The blurry line between religious and crazy

He might discover something the angels were trying to keep for themselves. You get all my thoughts so far on this thread, ringo, because your post was the first to move me to reply. Only the fool rushing in part above is especially for you.If someone is taught to pray (meditate/reflect), and to interpret the reply (conclusion/result) as a communication from God...well, that's not crazy, that's just a common experience conditioned by religious instruction and practice.But if a woman on the way to work experiences a blast of trumpets, sees a fiery nimbus erupt from the mountains, and an earth-shattering roar demands an action she never considered and would have previously rejected...I'd probably be concerned about letting her babysit my granddaughter.Passionate religious expression, like sexual obsession, is often associated with madness because religious belief and sex are "high energy" states for most people; unsurprisingly, they are some of the most florid and thus most noticed foci of mental illness symptoms.It's tempting to ascribe many "crazy" offenses (terrorism, genocide, etc.) to religion, especially from the perspective of one culture looking at another. But usually, I think, the essential ingredient is otherness, and that can be racial, ethnic, political or national quite as readily as religious.Doesn't it seem like madness to wish or attempt the deaths of millions of people? You'd think so, but history suggests it may simply be a human behavior available to most of us, which is more frightening than the poor schizophrenic who panics and slashes someone with a kitchen knife.

My personal favorite: "This is gonna sting a little."Second place, from a surgeon about to clean out an abscessed leg injury (using "GI anesthetic"--two orderlies holding my leg down):"Soldier, this will be extremely unpleasant for both of us."He was at least half right.