Determining Mental Illness—Emotional Incontinence

If Johnny thinks he is also Jason, Billie, and god Haila, he/they/them has a multi-personality disorder. But if Larry thinks he is Jessica and changes his/her body with blockers and surgery, somehow that isn’t a disorder? Why is one considered a mental defect and the other is not?

Psychiatric co-morbidities are much more common in gender dysphoric patients than other candidates.

“The frequency of additional personality disorders was 81.4%. The most frequent being narcissistic personality disorder (57.1%) and the least was borderline personality disorder. The average number of [comorbid] diagnoses was 3 per patient”.

Conclusion: The findings of this study revealed that the prevalence of personality disorders was higher among the participants, and the most frequent personality disorder was narcissistic personality disorder (57.1%), and borderline personality disorder was less common among the studied patients. Keywords: Personality disorder, Gender identity disorder

Source Study HERE

The correct response to gender dysphoria is not to concede to a generally narcissistic demand with the accompanying gaslight (see gender studies) but to assist the patient with compassion to accept who and what they are without surgical mutilation.

Gender science is like a bikini—the only place you’re forbidden to look is at the parts that are covered up. The common thread is getting gaslit by a majority population of narcissists and obeisance of the PC masses who have traded common sense for tolerance.

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Rambling on the Religion of Ego—

It all comes down to what one would rather believe. Maybe life is just too dissatisfying without a belief to succor one’s ego.

Religious beliefs are like a skillfully edited film—and the preacher is the editor. What lies on the floor of the editing room is messy. But life without makeup is amazing.

Regular is beautiful. Maybe if we put our faith efforts towards our own specie we could really do something special?

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other—An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head—Eric Hoffer.

If something is real it is not necessary to believe in it. To unbelieve is to approach the ground of being—that primordial state from which all things rise and fall. Belief is merely a self employed decoy, perpetuating the unknown by the same belief that holds our attention.

Deja-Vu—

Seems like I already posted this, but on examination it was only deja-vu.

What is deja–vu other than confusion between real-time events passing through the memory cue? It can be an interesting head game feeling you’ve been here before when you know you never have, but what if you have?

Is there more to it than that? Some feel this as something experienced in a prior life, or seen in a dream or astral visit. Some recount vivid experiences with uncanny accuracy. The only time we are aware of our brains is when they misfire—everything is normal right up until it’s not, but along with that is a sense that something isn’t quite right.

Deja-vu “is not only a feeling of familiarity, but also the metacognitive recognition that these feelings are misplaced”.—Dr Akira O’Connor. So how do you explain it when someone recounts an experience in detail and verifies it? I’ll explain…

I booked an Air BnB near the coast to attend a wedding. It was old farmhouse built in the 1920’s on still, heavily wooded acreage. As we walked in the door my wife stops abruptly and says “I’ve been here before”.

She made a list of notes about the previous colors on the wall, the old man and woman that lived there, the library upstairs which was moved from another location, how the old man and woman died, and so on. Details about his medical conditions and that they really cared for the place.

We met with the new owners (married male couple) who lived in a newer house a hundred yards behind the same property. She gave him the paper and his jaw hit the floor. He said everything she said was how it was and how it happened. How did she know? What are your experiences with this phenomenon?

The Utility of Woo, Magic, and Religion

How woo, magic, and religion are simply glimpses into non-ordinary neurology. It’s all right here.

It is religion that drives certain men and women to ask real questions and find real answers to how the world operates. Thank you religion. Science has challenged the millennia long status quo—that what is occasionally seen by mystics is merely how the world would look when you mess with the wires.

Those who grew tired of being watched by a persistent deity that had no bearing on life, decided to answer a few questions on their own without postulating a god—but to find out how things actually work.

We have evolved with a certain brain configuration and perceive the world through a specific shaped eye and tactile senses. Alter these receptors any way you want and you can see the spirit world, which is this world in a non-ordinary, alternate perception of reality. This is the religious experience—attempting to maintain that different reality than what evolution has normalized as our current, best chance at survival.

Change the shape of the eye, we all may look like Jabba the Hut, but we’d still be here, and that would be normal. Mess with the optic nerve and flip the left and right lobes and voilet! Things certainly wouldn’t be like they seem now.

Understanding this, that a minor change in physiology and nothing would seem the same. I’m sure the octopus who is born knowing how to hunt and strategize it’s prey, has a completely different perception and hereditary underpinning than a human—but the octopus is still here, just a different set of lenses, and a different reality.

Enter the traumatic event or addiction.

Carry yourself deep into the difficult side of human existence, to the brink of losing family or life itself, or just play around with a little peyote? Activate those adrenals and delve into the hypoxia of a NDE and you can see god. Feel god. Feel your brain reach it’s outer limits to grasp at survival. Those unlucky enough just don’t have enough trauma in their lives, or indoctrination? It is up to them to move the planet beyond belief mode.

Damnation—Owned With Honor

The past is a memory—the future an expectation—both only exist in the present—in your mind. Christian religions believe in the damnation of souls—hell, which is happening right now in Christianity. Are they are the dammed, and they live among us. No need to wait til your dead when you can have it now through faith.

Resisting the flow of progress, anchored to the past like it’s a virtue. Arguing every social advance, hoping someone will come and save them—but he will not save them from themselves. I can’t think of a better example of damnation than the current Islamic and Christian doctrines.

It would have been possible through Christianity if…if they really knew what the good news was all about. But they put the messenger on a pedestal and suppressed the message. Jesus is the only son of god—no more! The church immediately became irrelevant by holding on to monotheism. They are now nothing but talking shops, void of meaningful liturgy, void of any meaningful religious experience. Damned, in every sense of the word.

Freewill vs Stimuli

Are we making our own choices or just reactions to stimuli?

Imagine a moment you are a lonely nerve ending. All of the sudden something rubs against you—“are you there?” “Yes, I am here”. But it takes another to stimulate relational awareness. Without other there would be no way of identifying self existence. It is said by some that god (or the universe) would not know it is god because there is nothing outside of itself to bring it to awareness of itself.

On the other hand, identifying self by other is also as ambiguous an introspection, because what others think of you rarely adds up to what you think of you. All of us are simply reflections of our external world.

So what is the difference between commenting, hitting the like button, or just moving on? Do you have to agree to appreciate another point of view? I was accused at watchtower of trolling christian blogs. I responded that I only read two, usually hit the like button to appreciate their efforts, yet only comment occasionally if stimulated to do so. But for some the reward is bloviating what stimulation they incurred previously. That is trolling, fanaticism—a self aggrandized irritation.

You may comment or not, but that choice has already been made by the years of stimuli, or not. There may-be freewill, but it was captured in a bottle long ago the moment humans learned the art of civilization.

Rites of Passage

Initiation rites are seen as fundamental to human growth and development as well as socialization in many cultures. These rites function by ritually marking the transition of someone to full group membership or adulthood. (1)

These transitions into man or womanhood have a long history, while many include some special task or special knowledge that assists the new adult transition into confident living and acceptance, ie; that life isn’t what you’ve been told, so here’s the deal…

While at first glance it appears we have no launch-pad liturgy in the west to welcome our youth to adulthood—but we do. In Hebrew/Christian/Islamic cultures of the western world there is only one, true rite of passage—it’s called psychotherapy. Either a self administered journey alone, or with a guide (psychologist) in an attempt to undo (often painstakingly) what has been done to you, as part of an age old game of hiding the truth from children. And siphoning out what nature made to operate at maximum efficiency all on its own.

Some however, are so thoroughly steamrolled into this false sense of religion they never swim out of it, perpetually thinking happiness awaits in promises, while holding onto a life of anxiety like it’s the will of god.

Children automatically know the meaning of life, yet immediately we name them, define them, and separate them from nature until they can be trusted to carry on a serious life of contemplation. That they are strangers here on probation, only candidates for the kingdom of god if they can choose the right belief.

This state of never knowing if your saved or damned is a cruel trick. It’s no wonder people are mixed up for years, or even lifetimes trying to undo what has been done with the best of intentions, in a religion that is impossible.

Target Fixation

Humans have a very narrow range of conscious attention that we allow to define us. Based on our personalities and what values (rewards) catch our attention, it begins to define us as a person and collectively as a specie, while the rest of life passes by—often a very good life that is all around, yet unnoticed.

“Target fixation is an attentional phenomenon observed in humans in which an individual becomes so focused on a hazard, that they inadvertently increase their risk of colliding with the object. In such cases, the observer may fixate so intently on the target that they steer in the direction of their gaze, which is often the ultimate cause of a collision“.

The human neuron is already very much like radar, always scanning the horizon for trouble. When we stay focused on danger, a type of neurosis sets in and we miss the good, open waters through such myopia. When this evolutionary mechanism of protection is embraced as a value, another mechanism engages—tribalism. Then when evidence is gathered to dismiss such behavior, humans employ a final, last ditch defense against reason—the backfire effect, which describes how individuals, when confronted with evidence that conflicts with their beliefs, come to hold their original position even more strongly.

As our christian dominated culture continues to fixate on the apocalypse, that somehow they can win with this mindset, we may just be bound to bring it on. But really they may have to wait a while, because actual life is petty damn good. Not that anything really matters when its all just a part of evolution. Our only chance of survival is to stop fixing everything before we blow it up by taking sides—or is that natural natural selection too?

Weigh some witches—2020

Philosophizing God

If believing in god is enough to imagine him into existence, then god is equally diminished by the arguments against him. The seesaw effect, back and forth, god, no god, poof, there he is, then gone again. There is no advantage to believing because of a cleverly worded argument that can be dismantled by reason. The real existence of a god would be an irrevocable surety. It is not, therefore he is not.

If god were real, no argument would be needed. Take any of the popular arguments for god and at first glance—quite clever. But, that’s about as far as it goes. A genuine treatise shoehorning the existence of god would in fact, be evident without persuasion, manipulating word games, sermonic hormones, and overcoming doubt, which doubt in itself should be a red-enough flag.

The bottom line is this; Religion has the audacity to think it can outwit nature. Accepting this natural order takes the fear out of life and negates the threats of death with endless suffering posed by religion. It also restores the esteem to man taken by religion. Atrophy and decay is a normal part of this experience and getting that little fact takes the decision to fear from our hands and tosses it out—the decisions surrounding death is made for you. Indigenous types all over the world accepted it as the natural course of things. Even in men’s ignorance or brilliance it mattered not. It just is and is nothing to fear. Understanding that keeps one from getting suckered by religious threat and seekers of power.

Accepting the fact we don’t know what happened before this life or what happens after is truly the only thing that could possibly excite an infinite being like myself, infiltrated with all encompassing consciousness in his natural state.

Things have lived and died long before the Abrahamic visions of the monarchical boss. For millions of years species have came and went long before “the fall”, just as the earliest hominids lived and died out, so will we. So what? Oh those poor souls for all those years before Jesus.

Choosing Authenticity

Stephen has done an excellent series on authenticity.

“shifting our orientation from treating others as objects that exist to serve our interests, to an openness to the other as an expression of mystery.  This shift invites us to relate to others by resisting our temptation to reduce the other via labels, definitions and concepts and instead invites us to be open to who the other is as a multi-dimensional being who emerges over time”—Stephen

“Authenticity is a set of skills really“ It is difficult in this day and age to discover our true selves. Everything that now influences us is carefully packaged by specialists and experts. Finding your true self requires one to analyze, step back and embrace real, authentic, internal change through awareness that our very core has been challenged by agendas.

Me and my brother—1967

Aphorisms on Faith

Faith is an attachment to formative persuasions—an idea anchored by self doubt initiated by that same persuasion.

Faith is being directed into contemplating an idea, simply from hearing the questions.

Faith is pride in self deprecated belief absent of independent thought.

Faith is a solidified by the hormonal response, comforting human insecurity and the propensity to be easily deceived.

Faith is a comforting hope that elevates esteem without intellect.

With faith we build barriers between exaggerated reaction syndrome and acceptance. It allows us to blend rather than confronted with raised eyebrows—A state of beliefing though verbal and superficial physical obeisance. The idea of obedience supplants behavior.

Faith is merely stubborn pride repackaged as a virtue. Thought convictions played on insecurity without substance. Really nothing to fight over, but since beliefs are now the pinnacle of human intellect, challenging belief has become an affront to character.

Faith is a tightly held imagination your hope is true—then defending that right to hope with an argument.

Faith is what you resort to when you can’t reason your beliefs.

Faith is a state of mind that allows mediocrity to supplant achievement.

Faith is the result of fusing human limitations into cultural mediocrity. Since there is nothing a believer can do to un-fall this fallen world. Acquiescence defaults to hope.

Transcending belief mode and its limitations will be the key saving humanity. Faith allows the world to end on hope where action is needed.

By choosing a prearranged faith, dogma substitutes authenticity with platitudes.

Faith in your belief turns hope into intellectual and spiritual starvation.

Faith is the evidenced in human stagnation—clinging to the past and the failure to live in self confidence

Mule stables, Fort Spokane—1880

How to Dismiss the Wrong Beliefs

With Islam overtaking Christianity through fertility rates, it must soon be the one True Faith© How can so many people have gotten it wrong, but in the process now of getting it right? The guard is changing because gods will is in control. The pendulum is finally swinging towards Mecca and there is no other explanation—except one.

Trading one wrong for another. It is belief itself that is the culprit—thought convictions so strong one would strike their own children because of them (or go to war with a neighbor) The way to know if your thought convictions are true is to apply the same criteria to your own faith as you do to others—and that they do to yours. Islam makes perfect sense…to a Muslim, while they shake their heads at the ridiculous Christians that have been duped beyond reason.

The truth is…there is no Abrahamic truth—there is only settlements of faith based on geographically bred familiarity.

Faith—dividing nations from within one believer at a time through the pulpits of propaganda and fear. It’s so obvious an atheist can see it. And that’s exactly the point.

The Art Of Theism

Theism abuses ideas to promote their own source of validation by degrading all of humanity—breaking them to the lowest level of creature vs lifting them up.

Theism is the ultimate display of pride in self doubt—only through faith can you be whole, which is pure rubbish.

Theism writes disingenuous attempts to promote the will of a deity they readily admit escapes comprehension.

Theism promotes faith so humans fail to act of their own accord—waiting for guidance when deep down they already know what to do, lacking confidence because of the same faith.

Theism persuades men to condemn other men for their genetics and lack of Jesus in their culture.

Theism demonstrates mans ability to dismiss pure reason to pacify insecurity.

Theism teaches faith in god (the ultimate idol) which is merely a substitute for our own achievement and effort—reality teaches us there’s nothing like finding contentment through doing something for yourself and achieving self worth through accomplishment.

Theism is the ability to nurture pretending, believing, and hope, into an honor, resorting to faith when you can’t reason your belief

Theism has constructed a god that requires us to wait for reward—convincing believers that true peace is after life and conjures one to waiting instead of making it so now.

Theism is to abuse faith—a temporary principle of discovery by making it the pinnacle of achievement.

Theism is the arrival at nothing; mere thought convictions without substance or positive results. How long does an idea deserve to meet its objectives?

Theism is the ability to dismiss hard evidence of historically poor outcomes by believing that it’s convictions are not the cause of the outcome (but everywhere it planted it’s flag, cruelty followed)

The strongest of faith cannot endure once we know truth, but is then often secured by pretending and group pressure. Faith however, cannot exist with the slightest amount of proof. It is imperative there is no proof. Proof would not destroy religion, but it would kill faith and it’s ill affect on the human race.

Theism is a way of challenging death…while still dying.

Theism is a way of assigning meaning to random chaos, blaming a devil for the ills in the world then punishing those that don’t believe that—for merely a different thought.

Theism attempts to use reason to explain belief by clinging to traditions molded before reading was common.

Theism embraces the thought that humans are incapable and justify misplaced devotion to imagination. Humans are actually pretty awesome. But by belief they can be persuaded to do the unthinkable.

Theism rewards mere thought conviction and words as something of substance and will punish those that don’t have them.

Theists practice the art of exaggerated importance. Honoring strong faith (which is simply stubborn pride) stemming from a challenge in reverse psychology. Who can claim belief most earnestly in the face of knowledge reaches the pinnacle of faith.

What it Means to Believe

“The true meaning of belief is to powerfully imagine“.

Humans have great imaginations and will consider criticism of such supernatural/religious fantasy as an affront to character. If you cannot imagine what they imagine at a ridiculously high level, you are not fit for the kingdom of god.

“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”—Mark 9:24 / ie; Lord, I can imagine that; help my imagination!

Finding the right things to imagine is the key to strong faith. “In my fathers house there are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you“. Notice he never explains what it is like in heaven, but lays it at the feet of your imagination—the most powerful tool in the playbook.

Imagine that! Belief/imagination/religion is to pretend that the question trumps the answer and the search is the true meaning. A philosophical approach that sets “I don’t know” to wordplay. There are answers, but few want to know much beyond feeling good by believing in a system with no substance.

Now we are at an impasse. I am supposed to imagine the unimaginable, and believe that select humans have a personal relationship with it. The masterful play on human psychology—to pretend substance comes through belief and arrival rests on the pinnacle of imagination.

Meanwhile, we imagine a Saviour, someone to come down out of the sky to fix our wastefulness while we remain a greedy people and rationalize human destructiveness by waiting it out—but belief in god will not save us. That is up to us to address reality.

What is Spiritual and Why it’s Not

Why do humans treat things they can’t see with more reverence than things they can? Spirituality is the act of making holy the voids in human perception through imagination.

Faith is the act of assigning honor to things you wish were real as if believing them actually meant something. Unsatisfied with Providence and what minimums it provides, we fail to live in the moment through supplemental prayer, always looking ahead and hoping because we have settled for mediocrity—belief someone or something else can make it better. Proving really, that humans can see a much better solution than the framework “god” has provided his pinnacle of creation through religion.

After careful scrutiny we find anything that persuades belief before thinking, is doctrinally sound. Anything doctrinally sound will never be settled without faith.

Who would do that but a manipulative genius who preyed on the weaknesses of human psychology? Religion is basically reverse psychology for grownups, inflicted on our youth to prevent them from becoming grownups—to lead a dependent life.

There is a difference however, between the regular, know-nothing Christian who is trying to make his way through life with tools that have been forced upon him by persuasion and fear, and the apologist who is an apologist because he knows better, but won’t face the failures of religion with integrity.

There is one good reason no man has ever seen god. Anyone want to take a shot at why?

Indian painted rocks, Spokane WA 7/20/19

On Spirituality

I am an atheist. There is little to convince me the natural order of things needs guidance to align itself with compatible attractions. I do not naturally concur or conclude any god or gods, but only by desperate, impatient persuaders and force-fed answers are we convinced—surrender to its message or be damned.

However, I do not discount the fact that some people are attuned differently to the universe and take advantage of its properties. We are all part of this electric, energy-field of space, full of Planck waves and particles, entangled one with another and everything in between. We are made of energy. It would make sense that we should be able to interact in these fields to our benefit—to use them in the understanding of humanity. We are a part of it, comprised of the same waves that surround us. There is no empty space.

—Enter Religion

They have all attended the same schools of thought for the past 3000 years. They debate every friggin word of the Bible (literally) and are a constant dead-weight dragging on the conscious fabric of space. We’re dragging an anchor around with us. Can we imagine for a moment—everyone engaged in real solutions developing human potential celebrating their individual abilities, versus pigeon-holing humanity into a self deprecating belief and abandoning the natural connections and abilities?

There are merely a handful of very smart people plowing on to advance the human cause. How do we escape the numbing stupor of religious beliefs? Humans have the capacity to be outstanding!

“For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself“—Galatians 6:3

I could not disagree more. Seeing what we have to work with I’d say we have much more capacity than the “unworthy servant”.

We start with an insufficient premise of defeat, the worthless sinner, the holes of indoctrination offer an ongoing climb that only gets deeper. We can do more! Much, much more when we realize we’ve got this way beyond “glory to god” for allowing one damn problem free day. The bar is low—way too low.

“Whereas all rivers flow to the sea, carving, meandering ways, changing course, moving mountains and civilizations—so it is in the whole universe”

Contemplating Existence—The Why is in Asking

The human mind is easily misdirected and manipulated. The simple question has now been hammered into a science—the number one tool of the salesman, psychoanalysts, politicos, and religiosos. Merely asking a question puts the asker in control of the conversation—and the human brain can’t help but go there.

“Questions trigger a reflex in humans known as “instinctive elaboration,” that is when someone asks you a question, the question takes over the brain’s thought process and you feel compelled to answer—and make it a good one.

The meaning of life is undiscovered to this day, but it all started long ago by three unanswered questions

• Why we are here?
• Where did we come from?
• Where are we going?

After millenniums of daydreaming answers on existence, now we are forced to answer “what if”—what if I’m wrong about what you’ve imagined to be so?

Here is my question; Are you certain your feelings, that combination of hormones, insecurities, bias, influences, hope, and consciousness—evidence of a god? Or is it simply evidence of an ever changing and susceptible mess of neurons, chemicals reactions, and underdeveloped controls?

“When our brain thinks about the answer to a question, it can’t contemplate anything else” (1)

We can generally think of only one thing at a time, while our limited ability’s and myopic mental focus practically force us to contemplate simply because of the suggestion—or the question. “Do you believe in god” has been a question that has lingered at the forefront throughout my lifetime and a thousand generations before. Why no, I don’t believe in an imagination what has puzzled even the best minds in history. A question that deserves no answer, but is an irresistible consideration nonetheless, because it was asked.

With all that is known about our psychological discrepancies and deficiencies, do you think it would be wise to proceed with caution before believing anything without evidence. Any of it? Why should I believe anything at all without it?

What makes one so sure that the potpourri of impressions and feelings about every aspect of life is a god, considering all of his presence and “feelings” and your own intuitions can be duplicated in any laboratory study, even with outright lies? How do you know it’s god, not the neurons and hormones deceiving yourself—with yourself, practically by the force of the question? Isn’t it far more reasonable that the idea of a god is just as unreasonable? The ultimate force in the universe is not a god—it is the almighty question. And that is far more interesting than settling for a thought. There are no answers. That, is evidence I can live with.

A Good Verse

With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in God’s likeness“. James 3:9

This could be a scripture about jealousy, but it’s not favored that way among believers. If you want to know the best part about being a god, look to those who the writers curse. The nature of those most like god—it is those that make their own ideas and choose for themselves how they will live, then live well beyond the framing limits of religious obedience.

We are despised for charting our own path. We are despised for plucking off the fruit of knowledge. Dogmas are meant to service those that rely on others for guidance and inspiration. This is quite offensive to James who believed everyone should have to have their brain sucked out through intangible thought convictions—through faith and submission.

An Enemy to God—The Natural Man

Being judged and sentenced by believers of god for a passive decision—a process of random inputs, neurons, billions of synapses interacting, perceptions weighed, likes and dislikes and cultural influence considered, simply for not believing a story—merely thoughts.

After having to process this information against my own choice, the ticket has popped out unbelief. What can I do to change that? What should be done to appease the masses…conform to become a natural man—gullible, trusting, yielding, herd instinctive, and fearful since birth? The desire to belong clouds judgement while the powerfully placed men of words and their yes-men apply pressure to consider the supernatural—by coercion.

A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised—1 Corinthians 2:14-15

Au contraire! A neat trick of religion and the biblicants is defining terms to suit their purpose. The natural man is actually the believing man as evidenced in the obvious. Everyone wants a belief. Since birth we are lied to, fearized, pressured, goaded—and though living in a society of liars we believe nearly everything that we are persuaded to believe. That, is the natural man. Either the believer is the enemy of god as the Bible says, or the Bible has decriminalized our natural tendencies and labeled the unnatural, independent-minded as the enemy. I am not the natural man. Having eyes that have opened through a struggle of librarial pursuit and observation, followed by the unpleasant task of unbelief, integrity will not undo this fact.

The strongest faith can’t protect us once we know the truth. Protection comes through conformity and abandoning honest virtue—integrity comes at a price. We now sit on the fringes of society writing anonymous blogs. Natural man? I’ll leave that to the churches where it’s modern version originated.

Making Your Way

‘How do we make sense of the world without a guiding myth like religion?—Alan Watts

—By making our own way, not cut from the cloth of big-box corporate religion or political ideology, where billions get a handful of choices. Evidence of this truth is ever displayed among all Christianity. Everyone chooses what suits them, but in lacking real answers they go, trying to incorporate every single thought into a new god—their real god—themselves. Or, by complete submission (where we find another book) that compels one to enforce many.

We are not born to be decided upon, to be guided upon, to be swayed upon by others interpretations of life’s completeness, especially among the religious who have closed their minds to the endless possibilities of fulfillment. Oft blinded by their narrow view from what might be genuine delight.

“Ideology is a poor guide because it’s not your story”—Joseph Campbell

What is the story of life? Where is the deepest meaning and fulfillment? We are alone finding our way among the crowds and impetuous, pushy religiosos that think in their narrow book of parables and horror are the answers for everyone that ever lived. How conceited. How dare they, really.

“Mythology is psychology, misread as cosmology, history, and biography.“—Joseph Campbell

Ten Reasons To Question Belief—In Anything

A lot has been said here over the past year. 352 posts and over 13,000 comments (thank you) since this all started. I have learned a lot from all of you ‘common atheists’, and that was my goal; To find the truth, not be told what to believe. To share with you all what I’ve learned, not what I’ve been schooled by professionals with a stake in it. With deeper understanding comes change, and with that change I’ve learned that exposing the blatant inadequacy of religion and the faith/belief numbing that has enveloped the human family is built on ten psycho-neuro premises. There are more, but these will do to persuade any reasonable person of the gullibility and delicate nature of human neurology and perceptions of truth.

We have traveled but a short distance in a great journey. We have honed our skills and perfected reason beyond the walls of religion. We have hammered on the fallacy of faith, fallibility of scripture, where it comes from, how it starts—the tricks of the preachers trade—while the duped are now running the con, and against all reason by way of contradiction, it’s a societal expectation…to believe. Why? What is the pressure inside most everybody to rush to believe—anything!

But, it is with little understanding of their own condition that they perpetuate the hoax on the unsuspecting gullibles, newborns, children, adults taking sides, and those human-herd tendencies that condition us to follow. To fit-in to a group based on belief that will turn on us over mere unbelief. It’s borderline c.r.a.z.y (sometimes you just gotta spell it out)

We don’t believe because we want to. We just do—everything! Always just believing what we are told (look at the success of fake news) Humans aren’t trustworthy with their own minds! Here they are in no particular order—for everyone, not just the other guy!

1. Cognitive Dissonance

2. Illusory Truth Syndrome

3. Confirmation Bias

4. Pluralistic Ignorance

5. Logical Fallacies

6. Neurotheology

7. Contradictions

8. Fear Appeal

9. Dunning-Kruger

10. Reason.

Please be aware of your own human condition, including the foibles and quirks of perception and neurology—before believing anything! (including shadow people). We can break the faith trap through awareness of humanism.

Palinopsia—The Aftertaste of Imagery

The human brain is a fascinating organ, but is very susceptible to input based on your output (what you already think you know). We see what we are programmed to see, what we expect to see, often seeing what is not there at all. The quirks of human perception must be understood before one decides where they stand—on any subject. Palinopsia is when you see that residual image after you remove the original from view. Most of us have seen these demonstrations at one point or another where you stare intently at an ink blot or photo, then take it away and close your eyes. The image reappears.

Below is the checkerboard illusion. Look at squares A and B. They are in fact the same shade of grey, but your preconditioned expectation of what the checkerboard looks like, will not even allow you spot see it correctly, even when it’s pointed out to you.

Look closely. Your brain is playing a trick on you, but the puzzle is cleverly designed to do just that. Here below, a strip in the same color is laid between the two squares. This bridge confirms the illusion, but look at the top pic again and the trick remains.

This is just the tip of the neurological iceberg when it comes to perception.

“Attention is what steers your perception, it’s what controls your reality, it’s the gateway to the mind. If you don’t attend to something, you can’t be aware of it”—Apollo Robbins, The Art of Misderection (9 min TED)

But if you only attend to it, you miss the best of reality—Enter religion

Christianity and Islam demand all your attention, all your devotion “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might—not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord”

My attention today is to open your mind to the possibility that that focus is a misdirection. A hijacking of your self empowered life.

The Gullible Human

“It’s not that superstition and New Age so-called “beliefs” and fundamentalist zealotry are something new. They’ve been with us for as long as we’ve been human. But we [now] live in an age based on science and technology, with formidable technological powers”.

“We need a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility”.

“If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious who comes ambling along—Carl Sagan “A Way of Thinking”

Your Own Beliefs, Or Submitting to Authority?

For a long period of my life I submitted to authority—Religious authority. A well known study (Milgram Shock Experiment) had participants administer shocks to a learning participant. 61% of subjects were willing to eventually administer lethal shocks to a stranger, solely because the authority figure had directed it. The shocks were fake, but the participants were unaware of that fact.

One subject wrote a letter to the study’s founder during the Vietnam war. He said, “While I was a subject in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority … To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority’s demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself … I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted conscientious objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience ...

The religious are ripely submitting to authority. I do not believe for a moment that discrimination against gays, immigrants, women, transgenders, or any other focus of hate today is rooted in the minds of the people. It is rooted in the foundations of faith, which purported hate is the result of pulpits—and the authority we allow is a preacher behind a bible.

Eric Hoffer, one of my favorites writes, “Whenever we find a dispensation enduring beyond its span of competence, there is either an entire absence of an educated class, or an intimate relationship between those in power and the men of words (the preachers).

I’d say we have both. If you want to see what your own natural beliefs are before the preachers get to you, watch 2 young children play together before indoctrination.

Making Neural Con ections

Missing part of the story is what we do as humans. No worries, we can fill in the __________ fairly easily with our imaginations. Even with ideas a bit more complex, a normal person will assume conclusions. In writing, drawing conclusions for your audience is un-engaging. For maximum _________, its best to leave some gaps in the story, even implied gaps.

Leaving blank spaces that have multiple possibilities is even more effective, stimulating the most possible conjecture. Intensional gapping works best with religious faith. Its ability to generate the highest levels of presupposition is unmatched by any other topic. Whenever an author can get the audience to fill in the blanks for him, the missing information can stir a life of circuitous inquiry—prime spawning ground for deeper religious conviction and faith. The more holes the better. Even more effective is multiple versions with varying gaps (the gospels) where differing audiences can fill the holes masterfully as inspiration the imagination allows.

While there are many holes, some have been philosophically filled with more ambiguity. The ecumenical councils are heralded as founding precepts of faith, while all along the first meeting took place to ultimately define the nature of god. Why? They didn’t know. Adding a word at will is also a neat trick. Take the word Filioque,(1) for example. Initially rejected after the first ecumenical council, then 700 years later the Catholic Church adopted it as truth. The council at nicea was also set nearly 400 years after the supposed Christ. Think about that! Can you tell me something accurate about a little known family member from the 1600’s, what he specifically said, his deeds, headcounts at sermons, and his travels? No! So you make it up and call it god. And to really make it convincing, the record must be gathered from sources that never personally knew the individual. Masterful!

(1) Filioque is a term that creatively determined that the Holy Spirit not only came from the father, but also the son. It was a neat add-on that immediately divided the western churches and eastern churches. It was a masterful stroke injecting immediate conjecture that keeps the churches debating the nature of a fictional character—God. Will humanity ever learn we’ve constructed that too?

Thanks for the meme JZ

Psychology of Belief vs Psychosis and Belief

“The art of being Christian is knowing what to overlook”―Jim

Internet apologists and the pastor have made a leap into the chasm few can crawl out of. I’ve got my ear to the edge, listening for the landing. Instead of enlightened prose filled with answered questions, what do we hear? A word machine that no longer functions to serve the needs of half filled halls, a babbling scramble to philosophize imagination into sensible reality, chambers echoing contradiction in the face of fact. What I’ve learned the past few days is, to say the least, boring but under par from what we’ve come to expect. Science cannot comprehend what Mel learned in bible study. DP’s final cause justifies the means, and if gods people have to use irrationality to further the cause, so be it. And finally, creationist claims to show how the world was made is not making scientific claim.

Does he have any explanation that makes any sense unless he wants it to make sense.. he is by far the biggest, willful contradiction of late. I don’t see how, with a straight face can claim science (a massive, connected group of intellectual researchers, many who are Christian) and a person such as himself cannot see the same things when applying the same questions? We cannot see what you see? Can we see ego? Should I call a MHP?

“The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook”—William James

“How does the clinician distinguish normal, culturally appropriate religious beliefs from psychotic symptoms? Unfortunately, it is not always so easy. A delusion is defined as a fixed, false belief that the person cannot be dissuaded from no matter how much evidence to the contrary. The atheist may readily believe that the religious person suffers from a fixed, false belief, so this depends to some extent on the worldview of the person judging the particular belief. Likewise, deeply religious non-psychotic persons may talk about hearing the voice of God or experiencing a religious vision, such as occurred in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Hercegovina. However, as noted earlier, religious delusions occur in persons with psychosis more than one-quarter to one-third of the time, and may be used to determine whether or not a psychosis is present. Thus, distinguishing religious beliefs and experiences from those that are psychotic becomes an urgent dilemma for the clinician”(1)I should caveat here and add; I think many things are possible among our connectedness as a species. That doesn’t make it automatically god, but an intuition or receptive gene that can play to our benefit. Overdoing it can lead you to an unholy land. Jerusalem Squabble Poison.

Where is your Evidence for no God

This is the type of question designed to deflect responsibility to explain a claim something exist one has no proof for.

I stated — “Atheism is a lack of belief. ”

His response — True, but you stated that you believe something. you stated: “the reality that there is no god”. Where is your evidence of no God?

What answer will suffice to demonstrate to a believer that the “evidences” that claim for a god are strictly emotions and feelings or spectral evidences that are not valid for proof in any setting—but religion? The mere fact that he has to use that particular question, is evidence there is no gods out yonder in the heavens that tinkers in the lives of humans.

Ben-Life after religion is a fantastic and thoughtful blog. If you haven’t stumbled into it yet, take a look.

Ultimate in Pious Bitterosity

The ultimate quest for many in the faith is appearance. Many have someone close to them that continues to use their faith in jesus, communion, music, and tv selections as a complete cover of the real them. Filled with demons of their own, strict determination of religious discipline will insure the spawn don’t turn out as horrible as you. This has been brewing for decades, and as Latinagem was forced to square off with the problem at hand, her pen came alive as a therapeutic release. Feel the feel, if you will in five spontaneous versus. Try to see the humor if you can. All I can do is laugh any more, but hypereligiosity in parenting is a style to cover your own rotten core and fear.

Pinch Faced Lady of Mercy

Praise and Misery

Hush Little Child

Declaration of and Orphan

Ode to the Clueless

Now you know why it’s good to keep peace with Latinas!!

Born Atheist, Raised Google Scholar

Wouldn’t that be an interesting way to start life? Resisting the herd is still a bit unnatural as a human. Our species is evolving away from the herds, but for now the majority stay in the current and follow the flow. Most of us (not all) were raised in religion and had to paddle our way upstream to take rest in a secluded inlet, shaded in the trees and out of view. Courage mounded alone in thought and after a little respite from religion we found clarity. Now, sitting in the comfort of our own spaces we watch the current carry the masses in a never ending flow that ends adrift in oceans of contradictions. But that’s all you knew so you defend it. After years and more of aimless bobs and sways, going nowhere, you realize that the bandwagon argument is the best case for religion. Everyone else can’t be wrong, can they? Alone as it should be, you are able to take courage—Alone. Outside the never ending wheel of explanations is where you find yourself. Alone is where you come to realize that yes, everyone else can be wrong, and for the first time in your life you become yourself. The walls that divide crumble down and we finally become us. The religion that promised everything delivered nothing. “Studies have shown that we’re prone to copying the body language of a person we’re speaking with, and some studies have concluded we experience the same emotions as the people around us”. Resist the herd! Here are some good and simple tips.

Find yourself, by yourself

Modern Religion

To sum up what we’ve inherited—we have a machine we never asked for and have no idea who made it. We’ve never seen it actually do anything productive but curiously have no courage to turn it off. We see no actual usefulness for it, but are convinced forced to live with it at every turn in our life using up precious energy and thoughts. Attempts to disengage the machine are met with raised eyebrows, skepticism, and accusations of evil while those dependent on its psychological hold can’t seem to live without the constant hum of what they won’t believe they can’t live without. The machine has no actual usefulness. Its constant whir numbs the beauty of life with useless tinnitus and distraction, blocking human potential as waves of tv white-noise and cooling fans of the purposeless motor soothe the soul like a dripping faucet they are just to lazy to turn off.

Under careful examination decisions are made. Do I clip the red wire, or the white wire, or just live on hearing it do nothing but interfere with ones clarity. The best I can do is distance myself from the blast zone and hope it runs out of fuel.

Some Insight to Onslaught Blinders

You know how you know something and just don’t know what to call it? Thank you NeptunesDolphins for the insight and tip. “It is called spiritual bypassing, a concept from the 1970s, when several social scientists noticed people were getting in and out of Buddhism. They noticed people were looking for that spiritual high but were taking the cafeteria approach so they didn’t have to bother with the hard stuff. Such as actually dealing with the religion warts and all”.

How is it believers can just dismiss the warts of religion like they don’t exist? From Psychology Today—Spiritual bypass is a defense mechanism. Although the defense looks a lot prettier than other defenses, it serves the same purpose. Spiritual bypass shields us from the truth, it disconnects us from our feelings, and helps us avoid the big picture. It is more about checking out than checking in—and the difference is so subtle that we usually don’t even know we are doing it.

Psychological Fact; Casting Away Your Burdens Works

“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭55:22‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Several years ago after a painful divorce I was going through a very rough time. It was bleeding over into my work and my trouble coping had reached a point I didn’t know what to do. I went to see a psychologist. He was a family therapist and had a good reputation. The very first visit, he had me write down all my problems on paper. He told me I have only one hour a day to deal with it in an efficient manner. the rest of the time was off limits. Then, after my time was up I was instructed burn the paper. Then, as issues arose, I could write them down the next day on a fresh piece of paper so I wouldn’t forget, then deal with them again in the next allotted hour.

I only had to do it once. This ceremonial and symbolic gesture is a way of releasing your burdens, and sending them away, back into the universe or wherever they go, or essentially destroying them from your psyche.

Enter the church. The churches play on your human psychology to cause a release of burden and troubles that can be accomplished easily in a routine therapy session, or even on your own if you know the technique. First, be convinced you are worthless and filled with sin.

1. Confess all your sins or troubles

2. Write them down (during the scrutinies)

3. Shift away the burden in a symbolic gesture or absolution. Allowing “Christ” or the priest to take away your troubles.

In the Bible the same principle applies using a scapegoat, in which an animal is ritually burdened with the sins of others is then driven away. The concept first appears in Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert to carry away the sins of the community.

When you do this inside of a church doctrine, in a counselors office, or privately at home, the troubles you are facing leave you feeling freedom from what ails you. It simply works.

It is the same reason I burned all my religious items and books when I left the faith. I walked away and never had an ounce of remorse about the decision one time. -No lamenting needed. When someone feels the burdens lifted in a ceremonial confession, it is not a god that is relieving you! It is you, ridding yourself of unwanted trouble and walking away. Nothing more. In the Catholic Church, priests have become overburdened with reconciliations turning into counseling sessions. For those that use it, it becomes addictive. Humans are fairly complex creatures. I am not sure about the psychology of how in the neurons this works exactly, but the churches have mastered it and use it every single day. Get it all out! Confess regularly, cast your burdens to the lord and it makes you feel good. Nothing has actually changed, but it is a mental correction that affects us in a positive way and people swear by it. In the LDS, confession is a regular occurrence in the bishops office, and that works as well.

Save yourself 10% and cut out the middle man. You got this!

Technology Updates

TCA Science Update 3-31-2018

Mental health experts in co-dependency and Nano-3D printing technology has inadvertently discovered through reverse engineering models of human brains, an isolated cerebral diencephalic, mini-cortex tissue they are calling “the gullible region”. Under intense magnification, scientists have found what appears to be a pointless bridge denoting a cross-configured, double conjectured loop where archaic information is stored and transferred, restricting adrenal output and limiting “fight or flight” capabilities during religious indoctrination. Using accelerated computer models to view time-lapse evolutionary advancement, it was noted in 35% of test subjects that, “thought processes contrary to adhered beliefs actually atrophies the bridge”, allowing the subject to think for himself and gain immediate discernment. As 3D nano printers advance, coupled with microwave synthesis, researchers are certain a co-dependency cure will be forthcoming, and will soon be as routine as a lasix procedure. “Crossing the blood- brain barrier is the next step in nano research”, as for now a small incision is required. “Think of it as an uncircumcision incision, that is much less invasive than the purported benefits”.

This article is sponsored in part, by Poe’s Law, reminding everybody to wink wink for Easter Fools