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Only the insane find sanity in collective group-think or mystical insanity. Most 'people' who think they are normal and good people are actually just really insane.
One flew over the cuckoo's nest.
The cuckoo's nest is evidently the U.S.A. unfortunately.
Only the insane find sanity in collective group-think or mystical insanity. Most 'people' who think they are normal and good people are actually just really insane.
One flew over the cuckoo's nest.
The cuckoo's nest is evidently the U.S.A. unfortunately.
Actually, the carnal mind is insane, but the mind of Christ is at work to change that. Peace
Actually, the carnal mind is insane, but the mind of Christ is at work to change that. Peace
That is not how psychology works unfortunately. The mind of Christ is a mind of common decency and good sense but has become the biggest scapegoat in the history of the world in the name of man made doctrines of dysfunction of his charitable called religion. Religion has little to do with what Christ thought and did.
That is why religion is losing ground as a viable and constructive concept.
I'm not understanding the point of the original post or what it is doing in the Religion & Spirituality forum.
Can self-analysis and self-talk have psychological benefits even for a very religious person? Certainly. For a completely non-religious person? Certainly. Psychology and religion are not inherently at odds.
Can pseudo-prayer, which is no more than self-talk, be psychologically beneficial? Certainly. Can genuine prayer produce angst and anxiety? It shouldn't, but it certainly might if one is a troubled individual, holds religious beliefs based predominantly on fear, or misunderstands what prayer is.
I spend large amounts of time in prayer. I would not do this unless I believed that I was genuinely communing with a genuine God. I would not believe in a genuine God unless I had formed this belief after a long and diligent search for Truth and had experienced the reality of this God. Likewise, I have experienced the reality of the communion that occurs during prayer. Hence, I pray and have found it to be extremely beneficial, but I also find value in being extremely introspective and self-analytical.
It seems to me that the original poster is setting up what is called a false dilemma. I am also unable to understand how he thinks he is in a position to determine whether his visiting relative's prayers "have a negative affect of increasing anxiety."
He has said some really terrible and disconnected things: such as that
1. "true atheists" would all be just like a character in a Russian(?) book he read about once, and therefore any balanced atheist is really following a religion of culture,
2. mythological tropes are important and true in large ways, and women are a trope of chaos and men a trope of order in the vast majority of mythological tropes he's found (hint, hint, most are written by men trying to sell to men).
3. You can't quit smoking unless you have a mystical experience. And you should always take personal responsibility but sometimes drinking cider can make you have uncontrollable feelings of dread for days if not weeks.
But he tries not to deny anything held in large numbers and high esteem in order to appeal to as much of a large audience as he can.
Anyone who has followed my latest thread knows how I feel about prayer. It's great therapy for just talking out your problems with someone even if that person is yourself or an imaginary being(s). Often by expressing your anxieties out loud to an empty room we jar our brain to loosen up a solution that simply pops out. I'm thinking of a situation for example where when we're alone we say, "If I had just thought of it when my co-worker was sounding off on me I would have told him "Bla-bla-bla" and instantly we feel better. Same with talking to God whether He hears us or not, "God, it's good to know you're there and I'm not in this all by myself." Just that alone brings reassurance to our troubled souls.
The problems come when we pray to God expecting Him to extricate us from a problem. It's just not going to happen. God doesn't answer those kinds of prayers for physical help with money, or jobs, or marital problems, or any tangible stuff. He's strictly a listening-but-no-action kind of guy. The Lord helps those who help themselves. As long as Christians become aware of this there won't be so much heartbreak in the Christian community with all this 'Why doesn't God answer my prayers????"
He has said some really terrible and disconnected things: such as that
1. "true atheists" would all be just like a character in a Russian(?) book he read about once, and therefore any balanced atheist is really following a religion of culture,
2. mythological tropes are important and true in large ways, and women are a trope of chaos and men a trope of order in the vast majority of mythological tropes he's found (hint, hint, most are written by men trying to sell to men).
3. You can't quit smoking unless you have a mystical experience. And you should always take personal responsibility but sometimes drinking cider can make you have uncontrollable feelings of dread for days if not weeks.
But he tries not to deny anything held in large numbers and high esteem in order to appeal to as much of a large audience as he can.
He has a good point about how atheists claim to not believe in God, but they act as if God exists.
(Let's see atheists squirm their way out of that one.)
He has a good point about how atheists claim to not believe in God, but they act as if God exists. (Let's see atheists squirm their way out of that one.)
Well firstly I do not think anyone has to squirm out of a mere assertion. That would be like me saying "Ozzy is a wanton paedophile - let me see him squirm out of that one!". Me merely saying it would not actually establish anything for you to squirm out of, would it?
However that said - there is not much to squirm out of as there is not much content to saying that. And what content there is to it actually works without the word "god" at all as he is merely saying something we already know in psychology but restating it using the word "god" for no good reason.
For example as Story Telling Chimps - which is essentially what we and our brains are - we parse a lot of our own actions and thoughts and motivations through stories we tell ourselves about how others would view and evaluate us. People we know. Strangers. Society as a whole.
So in essence we are often acting as if someone is watching. And in that sense while Peterson's phrasing is often vacuous - what he is saying is in some senses not altogether false. But the "god" we are actually acting like exists is nothing more than an internal narrative that we are externalizing.
For the most part I find little useful in anything Peterson has said in the past - much of it is nonsense said in fluffy language as if he is the Deepak Chopra of the Psychology world where chopra loves shoving in the word "quantum" all the time Peterson loves to throw out "substrate" and so on. Like Chopra he appears to approach his talks by selecting words that he knows most people do not _really_ parse or understand well - and then use those words in ways that are not at all normal to make it even more difficult to parse. And people get so boggled by not actually understanding any of it - that they merely assume that he (peterson or chopra, take your pick) must be saying something wonderful.
Further much of what he says is downright insane. Such as his claims that long before DNA was discovered people already knew it existed, and knew of it's intertwined helix nature, and they got this knowledge through taking Ayhuwasca - or that power-poses must work in humans because lobsters do it - and that people can not over come addiction without the intervention of a higher supernatural power.
And after all that he seems very very good at dodging questions by A) saying "its complicated" B) listing book titles at you or C) both. In fact there are Peterson T-Shirts that just have "It's complicated" written on them.
From listening to him talk - and I have listened to about 50 hours of material of him alone and him in discussion with others - I would say he is very good at his day job alleviating the suffering of mentally unwell patients. And although he misuses it a lot - he does seem strongly aware of the power of narrative in the human brain.
But that is about all I can positively say about him and his material. If you want positive and affirming exploration of the Bible I would steer clear of videos like the above and instead go to something like Matt Whitman's "10 minute Bible hour". I feel if I could make even 20% of the worlds Theists more like Matt Whitman - we would live in a better world no question.
He has a good point about how atheists claim to not believe in God, but they act as if God exists.
(Let's see atheists squirm their way out of that one.)
There is no need to squirm. Your support of him, and the stupidity of the argument that you act as if all the other gods also exists* is enough to tell us neither of you know what you are talking about.
* I'll explain for you. We do not believe in ALL gods. So we must therefore act as if we believe in ALL of them. Therefore you must also be acting as if you believe in ALL gods you do not believe in.
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