I’ve known some serious Baptists (some of my family members). They attend church every Sunday, even when they were sick, and do their typical churchly things and whatnot…
However, my grandfather (who is also Baptist) seems to be really dependant on this religion to the point where it’s harming him. Here are some things I noticed:
He claims to feel very lost and hopeless without his bible. He takes it everywhere he goes. (And I do mean everywhere. It’s always by his side.) There’s nothing wrong with that, but when you become afraid to leave the house without your bible… Something’s wrong.
Despite having a tv and other community activities going on in his neighborhood, all he does is stay in the house with his radio tuned on the gospel / praise station and reads his bible in dim light. (He is disabled, but he can still walk outside if needed. However, he has told me several times that he does not wish to go out during the weekdays unless he’s really hungry or my mom picks him up. He says that he would rather stay at home and read his bible undisturbed.)
NOTE The thing about this is that I think that this isn’t doing him much good. He’s not getting any social interaction for days on end (unless my mom comes to pick him up, or when he goes to church with the rest of his family). He is also really dependant on my mother to do his daily chores (cleaning, washing clothes, helping him pay bills, send off mail, etc) because he doesn’t want to budge from his bible. He’s not old, either. He’s only 53 years old.
He thinks that because he’s Baptist and has been going to church, his neighbors in the same apartment complex are trying to control his mind so Satan could get to him. My grandfather has claimed that a guy living upstairs from him was trying to seduce him and control his mind with a machine just because he always had the bible by his side. He also called the police on a woman next door from him because he thought she was “putting that Voodoo Satan stuff” on his soul, causing him to do bad things when his bible isn’t near.
Well, there’s also the factor that he’s on drugs. (Is currently on Methadone, smokes weed, has done cocaine at one point in time, smokes cigs, abuses over-the-counter drugs…) But I’m not sure if that has anything to do with it, really.
But that aside… Is it possible for someone to become so dependant on religion like a horrible drug type thing?
I think about this quite a lot. The symptoms you describe almost seem to me to be a kind of mild psychosis - though I would say that it is not so much the ‘religion’, per se, but the way in which it is utilized, i.e. the ‘needs’ it is used to satisfy, which is the culprit. So whilst it might be true that certain religions are coextensive with certain psychological tendencies, I would still tend to trace the root cause back to the larger social framework. Other than this I remain, for the most, perplexed.
We could name a few live raners here on this site who’d fit that circumstance perfectly well.
This is why basically I like this post very much: for you have taken the Nietzschean analysis from theoreticality to practicality - you’ve got the hard evidence, of what Christianity does, of its psychological trick, of its brainwashing effect, and hence, of its deservation to be damned to hell. Nietzsche’s got us covered on the whys and hows, our task is to carry out the divine murder, rather than ruminating over what the genius already did.
The issue is not about wether to carry out another man’s will, because his will can be encompassed by your own. The issue is wether to carry out the will of Christ or that of Nietzsche. To recognise a god is to empower, as to live in a god’s kingdom is to create. Nietzsche is dead, but you are still alive. If you can manage to take the Nietzsche course and walk the scourge upon and allover earth, then be blessed are you my bother! You’ve got gold and made it shine like the sun. You have practised a dear vision into actuality. You are the king of the new world. Christ is already sucked try and his kingdom and thousand year empire is toppling over from head to toe. Upon the nihilistic rabble, my brother, you and me have an immense destiny to fulfill. We mucst howeve, equipt ourselves first, sharpen our swords and strengthen our shields for bloodshed with the herds and the monks. We must walk the ubermensch way as the rudiment. Untill then, no matter how much frustrated fights that you engage with society and life, you are still warring civilly - you are still part of the herd. Don’t spare yourself as don’t spare others, triump ver yourself and rise above others in the complete fashion. Only then, shall you come down under and bring all your creative lights to seduce and envelop herdish earth.
It is a very sad situation, and i feal sorry for him,
i love him and wish that i could help him see the truth…
But at the same time i laughed cause its funny!
Man, he is so messed! Poor guy! he is loaded with fear and superstition!
…arg… but what can i do? i cant help him, realy!..
oh well, i hope he does ok anyways…
(and yes it can be a horrable drug, id know, i was there!)
Breaking an addiction is like breaking iron.
All of you, if any of you are addicted then i feal for you, my freinds.
When i broke my own imaginary God,
the character that was fed since birth, that i though i knew…
I (far later) realized that fear of death had alot to do with it…
It wanted to kill me because i fought it.
I said i would put life above sin, i disrespected it and swore at it for hours.
It was maddness and false-rightiousness… a demonic lie it was,
though a figmint of human mind…
One of the worst traumas of my whole life was breaking free of my religious over-estimations within me… it took many days for meditation…
days and days.
The ultimet truth needs curage to find, because to find the solutions to our porblems we must first face them and not fear them.
There is much fear and insanity in religion.
I will not let myself be sad for the religious people all around me that i personaly know, because it will do no good.
and what is “Pinchoism”?
i cannot find it in my dictionaries.
I believe a person can become addicted to religion. From the point of view of Plato’s cave being discussed on this board, the essence of religion or its purpose is to allow a person to become open to the conscious experience of a higher more objective reality outside the cave.
Naturally though, the essence of religion becomes distorted and gradually adapted to support and justify the imaginations and fears that promote cave life. One result of this is addiction to religion because in these circumstances its energies are being adapted and unconsciously prostituted to support fear and imagination through escapism. This unfortunately strengthens the hold of cave life. A truly sad situation.
an addiction is something that as soon as you come down from whatever you were on you immediately feel the psychological or physical need for more.
Why is addiction a problem?
Society deems addiction a problem because it can’t stand it’s citizen’s feeling good… unless it’s a legalized substance, (religion, tobacco, alcohol, caffiene)
So, an addiction is just someone trying to feel good, why do the crack heads do violent/non-violent crimes against others to get more crack?
Because crack is illegal and very expensive. because by making it illegal the various gangs around the world haven taken control over it.
you think that the lesson would’ve been learned when the US tried to make Alcohol illegal.
Do you think people would join religions if it didn’t fill part of their life? It’s the same reason someone starts any kind of drug that makes them feel good. They are filling what they consider to be a gap in their life. We all have gaps and we all use various means to fill them.
I’ll buy scythekain’s definition. In some ways, religion IS an addiction. Anything that is an answer outside of ourselves (bible, bottle, envelope) can be an addiction.
All I would add is a question: is the understanding/action running away from or running to living?
Afterthought: How many would like to shut down their computers for a solid week? Wanna talk about addiction?
I think that when you seek answers outside of yourself you do so because you need a crutch. The common argument against not using a biblical form of morality is that people would do nothing but evil deeds towards one another.
This type of thinking IMO is only dangerous when they are mixed with those practicing humanist morality. The act of helping others not for a better seat in heaven, but simply because it’s the right thing to do.
Religion is a tool by which people can follow a set lifestyle, it is often vital for those who lack the moral backbone to live ‘properly’ without the carrot/stick persuasions of their particular religion.
Unsuprisingly this breeds a dependance for many people, not helped by the fact that religion attracts a certain kind of nutter. So yes, religion can be addictive, or at least bring about the behavior of an addict; imagine genuinely believing that you must be a ‘good’ or suffer a eternity of torment (or be reincarnated as a lower being etc…)
