DISC: Drug-induced stream of consciousness.

Read Traherne.

God wants you to be happy.
God made the world for you to enjoy it.
As a Christian, you should take full advantage of life- you should not put yourself in a dark corner and think that you are living life just so you can die and go to heaven and finally be happy.
You just have to know the difference between the right and wrong kinds of happiness. Don’t find joy in sin but find joy in beauty. Know what I mean? But as a Christian- you should be constantly happy or constantly searching for happiness. If you’re not doing that, you are doing something wrong. You are living only to die. You are not fulfilling God’s will for you (felicity). I mean- he created the world for humanity. He created the world to revolve around and work for us. He WANTS you to recognize that and use that so you can glorify him. You are a ruling creature in creation- and God made it that way. He loves that you’re happy. He hates when you’re miserable. He get’s no pleasure in it whatsoever. That’s why you should find God again, because you are to love the world- even the man who does wicked deeds- you should love him because he is created in God’s image. That is reason enough to be in love with the world. Don’t forget it.

Your post hit home with me, and it accords very well with my own views about fundamentalist religion, my own experience in psychotherapy, and my work with my own patients.

I think that fundamentalist Christianity works, at least in part, by alienating individuals from part of their own private experience. In short, it labels some emotions, thoughts, and experiences as “bad” – think of Jesus’ teaching (in Matthew?) about lust or anger. To feel an emotion is to sin. Well, then, we all must be sinners, right?

And since no one can control their emotions and, mostly, we can’t really control (or suppress) our thoughts either, then we cant help but sin.

If we truly become convinced that these things are true – i.e., that negative emotion is indeed sinful – then how can we not need the cure that Christianity offers? In labeling a part of the self that cannot be expunged, “bad” and “sinful”, it creates a trap.

The solution, simply put (I think – and no I don’t think you’re being simplistic, I think youre dead on) is to learn to accept those parts of the self. Having “selfish” thoughts doesn’t make you bad. Feeling anger or lust or envy or greed or malice or whatever doesn’t make you bad either. I think many people find that once they accept those parts of themselves, they quit obsessing about them.

Have you ever come across a form of therapy called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)? I had some exposure to this as a resident but now Im reading the book about it by Steven Hayes. It accords very well with what we’re talking about, but – interestingly – it comes at this from a strict behavioral perspective! From complex arrangements of stimulus-response + language you can construct most human experience, according to this view, and language itself emerges as a culprit that drives much human misery. He says its very hard (or impossible) to not continually evaluate and judge our experience. The solution, according to Hayes, is (like you said) a re-focus on immediate experience without (or without attending to) all the evaluative statement s that always run through our minds.

So, anyway, I agree with you and I thank you for your post. Part of de-converting is learning to crawl out from under the crush of religiously-learned evaluations and judgments and simply accepting life on its own terms. I.e., saying Yes to life!

Richard

So, then how did I construct a therapy, or a personal philosophy in which a person “lived for themselves,” and NOT for god. As a good researcher, I looked at what organisms and entities did NOT commit suicide.

Highly socialized Primate sdo not commit suicide, and wolves do not commit suicide. Even nonsocialized animals such as tigers and leopards who are loners do not commit suicide. Why was that?

I think that such animals do not commit suicide, because they do not have a forebrain which allows them to live in a world of fantasy and imagination. Religion and beliefs are the stuff of fantasy and imagination. Therefore, nonHuman species do not have to function, and cannot function on that level…leaving them to get down to the business of surviving, breeding, enjoying a full belly, playing with their mates and babies. I’ve been to Africa and seen a pride of lions all with full bellies and they are very happy animals.

After reading Carl Sagan’s “Dragons of Eden” in which Sagan describes the evolution of the brain and finding out that we all have reptile brains, a mammalian brain, a primate brain, and finally a human cortex…I figured out that the trick to life is to get back to our more primitive brains in which we can enjoy life for what it is, in the moment, in that experience….and not be acculturated to “live for a reason.”

I know some people object to Ayn Rand’s objectivism, but that also helped me…in that Rand said, “live for yourself.” You are what’s important. That does not mean to be mean, hateful, selfish, a criminal, or some kind of psychopath who hurts other people. Just the opposite: In order to live a good life, one has to be mindful of the consequences of one’s actions toward themselves and others…meaning, that one is kind, because it feels good. One does not commit crimes, because being arrested and imprisoned does not feel good.

Therefore, in therapy with suicidal, but religious people, I had them envision what animal they would most like to be. I had them create an inner world in which they were an animal and enjoyed just living, and surviving. My choice was a wolf pack. At times when I became depressed, I imagined myself running with the pack in the moonlight, my paws crunching through a new snow…chasing and killing prey. The thrill of the hunt was exillerating. Thus, I became grounded and in touch with my animal brain…leaving the parts of my brain that dealt with religious fantasies, guilt, and shame all created by culture to control human beings…out of the loop.

It worked for me and many of my patients. I could actually see my patients become more grounded, more “solid”…and more in touch with “life” and not the fantasy world of religious guilt, shame, and depression.

There are some offshoots of this kind of therapy, such as “primal and scream therapy, and rebirthing techniques” but I don’t think that really touches the subject on a neurological level, in that we continue to have the “other brains” …still resident underneath the “human brain,”…which is immediately accessable.

I’ve since looked at many movies in which there is always a story of survival and beating the odds, and defeating evil forces, and so on. Meaning, that I think that many people watch such movies in order to get in touch with their animal brains. The problem is that there is not an official link up between getting in touch with our animal brain and enjoying the moment….and mental health.

Nietsche was right….however, his quest and concern for the “meaning of life” indicates how much he was seriously abused and indoctrinated by religion before he became an atheist to the point that the “meaning of life” became a life long quest outside of religion.

I find the “meaning of life” simple…just live and enjoy yourself. If you are not enjoying yourself, then something is wrong…and its your job to fix it.

The first thing a person has to fix…is to become aware of and remove all religious, utoptian, unrealistic, un natural, bizarre, nonconsequential, and magical thoughts and beliefs out of one’s personality. In that vein, Ayn Rand was right.

Life is a fun, its interesting, it can be planned and controlled…if one is cognizant of how to “think,” as opposed to “believing” that god or some lottery ticket, or a loved one, is going to change one’s life.

Having a good life, and enjoying one’s self, in just being alive and in the moment is also about self confidence. Unfortunately, religion brainwashes people into being unhappy. Babires are most often “born happy,” and it is both religion and culture that brainwashes children and adults into NOT being happy.

Too many religions I found in my work…teach, that you are NOT a good person, unless you suffer. After all, jesus suffered and died for you, so you too must suffer and sacrifice yourself to be a good person. What total poppycock.

Am I being too simplistic?

DeeVee