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Member (Idle past 5834 days) Posts: 772 From: Bartlett, IL, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: When is a belief system a Mental Disorder? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
robinrohan Inactive Member |
The patient goes on to say that that the world is only 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs never existed. He brazenly rejects modern science's observations and conclusions, and subscribes to the notion that after death he will live in eternal bliss in some alternate dimension. And throughout your meeting, he keeps handing you his book and urging you to join him, lest you end up after death in a far less desirable alternate dimension than him. Think of the alternative--what sort of world one is faced with if one accepts evolution--and that sort of religious view seems emotionally understandable at least, whereas a mother killing her children because a voice told her to is not emotionally understandable.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
The kind that makes sense? The kind that's meaningless, short, and brutal.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
What do those three descriptors have to do with the change in allele frequencies in populations over time? Plenty. Those changes in "allele frequencies," as you put it so innocuously, mean that we are accidents of a mindless universe. This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-17-2006 02:41 PM
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
My life is not meaningless Strictly speaking, it is.
My life has not been brutal Give it time.
I guess that kills that idea. Not at all. But to get back on topic, I think we can make a distinction between those theories or actions which seem to us fanciful but are emotionally understandable and those which are not emotionally understandable. Those which are emotionally understandable, I suggest, could not be called "mental disorders."
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Do you belileve that it is better to deny reality if that said reality is emotionally unpleasant? Most certainly not. That would be dishonorable.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
What does the above have to do, neccessarily, with "meaningless, short, and brutal" lives? I think you would agree that your life will last maybe 90 years or so at the best, even with your great health habits? That's short. I often think, Schraf, that one should have two lives. I've spent all these years learning how to live, wasting my time. It seems a shame that I should not have another, in which to apply the lesson. I think you would agree that life has no purpose other than subjective ones? That means your life is meaningless, objectively speaking. As far as the brutal part, you've probably already experienced some of it. More to come. It's the blight man (and woman) was born for. This is all due to the accidental nature of us. This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-17-2006 04:13 PM This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-17-2006 04:23 PM
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Please lay out the logical progression for me that starts with "accidental" and leads to "brutal, short, and meaningless". We are products of a mindless universe. We have no purpose. We just happen to be here. We can think up purposes of our own, but of course this is something we just make up. No purpose is any better than any other purpose--because we make it up. We live for awhile and then we cease to exist. We are of no more importance than the wind that blows across the Texas plains. During this time we struggle trying to figure out what we should do, how we should live. We never figure it out. The reason is there is no answer to that question. It doesn't matter what we do or how we live. A hundred years from now it's all the same. We are of no more significance than a roach crawling across the floor. You say this is "subjective." I say it's very objective.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
but it just seems to me that if you can get that far to the truth, it's extra sad to stop there. What do you suggest? I've often featured myself as a monk.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Pick a fiery preacher. If he was intelligent . . . not sentimental . . .
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Then pick a Buddhist monastery with a traditionalist abbot, Robin. Do they allow drinking and smoking? Otherwise, forget it. Also, I want to do intellectual stuff, like studying old texts. I don't want to go out and do charity work. Any openings available for someone who wants to study texts and write up tedious tracts?
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
I tend to use the New King James Bible the most, I'm a conservative. I go with the original. It's the best.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
I don't know much about the different versions. The one I've got says on the title page, "translated out of the original tongues and with former translations diligently compared and revised by his majesty's special command."
Then it says, "authorized King James version."
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
But I think what you really need to do for a perfect fit is start your own cult. Ought to be a piece of cake for anyone who has weathered undergrads, department meetings, and me. Yeah, what I really want is to have some more time to myself--to pursue my hobbies (reading, writing, etc.). That's why the monkish life is attractive to me. I don't need any more parties. It seems like the older I get, the more duties I have. One of these days it'll be too late . . .
and me. You got that right. They must have been desperate to make you an Admin. with your wild irresponsible attitude. One of these nights you're going to get drunk and come on here and suspend ever single poster on general principles--essentially shut the place down. In fact, I think you should do that. It would be very amusing.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
He'd have to explain further I suppose, but the impression I get is that although one could have fulfilled all kinds of subjective purposes in one's life just fine, he's alert to the overarching fact that there is no ultimate objective purpose to any of it, and this is what leads him to the judgment that it's all a waste no matter how successful he may have been with the subjective purposes. Objectively speaking, of course, I've not wasted my life, since there was nothing of significance that could have been wasted. My whole argument is objective except for that one part about wishing I had a second life in which to apply the lessons I learned in the first. Perhaps there are people out there who have no regrets about anything they have ever done or left undone. Every decision they ever made was exactly right. I don't know any such people, but I do know people who live sentimentally, who color over their past subjectively to make it look just fine, thank you. I also know a few people who have no regrets because their sensibilities are so dull that they are incapable of sincere regret. The truly sentimental attitude is one in which the subjective purpose that one devises is taken as objective, and one conveniently forgets the true nature of the human condition. This perhaps--to get back on topic--is a "mental disorder."
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Because you can't derive meaning in life from X, you assume that X excludes the possibility of meaning in life. Think in terms of "formal purpose." The formal purpose of something is that which it was intended for by its maker. The formal purpose of a hammer is to drive nails. You can use it for other purposes, too, such as knocking somebody in the head, but that would not be its formal purpose. Humans have no formal purpose. We were not made for anything because we mere made by mindless nature with no purpose in mind. Hence we are in a formal sense useless. All purposes we come up with are necessarily subjective. They mean something to us but objectively speaking they are meaningless. ABE: Therefore, someone who takes their subjective purpose to be objective might be said to have a mental disorder. This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-19-2006 11:18 AM
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