Monday, May 9, 2016

Religion as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Many disorders that humans exhibit are merely normal conditions wherein the "dial" and degree has simply been turned up high enough that it has become an issue in one's daily life. PTSD is one of those where some psychologists are claiming it isn't even a disorder but a natural reaction to long enduring traumatic stress after the fact.

OCD precursors are another one of those things that when properly attenuated in life, can lead to great success in life, love and career. As with PTS, it's a necessary and functional thing in life. But when one is put into a situation where the stress is intermittent, continual and long lasting, one has to heighten one's senses in order to deal with it in the most safe manner possible, for the organism (people).

Now of days we are existing in an environment that we really were not designed for in being bombarded continually with stressful information. That of constant vigilance and preparation to fight or flight.

Once one of these human features broaches over to that point of being a disorder, it is then that we see issues that affect the individual's life, those around them and in some cases as in politics an entire local government, the nation or the world at large.

We are seeing a lot of this in the world today regarding religious beliefs brought on by triggers of fear, a decline in the veracity of religion itself with the advent of instant and ubiquitous information\media, the reactions to all that as well as to those speaking out against religion. It can incorrectly appear as a "war" on religion. When in reality it is something else entirely.

"Everything happens for a reason."

That saying has a purpose. One that simple minds have subverted. it is a shorthand to mean,... we need to find what purpose to ascribe to an event so that it has more purpose than mere happenchance.
In that way we can turn bad into good, good into better.

But to believe that there is a fate or a divine action that results in your being affected is to abdicate your ability to affect your own existence, to accept responsibility for what has happened to you in your life. 

YOU mostly have done to you what you experience happening. 

Even if it's not true, even if it's indirect. 

Because once you accept that, you have empowered yourself. 

Only then can the true "magic" in your life begin to happen.
There is too much magical thinking in the world. However we are as a race finally beginning to mature.

Eventually this will all will die down. Life will mediate into a level playing field and this will one day all be looked back upon as that period in history when there was obvious madness rippling through society world wide.

Hang in there.

http://psychcentral.com/lib/ocd-guilt-and-religion/
http://ocdla.com/scrupulosity-ocd-religion-faith-belief-2107
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/31/health/ocd-scrupulosity-religion/
http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2012/01/18/is_the_era_of_big_religion_over.html

Allow me to toss this into the mix:

It seems to me conservatives tend to be focused too much on their ideals (questionable as some of THOSE are) rather than giving enough consideration to reality, for far too much of the time. It sounds great but like religion, when you delve into it, eyes open, you quickly run into things many conservatives can't abide to consider.

While liberals are more concerned about actually reality rather than perceived (or believed) reality and govern their ideals through an effort to appropriately balance those.

So conservatives then try to claim liberals are unethical because they will bend their ideals if needed to fit reality (typically when it comes to being humane vs concerns of idealism or religion).

It's the religious ideology format of governing one's thought all over again. Something I see in many conservative atheists too. It's easy, quite lazy and requires very little exercising of the brain cells. Just say, "But God, God's laws, or idealism!" and you're done. But life is more complicated than that child's view of the world.

And it explains so much about our current mess.

Now add this to all of this:

Social Network Algorithms Are Distorting Reality By Boosting Conspiracy Theories

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