h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

az, I watched the clip too. Am I an ignoramus if the sound was off?

Pedro, I watched it, and the sound was fine!

Dottie:
>>Correct, it is, however, a valid explanation of why some people believe in gods and that they have heard Jesus or their god speaking to them directly.

>>If you hear Elvis speaking to you, you get sectioned, if you hear Jesus speaking to you then no one questions it.


Well...true...but I want to keep hammering away at the religion = mental illness just a little longer. It's an old saw that needs knocking on the head. (to mix several carpentry-related metaphors)

Certainly hearing Jesus or Elvis speaking to one directly *may* be a sign of mental illness. But rember firstly that while constant voices are symptomatic, the odd auditory hallucination/ strong auditory memory is commonplace. "Part of me is saying..." Secondly...attributing such voices to Elvis might be odd, but attributing them to Jesus is culturally normal. I'm fairly sure there are quite healthy people who listen to their inner dialogue and attribute part of it to god. I wouldn't...but then I'm not that way disposed.

Now...it will possibly be argued that a propensity to attribute voices (or anything) to god is in itself a sign of mental illness. After all, god's not part of reality, as anyone capable of applying rational argument knows. I find such arguments trite. The point is that the reason demanded of such a position requires a certain mindset, an understanding of the principles of evidence. But alternative, non-evidential mindsets are prevalent in our culture. Allowing the idea of god despite lack of evidence is 'culturally appropriate' - culturally privileged, even.

Bottom line. I wouldn't feel at all comfortable with the idea of psychiatric hospitals stuffed with everyone who's ever claimed to have received communications from the divine. Would that psychiatry were that simple! But if god is repeatedly telling someone to slash his wrists...

NOTES
a) It only rarely is god who tells the psychotic to slash their wrists.
b) In my experience the proportions of atheists/religious in psychiatric hospitals seems to be roughly the same as in the outside world.



I've been meaning to post about the varying strengths of 'spiritual' experience. This is somewhat related (although I'll still need to take it up another time).

Hi Vicky,

I see you're getting upset again, simply because people disagree with you. That does kind of make me wonder what you are hoping to gain by posting here? You don't seem interested in any kind of debate - in fact you seem to get very offended whenever anyone tries to engage with you.

"The section you quote from is the 'Sceptics' section"

No, the section you linked to was the 'sceptics' section!

"You edited what I said to make it look as if I'd said somehting else. You do that a lot."

I cut 'n' pasted what you wrote. If it doesn't reflect what you meant, you just need to explain what you meant a little more clearly. (It was a question; you can answer 'no'!)

In the meantime, you started by saying that the spiritual explanation is the *only* possible one (your emphasis); later you said that there is a neuroscientific theory. Are you now saying that there is no contradiction between those statements?

"<>
See how it feels? But seriously, looking through the sceptics pages, which is what I was referring you to, is too much trouble;e?"

No, no, no Vicky. I read the sceptics page. You then said 'there's plenty more on that web-site, take a look', or words to that effect. It's reading through the whole web-site without even really knowing what I'm supposed to be looking for that I was objecting to.

And 'see how it feels'? When you've been presented with links, they've usually been concise. I've certainly never posted a link and said 'please watch the videos on this site'.

"Herr Dawkins' verbal diarrhoea"

Dawkins is not German, I wonder why you have given him a German title? Could this possibly be more trolling?

"You're practising your usual selective quoting."

No, Vicky. You linked to a document consisting entirely of comments sceptical of OOBEs. I quote a comment from it that is sceptical of OOBEs. That is hardly the same thing for flicking throught the entire 400+ page God Delusion, finding half-a-dozen words and then claiming incorrectly that Dawkins uses them to describe all religious believers.

"I would simply say that he was mistaken."

So, Vicky, are you saying that you are right and everyone else is wrong, or would you conceed that personal experience is not a good way to tell 'real gods' from 'false gods'?

Or, as Kel put it, "If religious experience is one of personal "revelation", what makes one person's more valid than another? How does the recipient of the inspiration distinguish his experience as authentic and another's as "mistaken"?"

"[H2G2 is] the unfriendliest, snidest, most unpleasant site [...] it's a pit of stinking prejudice, loathing and hatred! "

I've found quite the reverse. But then again, I don't make a habit of accusing other Researchers of lying, refusing to back up my assertions, or slandering large groups of the population. Perhaps this is a case of reaping what you sew?

"unsubtle threats from TPTB"

Vicky, some of your posts here seem to have been deliberately inflammatory. You persistently refuse to engage in any debate to support your views. You have heaped abuse on every single person on this thread who disagrees with you, no matter how polite they have been to you. Even leaving aside you past on H2G2 (which I understand to be rather chequered), are you really surprised that the Eds feel the need to intervene?

And are you implying that 'subtle threats' would be better?

"Pointing out that an aggressively secular view isn't a neutral one, seems fairly reasonable to me!"

'Secular' means 'not influenced by religion'. In this instance (and in most instances), a secular view is the neutral one. 'Aggresively secular' is, of course, your own prejudice which you will once again be unable to justify.

"<> Also not unreasonable. Should the Dawkinsites ever set up a school, I've no doubt they'd want books by such people as McGrath and John Cornwell banned from their library!"

It is unreasonable to single out one faith as being above reproach. Dawkins is (or was quite recently) looking into setting up schools in the UK. There has been no talk of censorship of their libraries. Indeed, Dan Dennett is vocally active in campaigning for Religious Education lessons in US classrooms.

But of course you have never been interested in letting the facts get in the way of slandering Dawkins - it's easier for you to believe he's a monster because then you can disagree with him even though you have been unable to provide a single example of a rational response to his rational arguments.

"Does that mean you're back to the silly 'Coventry' tactic"

Well, if you're not going to engage in a discussion, what motivation do we have to reply to your posts? Especially given that they are frequently highly prejudiced and/or factually wrong, but you refuse to acknowledge this.

"what do I get? Snidey comments"

No you didn't. You got intelligent, reasoned responses, which you ignored. When it became clear that you were ignoring them *yet again*, people began to get irked and 'snide' with you.

"Y'all have invented this "straw man" that's nothing like what I really am, do or think... and you react to that, not to what I say."

I, like most people here, usually quote your exact words before responding. Might I suggest that if you are unhappy with the impression of you that your own words give, you might try putting a little more thought into what you post, rather than complaining that others don't understand you?

"Do you suppose they have books and pamphlets teaching the evils of the working classes?"

Well now, that depends. If you mean they don't go out of their way to have extremist political literature in school libraries, then fair enough. But if you're saying that they actively ban right-wing literature but encourage left-wing literature, I would be shocked, and I assume most of your countrymen (countrypersons?) would be too. Ditto for religious literature in schools - have it or don't have it. If you have it, select on quality. But don't declare one religion to be above criticism.

Thanks for a well-developed point, with good use of analogies, by the way. I still disagree, but at least you have made a supported point.

You are probably not in the least interested in listening to personal advice, and I'm not particularly qualified to give it, but I'm going to anyway Try making more posts with reasoning like that in them and stop making unsupported claims and watch how the tone of people on this thread towards you changes.

Anyway, lecure mode off - have a good New Year.

Gif

Hi Ed,

"while constant voices are symptomatic, the odd auditory hallucination/ strong auditory memory is commonplace."

I would say that the odd auditory hallucination is evidence of the low end of the spectrum, full-blown schitzophrenia is the high end. I don't think mental illness is a binary thing.

I'm not speaking from a position of any actual knowledge at all though, so interested in your reponse.

Gif

Excellent post 6403, Ed. I was thinking along those lines myself, but not as clearly.

I've had the odd auditory hallucination myself, generally associated with fatigue and that state between waking and sleeping. I've never attributed it to god, though (or even Elvis ). I know it's just me.

Noggin

Gif, I believe you're right.

I'd have to say that while <>, an hallucination of any sort is still symptomatic of something being amiss.

I know what you mean, Ed, but it seems to me that the business of God "speaking" to someone, in most cases, doesn't actually mean that person is hearing voices. I believe that, apart from some really extreme examples of mental pathology (Joan of Arc and the like), speaking with god is just a way of saying that they "feel" that they are in communication with their deity, but saying it in an extravagent manner in an effort to distinguish it from common or garden reflection or communing with nature.

If one actally experiences auditory hallucinations, regularly or occasionally, it's at least a sign that there is need for medical intervention, or at least diagnosis. Attributing those voices to god may be little more than an attempt to impose some sort of sense upon something the patient can't explain in any other way. Ditto with using Elvis, or your neighbour Sam's dog.

Ed's also right, it seems to me, that the attribution of voices to the god of one's choice is largely a social phenomenon. How many people who have never heard of or are nearly completely unfamiliar with christianity have had Mary or Jesus or one of the saints drop in for an hallucinatory chin wag?

We explain our delusions in the language we have available.

Watched that west wing link, az. No wonder some theists would have us believe that when such funny bizarre bits in the bible crop up, suddenly that bit is called *metaphorical*. But for some reason the stories of the godhead thingy who went in for kenosis, who rose from the dead is completely literal.

I must be one of the few people never to have watched the West wing. Maybe I should treat myself to a boxed set of DVDs for the new year.



Nog one of my psychiatrists told me that it is completely 'normal' to occassionally hear voices in that state when one is sometimes half asleep and half awake. So no worries, you are completely normal.

Bipolars can sometimes hear voices when psychotic, but they go away when one gets over an episode and returns to the world of reason. I've never had it happen to me, I don't think. I can't be sure though because when I had my first psychotic manic episode, and was sectioned, the doctors were forever asking me about 'voices'; and because I was 'crazy' I began to think 'Oh I must be hearing voices, why do they keep on the voices? I actually started to imagine I must be hearing voices, even though I wasn't. And one can see how the system is pretty crazy itself sometimes. I did have visual and olfactory hallucinations. I remember after I was recovering, the doctor said the latter was quite unusual, and they were quite good fun.

Effers, feeling fairly normal today, but down with a fluey thing.

We should have bought a boxed set, effers - it would have been much cheaper. In the end we bought all seven series separately.

It's a totally addictive series. Here's another great scene from the pilot episode, the first time we see the president (with about ten minutes to go in the programme). What an entrance!

"Religious Smackdown in the West Wing"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V82I7vgzfgE


az

Oh, and I hope you're feeling better soon.

az

Effers, have you ever had an epileptic seizure? I used to get petit mal seizures until I grew out of it a few years ago (stuck with unipolar depression now). They were often pre-empted by smells.

Where I wasn't having misfiring synapses manifesting in seizures (and I still get spasms) I got the odd "noise" in my head, rarely enough to count as more than a word or a grunt, but I took to be a bit of loose electrics in the hearing centres of my brain.

Top link az

Thanks az

Christopher, as far as I know, not. Interestingly the first time I went severely mental the doctors said afterwrds that they intitially thought it was a form of epilepsy, there lots of different types appraently. And some of the meds used as mood stabilizers for bipolar are the same as those used for epileptics. I was on tegretol for years, which is the usual epileptic med. I now take Lamotrigine, a new trendy thing, which is also prescribed for epilepsy. The prefrontal lobes of the brain supposedly are most involved when one has a bipolar thing/attack, which are also implicated in epilepsy. There is clearly a close connection I would suppose.

Yes I've heard about the smell thing that sometimes heralds an epileptic attack. Interesting.

The brain really is a totally fascinating thing.

I used to get that Petit Mal thing really badly. People would be able to put chips in my ears and balance stuff on my head. Don't get it so much now. Well I get it with the same frequency and often under similar conditions but with nowhere near the same intensity.

I swear I get mushroom flashbacks that are preceeded by weird smells.

I'm not sure if mushie-backs are even possible.

<>

There's engaging, and there's attack mode, which is what Roy was in. As I've explained to Effers in the past, Christians are obliged to forgive but we're not obliged either to forget, or to be doormats.




<>
You chopped out the middle of what I wrote (you put an ellipsis, but that still doesn't mean you quoted me accurately. The chop-ellipsis method is a favourite of yours. Just letting you know I am aware of it.

<>
As you were perfectly well aware, what I was saying with my link, is that the neuroscientific theory is at best disputed, at worst, utterly wrong. What I clearly meant, your deliberate obfuscation notwithstanding, is that the spiritual explanation is the only *valid* one.
<< I've certainly never posted a link and said 'please watch the videos on this site'.>>

You certainly have! Or, at least, Roy, Effers and Azahar usually do!



<>

Given that *your* side defines trolling, it is if you say it is, but actually, it's a reference to his slightly hysterical and hectoring tone.

"You're practising your usual selective quoting."




"[H2G2 is] the unfriendliest, snidest, most unpleasant site [...] it's a pit of stinking prejudice, loathing and hatred! "

<>

Sew? Sic. It should of course be sow, and of course you've found it a friendly, touchy-feely place - you adhere to the majority view, which is always a very comfortable position to be in.

"unsubtle threats from TPTB"
<< You have heaped abuse on every single person on this thread who disagrees with you, no matter how polite they have been to you. Even leaving aside you past on H2G2 (which I understand to be rather chequered), are you really surprised that the Eds feel the need to intervene?>>
They've been polite to me? Hilarious! The Eds intervene, or threaten to, on the side of the majority view. Stands to reason.




<< But don't declare one religion to be above criticism.>>
Proof that like Roy you (deliberately?) miss the point. It's a Catholic school, and I don't see why it should be forced by an angry bitter MP, to have anti-Catholic books in its library. I kept trying with various analogies to get you all to see why that would be weird at the very least!

<>

You're right, you are completely unqualified to give me any advice whatsoever. Your advice is worth less than nothing. While everything I say is misinterpreted, selectively quoted, misquoted or ignored, there's nothing *I* can do to change the way I am perceived. Many people here would be satisfied with nothing less than my complete self-abnegation and capitulation to the majority view. Well, sorry boys and girl, it ain't gonna happen!

According to Jool's Annual hootenany on the Beeb - who decided having an astrologer on to predict the significant events of 2008was a good idea - we can look forward to:

America having a female president.

The Royal family will have a significant year.

And the economic downturn won't. Because....there's a comet.


Honestly!

Happy New Year all, and as the late great Dave Allen used to say, 'May your god go with you.'

Yes happy new year to everybody

happy new fish......tod

Remiss of me:

Happy New Year!

<>

Hilary, really? Well, stranger things have happened... Personally, I think Obama is in with a chance, and perish the thought, Giuliani...