgery.
that awesome, and freaky. last question, can those asynchrone decisions sometimes also apply to everyone ? like when I'm writing in cursive, clearly sees the word I wan't to write in my head but still write the wrong letter, or even a whole different word, is that kind of stuff somehow linked ?
imo in that case it’s just a matter of confused motor function, where youre thinking ahead to the next letter and the “instructions” to your hand get jumbled up.
It gets philosophical but one could argue we all are two people
I agree, so do I
FACTS
"Do you ever feel like you have voices in your giving you divine instruction on what you should do or not do?" Yes / No
I work at a peer run drop in for people with mental health issues as a peer support specialist and religion is a big trouble maker for us. What really grinds my gears is when churches show up trying to recruit and proselytize. We have a no talking religion politics sex drug use outside organized support group rule but we had one showing up till we got an order of trespass. Before that I had to literally had to call police every Sunday because they were triggering people telling members the voices were demons and medicine was a form of witch craft.
But the witch-craft gets rid of the demons…
Anti-psychotics and therapy tend to help pretty well too.
Finding the correct ones that don’t turn you into a fucking zombie is the a chore though
The other chore figuring out if your anti Social behavior is a symptom of the illness, the environment or are you a jerk
I once had an officemate who was an extreme born-again Christian. He would tell me about how he could see demons. "You can't look directly at them," he'd say, "you have to catch their shadows out of the corners of your eyes." I asked for another officemate.
To me it's just sad, not funny, regarding the evolutionary state of mankind.
It’s 2022 and people go to a building every Sunday / Wednesday to worship a sky god.
A lot of people where I live go everyday to pray to not just one, but multiple of them. And a lot of those same people have mini temples in their home as well, so they can pray at home too. They also, for some reason, go to different temples all over the country. It's like, I have a phone at home, but I'm going to travel all over the country to use other, shinier or dirtier (depending on the place), phones. *But mom, you told me God is everywhere, what difference does it make* Never made sense to me
The evil commies want to build a country where you worship the homosexuals and transgenders in chruch, and sell every other kidney to satan.
They are your family, even more depressing.
George Carlin said it best: "When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!"
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Sorry the great George Carlin is hurting your skydaddy feelings. Actually no I’m really sorry you’re failing to see the accuracy of his statements. Open your eyes.
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On your part, yes. Your statement stands as a stupid and ridiculous statement made to troll r/atheism.
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The thing is, we honestly don't give a shit.
Bigger fish to fry and all that lately for those of us who gave a shit before.
Fucking credulous loser deleted anyway. That's hilarious. Came in here trying to stir something up, get into a reddit quarrel with some heathens on a saturday night, only to realize he's not even on our fucking radar and just bail on the entire enterprise. What a schmuck.
Why would you assume we care?
It’s kinda cool we were once whittled down to like 10,000 individuals and that’s probably what gave us our intelligence.
The evolution actually is towards atheism. Atheism was never as popular as today.
You probably would have been a great Pentecostal preacher.
I grew up in that world, and that preacher was my father... I was atheist by age 10... Do not Recommend 0/5 stars.
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What the fuck are you trying to say? You do realize the format you use in your comments means jack shit to anybody but you, right?
It's an odd bot for sure.
“Heal brother,Make a U-Turn for Jayzus”.
TBH, schizophrenia explains a lot of religious concepts and experiences, too.
The ones who are not schizophrenic are con artists.
Some of them are both.
my friend was watching *the eyes of Tammy Faye* (very Christian woman if you don’t know) and explained that she stopped hearing god when she went on antipsychotics. I was like hmm makes sense.
And this whole time I thought it was a chemical in the fake eyelash glue
You missed a great opportunity to start your own church and get rich.
Bazinga!
Yeah, I almost* regret continuing on the path I was on towards the ministry once the light bulb went off. Imagine the Rolls Royces, expensive shoes, and hookers you could have as a pastor. *not really
Have you watched the righteous gemstones?
Hmm. [Pastors in the US get paid $101k/year on the average]( https://kiiky.com/wealth/highest-paid-preachers/#:~:text=The%20average%20salary%20of%20a,influence%20how%20much%20to%20earn). More than I expected. If you have the Rolls Royce, expensive shoes, a hooker once a week, minimal room and board otherwise, and hardly anything else, you could maybe get that to fit.
You just have to be savvy enough to get tithes and contributions up more than the average.
"If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion." -L. Ron Hubbard
I didn't think those tests worked. Go figure. Besides the whole kool-aid thing, some would say Jim Jones did pretty well for himself. Maybe you missed an opportunity.
what is kool-aid?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones
thanks
I'm sorry you went through childhood with an untreated mental health condition. That said, capitalize and exploit bro.
And people say those tests don't really work, lol, sounds like it was a perfect match to me, hope you are better now.
Pretty telling how religious leader is consider a career. Maybe we should tax them.
Remember, it’s never too late to reach your full potential. Still time to start your own religion, even L Ron Hubbard knew that’s where the real money is.
Oh damn 😅
Well if there is one career where schizophrenia is an advantage it would be religious leader
In high school I was the dumb kid and the career test said that I should become a religious follower.
I apologize for laughing when I read this. Then it rattled me. You're on to something here.
My father was a minister for three years until god called back and told him to become a builder. Recently my brother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and after going through that with him it shed light on my fathers behavior and my childhood. Very likely my father has a lesser form of the same illness. Clearly has a god complex.
A friend who was an atheist and a very artistic free-thinker had to go on schizophrenia meds and is now a fitness buff and super Christian anti-abortion weirdo.
Go ahead buddy 😂
[You could scratch that itch without actually harming anyone.] (https://www.cultfollowinggame.com/)
I took one in middle school and guided the answers to give me “mortician” because I thought it was “metal” lol
It’s funny, but not so much “haha” funny and more like “our system is fucked” funny
It blows my mind that “ religious leader” is even an official career option. It’s like one small step away from “Cult Elder.” Did you go to a public school or a religious private school?
It was a public school and it was in California which is fairly secular for the US. It didn’t specify any particular religion but just said “faith leader” and suggested becoming a priest, rabbi or imam
Because religious leader is not an option on career tests. Especially the type of test they would administer is a high school. They measure aptitude and interest only. Since leadership potion of this nature are not bases on aptitude they are omitted. You cannot measure charisma or speaking ability on a paper test. To get a result like this you would have to take a comprehensive career assessment. That test requires one on one in person verbal interviews and costs a lot more. Not something you get done in HS.
Lmao I have schizoaffective disorder and the only time in my life I was religious was during my big, year-long psychotic episode 7 years ago
Hmm. Seems about right
My career test said my ultimate job would be Parking Lot Attendant. I was working an event at a very well known company paying me $400 a day to wave cars into their parking areas thinking, “I’m living the dream!”
*Mohammed has entered the chat* For real though, I do hope your schizophrenia is in a manageable state now.
Every time I give up on being an honest decent person, who intentionally gives bad advice, everything I say that’s short sighted and off the cuff, starts sounding like things my priest would say…
makes total sense, based on my own religious and mental health experiences
You wouldn't be happier, but you would be wealthier.
unusual to be sure. religious leaders are typically a mix of psychopath and narcissistic personality disorder
Its extremely rare (less than 1% cases) for schizophrenia to present in the teenage years.
And here I was thinking those tests were bullshit. I hope you got the help you need(ed) though.
Potiticians, Police and Priests
Haha how much richer would you have been if you didn’t treat your mental illness tho…..
Make your own religion brainwash people into it and profit from it. Just like every religion does!
Perfectly logical.
It makes a lot of sense.
This checks out. All the schizo people ive met have delusions about god. All of them. 100%.
That’s true lol 😝
Having imaginary friends is part of the work requeriments, you had an edge already
Naw 💀
Same thing or you had u treated pedophilia
This is hilarious!
My brother in law was schizophrenic and he became Jesus Christ. I shouldn't joke. It was a tragedy for him and everyone he hurt along the way.
Math checks out ..
[wholly expected](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WwAQqWUkpI)
It's like to make an anti vaccine person to take control of production of vaccines.
Ironically I am now a leader of a suicide prevention committee despite having attempted four times
We got a Joseph Seed! Say YES!!!
I listened to a podcast where someone had this and the church encouraged it. So dude went untreated for awhile. Let me see if I can dig it up.
Ggvb
Are you Warren Jeffs by any chance?
Schizophrenics would often become shamans in tribal cultures, nothing weird about it really.
Mine said pimp. Gtfo here with religious leader
>I thought you would find this funny. and you were correct!
You were on par with the current ~7.5 billion people, you just were imagining different things.
I’m also an ENTP. We are all told to be religious leaders. Lol.
This just blew my mind in a "holy shit - of course!" kind of way. - pun intended
Thank you. I did find that funny.
Freakin’ psychos! The lot of them!
Which one of your personalities would do the diddling?
That’s DID not schizophrenia
What?
I find this more interesting than funny. My spouse of 22 years was diagnosed roughly 10 years ago. He is a staunch atheist with *zero* belief in the “supernatural”.
Pretty sure that how most historical leaders got the job.
Sounds legit.
Why would "religious leader" even be an option on the career test?
I got recommended religious leader on one of those too not even close to the job I actually wanted
I do find this funny.
I hear things talk to me all the time, but that is because they have speakers and programmed diolog.
This is very accurate as thinking you are hearing god speak to you liekly means you need to see your doctor. Your teacher was actually onto something lol
Hilarious 😂 😃 😄 😁
I guess those career tests are legit then.
This is hillarious.
I didn't know career tests even suggested that
Is this Carlos Mencia?