Fleizilla

A Young Reporter Chronicles Her 'Brain On Fire'

Another interesting read, see link below.

Throughout history, every single case of demonic possession could be nothing more than the external evidence of something going wrong within humans' brains. 

Cultures, upon seeing others with glitching brains, could easily spawn whole religions to try and explain why "possessed" people are seemingly acting "evil". 

The older I get, the more I realize that the world really is not what I've been  told in the pews. Mosques and temples aren't exactly convincing either.

For a long time, I've struggled internally with rationalizing the contradicting worldview of Evangelical christianity, where there is still the clinging hope for a 6,000 year old earth, and that the vast majority of humans go to an unseen place to burn for all eternity if they don't quickly in this physical lifetime make a highly uneducated, emotional decision, based on invisible fear-based ideas that other people just kinda tell them are real because an old book that has a hundred different translations (but is also somehow perfect) says so. 

Many Evangelicals commonly make fun of Mormons and Scientologists and other less mainstream religions.... but I increasingly believe that Evangelical Christianity needs to take a long look in the mirror.

Our religious leaders have no idea... when you think about it, they're just looking to long dead superstitious people for answers; Looking to religious texts is actually looking to ancient religious oral traditions, of people who were too primitive to see the universe, people who eventually wrote down their ideas on papyrus and passed on those ideas from generation to generation.

There's a damn good chance that our religions and superstitions are a sort of Matrix to us... in that it is not the real world, but everyone believes that it is.

It's entirely possible that we allow our own imaginations or hallucinations----or, more often, the imaginations and hallucinations, or downright lies of others----to fill in the blanks for us.

Trippy, huh?

A Young Reporter Chronicles Her 'Brain On Fire'

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/14/165115921/a-young-reporter-chronicles-her-brain-on-fire

This is how you exorcise a gay demon....

Poor guy.... brainwashed into thinking he has a demon in him and then has to pretend that he's been delivered from it, only to go home and realize nothing has changed, because no one has ever biologically changed their sexual preference. He will probably blame it on himself. I wonder if we're ALL more easily brainwashed, when we seek acceptance from a certain people-group, or higher power?

http://io9.com/5954811/this-is-how-you-exorcise-a-gay-demon 

Demons? Or mental problems?

The more we learn about nature, the universe, our biology and psychology, the less superstitious we become. 

Many religions, like Scientology, think that that depression is a spiritual problem.  When we grow past this kind of fundamentalist thinking... are we better able to target and treat people with these issues?

Or.... is spirituality really the ultimate cure-all? 

How many honest-to-God christians struggle with deep depression, and hide it, because they're not "supposed" to feel that way if they're "saved"?  How many christians have other mental problems?  Saved people shouldn't have mental problems.  They're saved.  They feel only peace and joy in Christ, right? 

Not so, it seems.  When hardcore superchristians struggle with post-partum depression, should we tell them to shake it off, pick themselves up and be happy in Christ?  Are they doing something wrong spiritually?

Warren Jeffs told his FLDS congregants that he isn't getting out of jail because they aren't spiritually "right" with their God.  Not praying enough and being 100% obedient.  The rest of us non-mormon fundamentalists roll our eyes at this guy, but fail to realize how we do the same to our own friends and family.  If you're depressed or something is wrong with you, it's because you're "not right with the Lord".  It's always your fault.

I wonder... if the wiring in our brains is what determines our personality and decisions.... is spirituality actually just a decent placebo for some people, while others not so much?

This is a sad story, below.  But it shows how much our collection of organs and cells and neurons need to function properly, for us to lead stable and happy lives.  Otherwise we make entirely different decisions---some can be positive, others can be negative.  


Does this mean we're possessed by demons? 

Some will say yes.  I no longer think so. 

Not to say the spiritual world doesn't exist.  I've never personally seen it, but if it does, I'm just pretty damn sure it doesn't exist in the form we're taught by all the generations that have come before us. 

There are more than 120 types of brain tumors, according to the National Brain Tumor Society, and personality changes can accompany a glioma, depending on its location and size in the brain. 

"It's not typical, but it can happen," said Dr. Dan Barrow, chairman of the department of neurosurgery at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. 

 One of the most infamous cases was Charles Whitman, the so-called Texas Sniper. The University of Texas student killed his wife and mother, then killed 13 others shooting from a tower in Austin in 1966; 33 others were wounded. 

 After an autopsy, doctors revealed he had glioma blastoma. "Indeed, much of his behavior was attributed to that," said Barrow. 

"It's not rare for people with brain tumors to present, among other things, a personality change," said Barrow. "Sometimes it's subtle and noticed only by loved ones."

Wife Slips Into Madness As Husband Dies of Brain Tumor

http://gma.yahoo.com/wife-slips-madness-husband-dies-brain-tumor-170825388--abc-news.html

Brainwashing

Beware brainwashing, kiddos.  You'll find it in every aspect of life, especially politics and faith, and often by very genuinely wonderful, well-meaning people.  Read and think.

It's so hard to think for ourselves.... isn't it....

A radical experiment in empathy

True empathy... it played a big role in radically changing my own previous, highly idealized christian worldview, over the past few years.

This is really good for all of us to think about:  Sam Richards: A radical experiment in empathy | Video on TED.com