Oh, wait — I got the headline backwards. The real story is that a mentally disturbed, fanatical Christian/creationist and misogynist, went nuts, killed a young woman on a community college campus, and then killed himself. It’s a tragedy, but not at all exceptional, I’m afraid — the man was delusional and depressed, apparently frustrated that women weren’t obedient to him, and he decided to erupt into hateful violence.
The disturbing twist this time, though, is that the killer was a youtuber — and a big fan of VenomFangX, the infamously vapid creationist. You can see some of his pre-suicidal rants preserved for posterity, and they will make you wonder why he wasn’t getting psychiatric help. And yes, the lunatic does literally accuse atheists of being non-human and evil, but that doesn’t seem to have been the trigger for his break from reality…that seems to have stemmed more from his proprietary feelings towards women.
Damn. I’ve laughed at that guy’s videos a few times. So not only was he a raging idiot he was obviously mentally disturbed.
Too bad no one got to him before the tragedy. Maybe they assumed he was just a little off because of this religious fervor.
Here in California folks are still befuddled by the discovery that the prime suspect in a little girl’s murder is a woman who taught Sunday school. One commenter on the radio said “She can’t have been a real Christian.” That’s convenient. [Link]
I feel horrible for that poor young woman and her family.
Sad for all involved. If only he’d gotten actual, beneficial help instead of worthless religious ‘help’ it might have been avoided.
Wow, PZ, you had me worried with the headline. Glad you corrected that mistake.
This really is a tragedy, though. As tempting as it sometimes is to look at this and point out the obvious religious connection, I won’t. This is very disheartening.
Not the first time. Happened at my undergrad U.
Someone randomly attacked a few women students at night.
Then a girl was knifed to death.
The murderer was a fundie death cult kid, homeschooled. He wasn’t psychotic but had some weird issues about women and sex. Can’t say he worked them out very intelligently.
Although mental illness can happen to anyone, and murder-suicides are not the exclusive preserve of any particular belief-system (or lack thereof), imagine how this would be presented if PZ’s headline were true?
While countless Christians are undoubtedly muttering to their ceilings, all I can do is feel awfully sorry for the families, particularly of the young woman who was murdered.
Yup, just another religious fanatic – the Christian variety instead of the Wahhabist / Taliban variety – whose twisted religion objectivizes women and requires them to be obedient. Religion poisons everything.
This is just horrible. That poor young woman. :(
Don’t forget Matthew Murray (if I got the name right) in Colorado.
The all time lead so far is Cho Seung, the fundie Korean who took 33 lives at Virginia Tech.
I don’t think there’s any truth to the claim that she was his girlfriend. (A claim made on the page PZ linked to).
Her YouTube channel is here:
http://www.youtube.com/AsiaMcGowan
She seems she was a perfectly sane, well-adjusted (and attractive) young woman. It’s unlikely that she would have anything to do with Tony. (Who I’ve been watching for quite a while, and who was quite obviously seriously disturbed.)
More likely he was a distant admirer who got rejected and then took it out on her.
He was so full of hatred that I cannot begin to pity him.
Obviously, the girl’s story is tragic.
I think in this young man’s case religion may have been an enabling factor, an excuse for not getting the help he needed and not taking the medication that controlled his emotional problems. He certainly appeared to be unhinged in his videos and now we know he was in his real life. It’s a grim revelation.
Chistards are control freaks.
Now watch a Creationist link to this page and claim: “Look! Atheists are evil and murder people!”.
Think: When has a Creationist ever gotten farther than a few words in something written by an evil evilutionist? It’s bound to happen.
this is fucking tragic.
another problem with religion: it mimics/masks psychopathy so well that it’s impossible to tell which one of them needs psychiatric help and then actually give it to them (and this in addition to the ginormous holes in the mental health system), and which ones are just you garden variety fucktards that are nasty but generally not deadly.
@Zeno #2,
Look for the Sunday school teacher’s grandfather (pastor of the church) to be involved in the little girl’s murder. Just a hunch.
Both incidents very sad.
I feel terrible for the young woman and her family; no one deserves to be put through this kind of pain.
As for that misogynistic, delusional, selfish asshole who pulled the trigger; call me callous, but good fucking riddance. The world is a better place without him.
I went to the OKC bombing memorial last year. What I came away with, was how sad it is that the human mind can get so messed up, as to do something like that.
I swear to fucking god if any of you pull shit like this… Depression is not voodoo. Its a treatable medical condition, just like diabetes or lupus or whatever. If you ever have thoughts like Anthonys, you need to get help, just like if you were passing out from insulin comas.
Any scientifically minded individual would.
That poor girls family… Dammit…
Oh, shit.
I’d also seen this guy’s videos before. He was pretty hateful towards the godless.
But it doesn’t seem like religion was the (main) cause of any of this, guys, and some of you seem to be unusually harsh… religion may have been somewhat comforting to him, but more as a reaction /to/ the problem than the cause of it.
I’m schizoaffective. If I get sick, I become irrational– never mind the fact that I am your typical, skeptical atheist when I’m on my meds. If I miss medication for a few days, there’s this voice that tells me I have powers and that I’m meant to do something very important that will eventually be revealed to me. Plus “they (I don’t really know who)” are trying to squander my efforts.
Don’t be so quick to blame religion as the sole cause– I know all my beliefs and thinking abilities go right out the window when I’m ill.
Religion is not the cause of such an illness, but it can be a symptom. I don’t have to list all the documented cases here, they’re easy to find, and there’s a startling amount of them.
What religion – and some groups specifically – can be blamed for is welcoming mentally disturbed people into their fold and giving them an illusion of being helpful while not actually doing anything at all. Religious fervor – as any extreme ideology as well – can obfuscate the real issues someone needs help with, and can channel the extreme emotions into very dangerous ideas and manifestly lethal action.
the point is that religion masked whatever mental disease he had so that he didn’t get helped. when you’re part of a severely disfunctional section of society, how do you tell which members are sane and whih aren’t?
within a sane society, mental diseases become apparent a lot quicker (and aren’t protected as “religious expression” until it’s too late), and therefore can be diagnosed and treated. of course this doesn’t work 100% either, but it works a hell of a lot better than within the fundie community, especially since they don’t even believe in meds for mental diseases.
another problem with religion: it mimics/masks psychopathy so well that it’s impossible to tell which one of them needs psychiatric help and then actually give it to them (and this in addition to the ginormous holes in the mental health system), and which ones are just you garden variety fucktards that are nasty but generally not deadly.
you are absolutely right with this point. It is so hard to tell which person needs medical psychiatric help when both people say god has been talking to them.
Mariana #21,
thanks for your comment. My wife is similarly afflicted (more on the paranoid side). It’s true, it’s like living with different persons (not by name or actual disorder) sometimes. When an exacerbation occurs, the person will sometimes even deny there’s anything wrong.
@JadeHawk:
Yes, I agree. That was what I was trying to say when I said “religion may have been somewhat comforting to him, but more as a reaction /to/ the problem than the cause of it,” but maybe I should have been a bit clearer. Sorry for any confusion.
Yeah, Zeno@13 said it nicely as well.
Again, sorry for any ambiguity. I’ll try and be more articulate next time.
He could have upstaged Heath Ledger for the joker. Mental illness meets 1st century fantasy. Nice.
Why do these wackos bent on mayhem just do themselves in without attacking innocent victims? It is not only mental derangement involved here but just plain evil and the wish to do harm to others, the latter seeming to get lost in the evaluation. If a nutjob goes off his rocker, why doesn’t he think he’s superman and jump off a skyscraper to see if he can fly? Why doesn’t manifest itself in that manner? His mental illness is his own; his desire to take another with him is just an opportunity for killing. Religion is just another excuse for killing the supposedly ungodly with the wish that his god told him to do it.
It is true that this guy was both crazy and into crazy religion. How much one or the other contributed is hard to assess from a distance.
That isn’t quite the point here. If he was an atheist, the fundies would be bringing it up every five minutes for the next century. “See, atheists kill young women all the time.”
Turnabout is fair play. It is more pointing out the flaws in their reasoning and ideology. Although since they don’t reason and aren’t interested in the truth, mostly it just shuts them up temporarily. Notice the usual god bots aren’t around right now?
The first time i saw a VenomFangX video, I swore it was a POE because it was so over the top. I learned quickly.
I don’t know; it sounds to me that he was just following his faith. All us “wimmin-folks” are supposed to sit down in the back of the bus, shut up and sexually service the Men Who Are, After All, the Image of God!!! (pat.pend.) Oh, yeah! And remember than everything bad in the world is all our fault because of the whole Garden of Eden thing. Jesus Haploid Christ! Why so many of my fellow women believe this shite is just beyond me. Why people like Anthony Powell or VenomFangX do isn’t so secret–nothing like feeling like you’ve got power when you’re a powerless jerk-off. Being mentally unstable is just the cherry on the cow-pat of religion sundae.
There have been a few comments about the possibility that religion masks mental/emotional disorders. That puts me in mind of the recent case of year-old child who was starved to death because he wouldn’t say “amen” after meals. The psychiatrists quoted in that case made note of the difficulty in discriminating between the religious beliefs and delusional psychosis. In the end the mother made a plea deal that the prosecution formally agreed would be abrogated if the child was resurrected!
The news has almost gone out of Google News’ purview — that’s the only story I could find surviving. A quote:
Yup. Mentally competent. Sure enough.
Honestly, I saw nothing wrong with the actual headline PZ used. Of course atheists can do awful stuff like this. I fully expected an example of an atheist doing something irrational. Because, well, I know there’s nothing magical about being an atheist that means one is invulnerable from doing awful things.
But having read the actual story, all I can say is that this infuriates me. How many times do we need to see people with real, physical problems that have been failed by imaginary metaphysical solutions? How many people will spurn medical solutions to real problems in favor of magic words said to metaphysical constructs before we as a society learn from the tragedies?
When the World Trade Center went down (forgive me, sooner or later there’ll be an equivalent of Godwin’s law relating to 9/11) we responded. It’s arguable whether our actions had an effect, but at least we tried to respond. Some efforts were made to tighten up airport security. People did realize that the appropriate response to such a tragedy was to try to prevent it from happening again.
Stuff like THIS happens, though, and the response is to treat religion as the elephant in the room. Boy, it sure is a tragedy.. if only there was SOMETHING we could do to reduce the chances of such a thing happening again.. if only we had some idea why these things happened.. oh, and you lot out there praying over the deaths, go right ahead, at least we have religion to comfort us in this time of tragedy, if only you had appropriate magic words to stop these things from happening in the first place.
The brain IS a chemical computer. I don’t care how fundamental your belief is, the sum of medical experience tells us that our brain is controlled through chemistry. If your freaking POOL had an imbalance, you’d correct it. You wouldn’t pray to a god to clear the algae from your pool. The human brain isn’t an exception just because it’s too complex for you to understand!
Mariana Lynch @21, I do heed your point. The mentally ill individual is not held responsible for his or her actions. I get that. I don’t know about this specific example, but take the Virginia Tech example. The guy had parents who knew something was wrong. Unless we live as isolated hermits there are others who notice something is wrong. A non theologically blinded parent can take positive, corrective action. A friend can urge the individual to seek help. But in these stories we see people who know something is wrong but choose to rely on magic words to invisible entities.
I accept that there’s often no easy answer for the mentally ill individual. I understand that the medication path is often fraught with difficulty as well. But religion teaches that doing (effectively) nothing is better than taking action, and if your inaction leads to further tragedy you must never question your lack of action. Because of the long religious legacy of rationalizing away ANY response as being proof that you’re right, no corrective action is taken. The belief is maintained right up until, and indeed after, death. I mean for the others who felt that inaction was the proper course. Their religion teaches them that their actions can’t have been at fault, indeed they must not have taken ENOUGH inaction.
And I’m not joking in the slightest when I say that it’s only a matter of time before this is blamed on evolution, or lack of theological belief, or whatever. Someone talks endlessly about religion and then commits an irrational act? It must be modern culture to blame! Modern SECULAR culture!
Oh, and on responsibility, as Nomad has mentioned, this from a professor of law in the child starvation case:
Being a fanatical religious believer and starving a child on that account is legal sanity, but hearing the voice of God is psychotic. That’s a distinction I’m having real trouble processing.
black_wolf@25:
Yeah, it can be really embarrassing. My parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses and they only recently found out about my atheism; JWs are very close to being fundies, but have some odd doctrinal differences that make other Christians consider them a cult. They’re in a weird spot, to say the least.
Anyhow– me being delusional and rambling on about all kinds of nonsense doesn’t help me make my case about their beliefs being irrational. My parents do take the typical “atheism is dogma” and “gaps in the fossil record” type stances and embrace all the logical fallacies associated with them.
So me coming out and saying that I don’t believe in God seems sudden and ironic to them. I was a devout believer for years, but I pride myself on never being the kind of person to deny good evidence for something. I was so into my beliefs only because of the fact that I didn’t know anything about evolution or atheism or whatever.
But yes, my parents often make points that are irrelevant, misused or even downright misinformed– even though I can logically refute them, they don’t see that as a good explanation. You know, like “no one was there, how do you know the Big Bang happened?” or, one I first heard from my father’s friend, “Darwin only made one visit to the Galapagos, how can he be sure his theory was sound?”
Stuff like that presents an issue for anyone arguing with a Creationist, as they are unlikely to see your defenses as valid. But my dad throws in the extra part about my irrationality to undermine the truth of my statements (which he clearly regards as opinions, otherwise he couldn’t make that argument). It’s infuriating to have people dismiss all of your points– no matter how valid– on an illness. He takes the “how can anyone really know anything” standpoint and it pisses me off. Ugh.
At the very least, it’s reasonable to say that religion doesn’t seem to be protective against this type of disordered thinking or the crimes against humans that sometimes result, which is what many theists like to claim.
Of course they’re not; what do they have to add besides pious chiding (“Oh, look at you atheists trying to capitalise on this tragedy!”) or the No True Scotsman fallacy?
The dumber trolls will wait until this thread’s popularity dies down before they start botting, but they will come.
Anthony Powell, whatever his beliefs, was clearly both deluded and insane. I think it was a tragedy that this young man, whatever his views, killed another person and himself. He has harmed many people, including his own family, with this wrongful act. Though I am among the atheists that he hated and ridiculed, I truly hope his family and loved ones can move past this horrible incident.
Well, that didn’t short circuit the ol’ surprise-o-meter.
I do have to wonder when PZ started writing for New Scientist though.
This guy sounds like he got a hold of some “Promise Keepers” teachings.
My sisters husband is a Promise Keeper , so I’ve heard quite a bit about them.
Here’s a little taste:
“Women are excluded from all Promise Keeper events: mass rallies, prayer groups and other religious activities. The group feels that their presence would be a distraction. Wives of PK members have organized a number of support ministries. They pray for the success of the movement, and that wives and children are spiritually prepared for the return of their husbands.”
“They still base much of their belief that a man should be the head of the family on Ephesians 5:23:”For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church…”
“I know many men who have taken ‘Christian’ teachings and used them as their God-given authority to ‘keep a woman in her place’ and maintain their male-leadership role. They refuse to let their wives get a job, to go to college, have her own friends, dress the way she wants to, etc. They want to control a person in order to be the ‘leader.’ And guess what a lot of Christian men do when their wives won’t do what they tell them to — a little verbal hollering, a few slaps, a little hitting, to show them who’s in charge because God said so in the Bible.”
It looks like you’re implying a Christian killed an atheist because they didn’t think the atheist was human, though you’re probably aware of that already.
*da boom tish*
He wasn’t delusional because he was following a religion™
Like I’ve said many times before, there’s a reason religious fundamentalism is so appealing to the unappealing.
oh, how infuriating! Ad Hominems are bad enough in discussion with strangers, I can only imagine how frustrating and humiliating it has to be when your own family dismisses your arguments with “but you’re crazy”!
Only if “implying” means “by a stunningly perverse and disingenuous misreading of what was actually written”.
Interesting that the article doesn’t mention his religious fundamentalism. I wouldn’t say that Christianity outright caused this, of course, but a ‘moral’ philosophy that teaches that men are superior to women in the way a god is superior to a mortal might let a person indulge in violent thoughts instead of realising that there’s something wrong with him.
I have wondered what kind of person liked VenomFangX’s videos. Now I know.
Oh yeah …and this from the Promise Keepers:
“From the platform, Promise Keeper speakers say that women must ”submit” to male authority, thus undermining all female religious leaders; that even counseling a woman on abortion is a worse ”crime” than beating your wife or abusing your child.”
I’m very tired of reading so-and-so killed X children and y women (usually children, ex-wife, and other relatives) and then turned the gun on himself. We need, as a society, to get this reversed, where the guy (usually) kills himself first. I don’t see this as a religion problem, except where religion can hide mental illness.
Although “infamously vapid creationist” is perfectly accurate, I think his official title, bestowed on him by thunderf00t, is “Poster-boy for Creationist Stupidity”, or “PCS”.
This is extremely sad for all the families and friends involved with both sides.
I may have missed someone else mentioning this in the comments above, but it’s interesting to note that some people seem to have grave issues with the cognitive dissonance caused by the fact that their religious doctrines don’t jive with the real world. In this case, it seems he was very disturbed and unable to cope at all. People who are happier with their religion seem to be able to flip the switch or make excuses whenever it suits them. Apparently (speculating…), this guy got driven into depression and then exploded because he couldn’t give up his religious beliefs and he couldn’t jive them with what he was seeing in the world about him.
I think the Department of Redundancy Department might have something to say about that title…
I managed to watch… *checks* 1:14 of the YouTube video in the linked-to post before I had to shut it off.
He kept rambling that “Atheists have so much raaaaaa~ge in their hearts!” And then he goes and commits murder.
Sigh.
Anthony Powell, Reverend Harry Powell. Something tells me that’s a popular surname for psychos.
I might be crazy, but reason and science keep me in line. Science help me.
Unfortunately, we do read about people (usually men, but women as well) who kill themselves first and then kill other people. We call them suicide bombers.
Though I will admit, your above paragraph trigged an image in my mind of a macabre Rube Goldberg device, where the falling body of the killer triggers a number of mechanisms that cause the death of a number of other people… urgh, it’s going to be hard to shake that mental picture.
More seriously, what we really need to get to is a point in our society where people get to the point of despair where suicide is the most viable option have support networks that provide the assistance they need.
Hmmm… It’s interesting we always assume mental illness. Given the human ability at self-delusion, it would be possible for a sane person to hold insane beliefs that would trigger this sort of behaviour rationally. For example, if I was convinced of:
then killing my friend and myself would be a sane and rational action, albeit one predicated on utterly loony ideas.
The first two beliefs are widely accepted by a large minority of people. It does not seem an unrealistic step that a credulous but sane person could become convinced of this.
So.. is anyone else thinking about the part of Heinlein’s future history called the crazy years? I believe his description of it was that it was the time when the most popular method of suicide was to climb to the top of a bell tower with a rifle and shoot people until the police shoot you.
Has there been any attempt to come up with a socialogical explanation for these behaviors? Is this a trend, or does it just seem like it’s happening more often because of increased media sensationalisation?
I went to school there. I spent several great years (worked full time, took classes part time). Security there was never a laughing matter. Now they’re saying that they’re going to beef it up? Even with beefed up security, I don’t see how it would help in this kind of situation. (yes I read that as metal detectors, and the like at the doors, which will cause problems, only good thing it’ll do is get the smokers out of the vestibules).
Next door is U of M Dearborn, I went there too. As a male, I felt safe, but actually felt safer at HFCC than at UofM.
It’s sad that this happened. PZ asked the other day, why churches are not taxed, a better question is why are they not treated like terrorist training grounds?
I know not all church’s are evil, and not all believers are the horrors of nightmares, but seriously, there is something flawed in this country.
Sorry for the rant PZ, even though I’m not a student there anymore this is hitting hard. Friday was shock, today is rage. I feel for her family, and the family of the shooter.
A friend just sent me this link remarking
My Sunday school teacher ran the local whores in the resort hotel – this cunt killed:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-mew-missing-girl12-2009apr12,0,1952398.story
While religion does not make criminals, it neither stops them.
Watching this ex-wingnut’s video, I really think it’s a leap to assume that he had a mental illness. His rants were no more or less sane that our friend PCS (anyone who saw his joker face painted response to Thunderfoot would probably agree).
I wonder if the newsies will track PCS down for comment? I’d personally love to hear what he has to say.
I was tempted to say that the videos showed him to be a sick puppy, and that they should have been a warning sign, but I can’t. For two reasons: First is that I’m not Bill Frist, I don’t feel qualified to evaluate his condition based on some videos, and Second, manic behavior is hardly unique on YouTube. That said, he apparently did make at least one video where he said he was going to commit suicide, after which one of his viewers contacted the Detroit police. Sad case all around…
CNN’s coverage of the other case, in California, contains the most contradictory paragraph I’ve ever seen:
It’s a shock that those two sentences don’t violently repel each other until they settle at opposite ends of the globe.
A handy reference for us yanks*:
Losing your job is not a reason to go on a killing spree.
Getting dumped is not a reason to go on a killing spree.
Being bullied is not a reason to go on a killing spree.
Feeling depressed is not a reason to go on a killing spree.
Feeling manic is not a reason to go on a killing spree.
Differences of opinion, even about religion, are not good reasons to go on a killing spree.
Starting to get the idea? Good.
*predominantly
FWIW, I think some of it might have to do with the cultural lionization of fame, and fame, notoriety, and infamy becoming more-or-less synonymous. IIRC, I saw a survey recently that over half of American teenagers wanted to be movie stars, rock stars, etc., not actors or musicians, but stars, rather than having, shall we say “more realistic” career aspirations (not singling out the US here: I’ve no doubt the figure is similar in other Western countries). In an environment where the currency is fame, and the adage that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” applies to such an extent that misbehaviour (up to and including all kinds of violent crimes that society supposedly disapproves of) on the part of famous persons garners them even more fame and popularity, going out and murdering a shitload of people is a way for an otherwise insignificant person to become “famous” by “doing something that everyone will remember”; killing oneself afterward avoids the consequences that would otherwise follow.
Emmet, I agree with you that fame and recognition may be part of it. That is why I would like to see the news organizations just refuse to name names, except of the victims, and just call the perp a total loser, or a man who wasn’t a man, since he killed himself last. I think if the MSM could do that for five years, the number of murder/suicides would drop dramatically.
There’ve been a few attempts in popular entertainment to demonstrate this phenomenon – Oliver Stone’s film (of a Tarantino screenplay) Natural Born Killers and Ben Elton’s book (and play adaptation thereof) Popcorn.
I spit when I read it the second time, ya bastid.
I would go one further and suggest that a legislative measure prohibiting the naming of spree-killers by the media would be worth trying for a while — there’s little to be lost and it’s unlikely that they will refrain from publishing the information voluntarily.
VenomFangX aka Poster-boy for Creation Stupidity is a devoted Kent Hovind admirer. He actually got fired from his Video store job for passing out Kent Hovind DVD’s that he has copied and created. He is the largest of the YouTube Young Earth Creationists (YECh’s) and a firm supporter of censorship on his channel. He is also a instigator of several flagging and false DMCA claims which almost landed him in court. He is a clear example of what happens when religious insanity is allowed to run amok.
just to clarify, I have my degrees from HFCC, I don’t know the people involved. Only the building.
I think the strangest part is that he pwned himself with a shotgun. You’d think people would notice when someone is walking around with a longarm.
To be honest, whenever I viewed his rants, I didn’t assume he was mentally ill. I just thought he was religious. Growing up in a pentecostal household, I’d seen people behave like all-out loons on a regular basis. In fact, it was encouraged to prove to the congregation that you “had the spirit”. If you didn’t act with sufficient jubilation, one of the busybodies would corner you after the service and inquire as to why you weren’t quite as excited as they were to be spending four hours jumping up and down and hooting like an ovulating baboon.
For a fundie, he sure had a thing for the f*bomb. That being said, what a terrible tragedy.
Man, what a bloody mess.
Mariana Lynch – I do think you raise some very good points concerning the source of his anger. Where I differ from you is, I just don’t think he was suffering from any kind of psychosis. Unhinged, deranged or even delusional – quite possibly, but these I feel are more tendencies than distinct states of mind…from the snippets I get of his background, he sounded more to me like a brooding, frustrated misfit who decided to break social contract rather than contain his sense of impotence any longer.
BTW I checked out VenomFang’s channel on youtube. Gawd! The stooooopidity burns!!!!!!!
*shudder*
I promise never to date a Promise Keeper.
Modern life is stressful. The pace is stressful, the effects of overpopulation are stressful. It is ironic, considering how much more difficult and cruel life was in past centuries.
Well once again there is a hint that there were warning signs that other people picked up on..
So it appears she knew he had issues with depression and feared he was a possible danger to himself.
I’d like to know what action was taken based on that knowledge.
It’s been a few years, but: I had a preachy fundamentalist co-worker for a year or so, and we argued a lot of theology. Somewhere during that period I ran across a description of psychosis, and realized it described him perfectly. I also ran across a few confirmations that he was dumber than dirt, and just parroting his arguments, and decided that I needed to go to college. While in college I heard about and found the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Medicine?) manual, and looked up psychosis. The symptoms were all there, and a little note at the bottom that said something like, “Unless the patient is a member of an organized religion.”
Nomad, I saw that, and it looks like a typo to me. What kind of mother says “yeah, saw it coming” regarding her son’s suicide? More likely, it was supposed to read “His mother, Doris Powell said she never thought her son would kill himself.”
Careful, there. Remember when Fox declared Republican Mark Foley a Democrat after the scandal? You just know some people are going to remember the headline and forget the corrections, if the distortion better fits their worldview.
i weep for the girl, and her family. i almost wish i could un-read this
Sounds like being overly religious should be declared a mental illness.
Problem is then there would be so many ‘patients’ being sectioned that they’d have to reopen Guantanamo Bay.
@LRA
Instead watching VenomFangX (aka Posterboy for Creationist Stupidity), have a look at Thunderf00t, especially his “Why do people laugh at creationists?” series.
If you really and seriously believe in the inerrant word of the Bible, it is perfectly logical what that guy did. You can show how he gets from A to B with all intermediary steps. The same cannot be said of an atheist who commits a crime.
Ny comment for the poll:
When the creationists provide a testable hypothesis, or even provide testable evidence for their belief, there is a Nobel Prize waiting for them. To overthrow a stalwart theory after 200 years would truly rank as a major scientific accomplishment.
Until we get such an hypothesis or evidence, the creationists will be ignored. The only controversy is between their god and evidence.
We can all see that this isn’t an example of ordinary religious indoctrination, but of religious mania brought on by mental illness.
But if this guy had been as impassioned talking about alien abduction or something, people in his family, school, church, and other community around him would have been more alarmed and maybe he would have been more likely to have gotten help at an earlier age when adults might have had more power to manage the situation.
I knew a guy who was obviously schizophrenic, and believed that demons in rock music and t.v. were making him do things he thought were wrong, including “homosexual acts,” drug abuse, and petty crimes. He eventually joined some Christian group that agreed with and reinforced his beliefs.
Okay, I’m tired and a little drunk, but I read that a youtube user actually did contact the police after a particularly violent posting from the gunman, and the police gave it a cursory look, but without specific threats they couldn’t do much. As I recall, one officer pointed out that other videos by the soon to be psycho were only available with registration, and so were not accessed.
Contrast this with the cop in Jacksonville who, at the request of his pastor, subpoenaed information from an ISP in order to harass a blogger critical of said pastor.
I don’t even know if I’m actually making sense at this point, but isn’t there a weird discrpancy in the handling of these cases unrelated except for the internet?
This happened cause this dude was sick. Lets not throw logic and reason out the window because it would suit our arguments against religion.
Hijacking a tragedy for any purpose (religious/poltical/social whatever) is disgusting.
No mention was made on him not seeking treatment because of religion. People know he is religious so they speculate on possible ways to link this to religion. He got rejected, couldn’t handle it and acted out this way. He was depressed and suicidal. He was sick.
Why did he kill himself if he thought religion justified his actions? He did not do this because he found some bible versus that justified violence against women. Even if he did, it does not mean he would not have done this without religion. The human mind is able to justify its actions. If its not religion its something else. But it sounds like this is just a case of a fanatic killing a women. It is not a fanatic killing a women because of his fanatic beliefs.
The reason why religious devotion and hearing god are considered different legally is because religious devotion is a choice. You take the available information given to you and choose to believe it. If you are hearing god’s voice you are obviously crazy. You are not crazy if you choose to believe that the earth was made 5000 years ago by God and that Noah made a big boat that had 2 of every animal and the offspring of these two animals repopulated the earth. You believe in crazy things, but you aren’t crazy. There is material evidence for these beliefs. Meaning, there are organizations and literature that speak in support of them. There is no real material evidence for the government sending radiation waves into your mind to steal your memories. Do you understand the distinction? Being wrong is not crazy.
The pope telling people not to use condoms where 25% of the population is HIV positive = religion killing people.
Some sick guy who couldn’t handle rejection/infatuation committing a murder/suicide != religion killing people.
This man was delusional. Its a shame for everyone involved. His mother stated he was deperessed. If this tragedy is used for anything, it is only appropriate if it is to educate people on why its important to help those who are depressed or simply balls-to-the-walls-crazy to get the help they need.
If he stated in his videos that his religion gives a basis for mudering women and he rationaly lists those reasons, maybe I am wrong. I have never seen them, but judging from the comments here and the news article I don’t think thats true.
Crap, now that I’ve read what I wrote I know that it doesn’t make sense.
Round Two:
“Excuse me, but this man ranting about how his religion is the one true faith seems to have made some disturbingly violent assertions.”
“Well, without a specific target and a specific threat, there’s not much I can do.”
This is not unresonable, even if it is frustrating in hindsight.
Contrast with:
“I’m your pastor, and a parishoner has been critical of me. Is there any way that you could use your influence as an officer of the law to get information not available to me otherwise in order that I might retaliate against this heretic?”
“No problem.”
Doubly frustrating, and leagally dubious.
Suicides without preceding violence (to anyone other than the person committing suicide) are overwhelmingly more common than murder-suicides. That’s why they aren’t news.
But if he didn’t believe in a god and heard voices in his head then maybe he’d have gotten help.
The fact he considered there’s a rational (to him) explanation for voices in his head (i.e. his god speaking to him) that would have allowed him to convince himself he wasn’t crazy may have affected his decision to not seek any advice.
But I’m also aware we can never tell for sure if it would have made any difference.
Well here’s another bit from another article:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090413/METRO01/904130324/&imw=Y
So the problem was known and efforts were taken.
I think the earlier quote I used was intentional, it sounds like they were concerned about him and tried to help him.
I can’t get a read on the religiosity of the parents. That article only says that they said their son was deeply religious. My feeling is that the way it was said indicates that the son’s beliefs were not shared with his parents, but that could be reading too much in to it.
Also in that article, though, is the info that the police were contacted in advance about the videos Powell had posted and the possibility of him committing suicide. He got a response back from someone apparently with the police who said that he was unable to view the video. And that’s where that story stops. The response gave a phone number that the person sending the warning could use to contact them directly, but there’s no word if anything else happened about that. And so far the police aren’t commenting on it.
@ Jeff S,
How many times does someone have to write down that the government is “sending radiation waves into your mind to steal your memories” before believing it is not considered crazy by you? There is ample evidence that energy is propogated by radiation, and that the human mind operates on an electro-chemical basis.
Believing that the Earth is 100,000 years old (I’m giving an order of magnitude benefit of the doubt) is, given even the most rudimentary of education, insane. In-fucking-sane.
The ability to ignore reality, to the point that even obvious mounds of evidence are not seen, is functionally psychotic.
Religion is not in any way responsible for the underlying illness: But were I to find a psychotic individual who believed that rabbits were out to get him, and I convinced him that it was actually Jewis Rabbis who were out to get him, I could rightly be seen as responsible for the ensuing synagouge shootings.
I would not have, in any way, caused the original fucked-upitude, but pretending that another excuse for murder would have been found is a paper-thin defense for the indoctrination that ultimately focused his illness on innocent life.
They are here. Your concern is noted as well as the fact that you ignored the entire thread which discussed the intersection of toxic religion and mental problems.
BTW, fundies hijack tragedies and natural disasters on a routine basis. 9/11 was because of the gays, as Robertson and Falwell both said. 14 people mostly children died in a plane crash because of their grandfather. New Orleans was flooded by god because of the gays.
If this guy had been an atheist, they would be bringing it up every 5 minutes for the next century. We’re just playing fundie with a lot more reasoning behind it. How do you tell the difference between crazy, toxic religion and just plain crazy? Is there really much, if any, difference?
Actually there is but the radiation waves made you forget all about it.
Good point. I’m never going near Powell’s books again.
The indoctrination you ARE SPECULATING caused this. Where is your evidence? I think religion is evil. I have made many claims about how harmful and hurtful and wrong religion is. I am not defending religion. I am defending reason.
There has been no evidence shown that religion contributed to this in anyway. What was stated is that they had a class together. He had a romantic interest in her that she did not share. He was depressed and suicidal. All those things would logically leave me to believe that he could not handle the rejection, and used that as a focus to end his life.
In any of his video’s does he say anything about violence against women being allowable by god? Does he allude to it in anyway? I have not watched them, as I said, but no one has stated any such thing here. I think that would be the first thing mentioned. The article would have mentioned it (trust me all news organizations are watching those video’s closely.) I doubt any “christian conspiracy” would be covering it up as A. they posted a link to his videos and B. most christians wouldn’t think his opinions were representative of christianity.
Now, wether he was sick in the head or just a jealous person with a vendetta against the world we may never know, but unless there is evidence in support of your claims how can you state speculation as fact?
Please. Think first. Then speak. <--- advice I never take, bleh my hypocrit meter just exploded =P I guess I should reread this before posting =P ASking the question "did religion cause this? There is support from the bible" is not inappropriate to have. It is possible that religion contributed. However, the statements being made here act as though the pope handed him a gun and a bible with passages highlighted advocating killing women. Yes, a fanatic killed someone. Yes, you can find passages in the bible that you could interperet into saying men can abuse women (though I can not recall any that state flat out "You can kill women if they spur your advances -- well if you aren't married =P .") What I wonder about is why. Why do people feel the need to take others with them? I understand that sometimes its a shame thing (fathers killing their families). Is it also a means to push themselves over the edge?
Did anyone suggest this? I must have missed it.
PZ’s point, as I understand it, is if this person had been an atheist, it would’ve been gleefully held up as an example of our moral depravity.
Another, more speculative, point, that has arisen in the course of the discussion, is that if this person, and those around him, had been rational atheists, he might have been more likely to get the help that we now know he needed, because his manic behaviour might have been more conspicuous, not being concealed by “normal” religious fervour, and those around him might then have been more likely to send him to a doctor, unlikely to have sent him to a pastor/priest/shaman or other afterlife-peddling mountebank, and wouldn’t have thought that praying, rather than seeking professional help, for him was doing any good. We don’t know the degree to which any of theses factors contributed, if at all, but it seems like reasonable speculation, and not at all opportunistic or tasteless to suggest, that under these or similar circumstances, such factors could indeed contribute.
I don’t think anyone’s thinking on this is as simplistic as “sick guy who couldn’t handle rejection/infatuation committing a murder/suicide = religion killing people”, it seems like a straw-man, but it’s not inconceivable that religion might have played a rôle, however minor.
[quote]Raven:
If this guy had been an atheist, they would be bringing it up every 5 minutes for the next century[/quote]
Don’t forget the Virginia Tech killings. Not only was that guy not an atheist but he was strongly religious. That event was still blamed on atheism.
It’s coming, if it isn’t out there already. Do a thorough enough web search (I really don’t care to) and you’ll find someone, somewhere, blaming this on lack of religion.
Read the comments. PZ asked the question. Its one thing to discuss it, but the comments went off into acting like God handed him the gun =P
For example? (comment numbers would be good).
I admit, I haven’t re-read all the comments just now, but I’m pretty sure I’ve read them all at least once, and I don’t recall any matching your description.
@97 You want me to reread for you? #4, #8, #14, #16, #23.
Look at #13 for what is not looking to place blame on religion. The person suggests that possibly religion prevented them from getting help whereas one of the ones I listed above states that BECAUSE of this persons religion they did not get help.
Its possible he used interpretations of some scripture to back up his thoughts.
Lets face it. Guy killing women because he was rejected IS FAR FROM NEW. This is the first time I can recall religion being blamed. The guy didnt say “AS GOD COMMANDS I WILL KILL YOU EVIL WOMAN!” The guy just happened to be a crazy christian fundie.
Is the distinction so hard to comprehend?
JeffS,
We know that this guy was ‘deeply religious’ – you don’t think that meant he prayed? If he was deeply religious it’s reasonable to assume he would have believed prayer would have helped. That’s what deeply religious people do, since they have faith their god will help them in times of need.
If was wasn’t deeply religious, he wouldn’t have had prayer as an option, and may have sought help elsewhere. Ergo, religion may have prevented it.
And in other news,our friends the Saudis exhibit some more disgusting pedophilia,true to form,as in the example set by Mohammed:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,3729,n,n
Jeff S. you are not making any sense, a fundie characteristic. You are also boring. Cut to your ending.
Shorter Jeff s.:
1. Atheism caused this poor boy to go off his rocker and kill the girl. It’s all PZ’s, Dawkin’s, and Darwin’s fault.
2. All you baby killing, cannibalistic atheists are going to hell.
3. If you keep saying fundie death cultists are violent wackos, we will hunt you down, torture you, and kill you.
Your point is made and you are done. Take the rest of the night off and get ready for tomorrow’s witch hunt.
We know he is religious. We know religious people pray. We don’t know that he felt prayer would have helped. We don’t know that he knew he had a problem that a professional would have been able to help with.
Its possible this is true. He made lots of videos from what I’ve read. Look for links there. Until you can link it to something he said or did or posted or whatever it is still just speculation.
I think my argument is goign swoosh over peoples heads. Its not complicated. What about it is difficult to understand?
Since you’ve read every posting closely, you will doubtless have noticed that I pretty well made the same point in #7. Although there are a couple of comments that I would agree with you on, I haven’t subjected all of the comments that you identify to the interpretation that they’re outright blaming religion, rather than identifying religion as a plausible contributory factor. Indeed, the majority, say 95%, of the comments seem entirely reasonable (if sometimes strident), and that the few extreme ones don’t justify a blanket assertion like “the comments went off into acting like God handed him the gun”, which, it seems to me, is at least as exaggerated as the comments it seeks to condemn.
This is not funny. An innocent woman was also murdered. It really enrages me when women are targeted like this.
JeffS wrote:
Uh, dude? That’s a contradiction.
If he prayed he would have thought it would help. Why else would he pray? That’s what prayer is for – what other explanation is there for doing it? The idea is that you’re asking God for help. According to most Christians he answers all prayers – just not by actually doing anything.
As I understand Christian prayer, it’s not all about begging — there’s sniveling, groveling, and cosmic arse-licking too.
This discussion somehow reminds me of one of Mr Caulfield’s early masterpieces,that I had saved for future use:
Rorschach @#107
That’s from my middle period ;o)
Oh,my mistake Sir !
And this guy sounds like your garden variety depressed,sexually shy and repressed individual to me,in a country without guns everywhere he would probably just have overdosed or jumped from a bridge.Im not sure how much of this tragedy can and should be blamed on religion.
Watching a few minutes of that guy’s video I was strongly reminded of Norman Bates, the protagonist in Psycho. People here who call him depressed are too mild, he clearly comes across as a psychopath. Someone with whom you wouldn’t want to share a deserted motel.
It may go too far to say that his religion pushed him to commit his crime, but I strongly suspect that it didn’t help either.
You win. I honestly am so confused as to what you are saying that I do not know how to respond. I thought there was another Jeff S at first, but I could find none.
Now is shorter Jeff S supposed to a condensced version of what I’ve said? I’m confused. I never have or would say anything like that. Or are you saying those things to me? Did I just get threatened or am I supposd to be the treatener? Clarification needed.
I’m hurt you would call me boring. Am I? I don’t mean to be. I wouldnt comment if I didn’t think it was something worth saying. The last thing I would want to do is bore anyone.
You are claiming possibilities as definites and then using them as your reasons for why religion was the cause (or a contributing factor).
You can’t know what he thought or did unless he told you somehow (indirectly or directly).
Its possible his religious beliefs contributed to this. I find it more believable (considering the evidence presented) that this is a case of a fundie who happened to also be a different kind of crazy and could not handle his rejection and beacuse of his suicidal thoughts exploded in this very tragic way.
I am not defending religion. I am simply saying that without some indication of these things people are claiming, the evidence presented points elsewhere.
Do you understand my point? I may be expressing it poorly. I’m writing all this in bursts of two-three sentences and then coming back to it.
I’m gonna watch his video’s maybe when I get home. I’m torn on if I should or not. I’m curious, but its also a morbid curiosity. I don’t feel comfortable fullfilling what might have been a wish of his. To gain some sort of fame from this. People are sick.
I doubt that this mentally disturbed individual did what he did because he was a christian. But then again, his faith, which makes him superiour to us filthy dirty atheist pigs, didn’t stop him, now did it?
Sad, especially for the girl and the family of both.
My heart goes out to the family and friends of Asia McGowan. It must be terrible to have to deal with such a horrible waste of a life.
Sure the part prayer and religion took in these two deaths is just speculation, but is it unreasonable speculation?
This event is a tragedy, regardless of the causes, my thoughts are with the families of all concerned.
Can religious thinking/overt piety mask/be used as a distraction from mental illness? Sure, I think that’s almost uncontroversially the case (Fingers crossed for the next DSM, people). Was it the case here? Possibly, even probably, need more evidence. I’d also argue that the relatively free access to guns is a contributory factor. (Gun nuts: note difference between “cause” and “contributory factor”) That said, however, like all such things, the causes are multifarious and complex. Trying to make simple allusions from over simplistic media reports is an error. One can wish for, and attempt to create, a world in which the access to guns is less required/easy, mental illness is better understood and less stigmatised, religious apologetics and thinking are less tolerated as good reasons for anything let alone considered virtues in and of themselves, and people get the care the desperately need fast.
Louis
RobertDW @ 55,
Yeah, but then there would be no money left over to bail out auto execs and bankers, now would there?
OK. Wow. I just watched his videos. Psycho.
They say rants about women. Anyone know what they mean by that? Do they just mean the postings about “Sexy one” and “short one”?
He is really out there. I wonder if he actually believed those things.
It really is a shame about the girl.
It does sound as if the parents tried to get him help. I have to wonder what kind, though. When my youngest sis-in-law was having serious issues with depression (including suicidal thoughts, cutting, self-medicating, etc.), her mother sent her to a counselor. Of course, it was a “Christian” counselor. Guess what the answer to depression was? JESUS! The cause of depression? Not enough JESUS! Suicidal thoughts? Think of JESUS instead!
I wanted to slap my mother-in-law upside the head and say, “Your daughter is agnostic-leaning-to-pantheist. She doesn’t believe what you do. You might try sending her to someone with, y’know, a degree of some sort. By the way, how many meds for depression and anxiety are you on? And your extended family? Do you think your daughter might need medical attention?”
Things got better, but it wasn’t because of religion.
@Nomad,
“And I’m not joking in the slightest when I say that it’s only a matter of time before this is blamed on evolution, or lack of theological belief, or whatever.”
Already happened. Jerry Falwell blamed the Columbine shootings on the teaching of Evolution in the schools.
@Nomad, #95:
Well, if there were no atheists, he would have had no reason to be so angry.
blackwolf: Religion is not the cause of such an illness, but it can be a symptom.
I would put it the other way. Religion isn’t the cause of the disease, but it is a cause of the symptoms.
Different religions/worldviews cause different symptoms for the same underlying disease. Fundie christianity leads their nuts towards murder/suicide often involving issues of male-domination (in a spectrum of symptomologies, from hebephrenic lassitude onward). Buddhists nut-cases usually wander off into the wilderness and starve, or commit suicide. Both can have the same disease, but the symptoms are quite different.
Atheists have a tendency toward the “treatment” symptology, or weird conspiracy theories. I say “treatment” symptology, because there are almost no cures for mental diseases — just different ways to manage them (and some are clearly better than others).
There’s a “disease” (symptomology) in East Asia where men believe their penis is shrinking into their body, often leading them to try trap their penis in a box or other contrivance. Clearly, this is a culturally-specific symptomology for an underlying disorder.
I recall research a few decades ago into cultural difference in the treatment and response to schizophrenia specifically. Interestingly enough, third-world folks usually had a pattern of acute episodes separated by long periods of remission, as opposed to first-worlders who had a chronic disease. Especially interesting was it’s division by class: the most chronic and debilitating disease was among poor first-worlders and rich third-worlders.
So, I’d expect that certain varieties of religion actually improve the symptomology of certain mental disease — but not the variety of religion usual in the West.
Bill Maher offered $10K to find out who painted Our Lady of Guadalupe.
I think it’s rather funny and quite unusual for a Catholic ministry to get involved in frays such as these. But Maher who is so sure there is no God can maybe assist our Secretary of State, Hillary, who after visiting the miraculous image of Mary in Mexico City asked the host “Who was the artist of the painting?” Of which the host replied “God.” Do your examination Bill, check all the information on the internet, and then tell us who was the painter. Hint: there is no paint or pigment on the image.
http://ministryvalues.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=649&Itemid=127
And since I am here I might point out to those interested another recent article. A scientist skeptic who doubted the Shroud’s authenticity has recently reversed himself. He now believes this very well may be the burial cloth of Christ. The ONLY thing the doubters have ever had to counter the scores of amazing qualities and attributes of this holy cloth is their carbon dating exercise some 20 years ago. It has always been dubious for a few good reasons, but you may want to read what he has to say. In my opinion, the Shroud of Turin is so rock solid miraculous, it holds up against any criticisms. The skeptics can only try to say what it is not… what they could never ever say is what it is and how it could possibly be forged to include many incredulous qualities.
Shroud article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/5137163/Turin-Shroud-could-be-genuine-as-carbon-dating-was-flawed.html
Kseniya:
The Quiverfull movement has the perfect cure for the stress of overpopulation: have nineteen kids.
If you visit *shiver* VenomFangX’s channel on Youtube, he has a new video up desperately disassociating himself from this misogynist criminal. What’s more interesting is that he claims that the murderer was influenced by “atheists pretending to be christians”.
http://www.youtube.com/user/VenomFangX
A despicable crime and a despicable response.
There are sadly numerous examples of violence enacted truly in fulfillment of religious edict. The hate spewing violence endorsing religion of the moment being radical Islam. This case is not an example of that. In my opinion as someone closely acquainted with mental illness, this young man was in serious need of intervention. If you dig deep into the story it there’s much more involved than his religious rantings. He apprently posted his intentions to commit suicide. Those close to him should have taken steps. Why they didn’t is likely due to a lack of awareness. We need to educate society to watch for and intervene in cases like this. According to the reports there was an attempt on the part of an internet follower to alert the authorities but they didn’t respond with the proper urgency. Let me make a plea here. Should you come across what appears to be a seriously disturbed individual in a blog or an article comment who threatens violence or suicide, step up. Notify whatever authority can intervene. This man didn’t need God to urge him forward, his dog or a plant would have sufficed.
#112 JeffS:
No, people are talking about an average person that fits the criteria. In essence they are assuming that this guy isn’t a special case, which is a fair assumption until proven otherwise. You seem to be using the “beautiful or unique snowflake” defense.
No one has claimed to know him, which is why they are speaking in generalities and dropping words like “may” a lot.
The second sentience doesn’t contradict the first. Also, part of the evidence presented includes him sputtering in a frothing rage on religious topics. There is certainly some cross pollination going on there.
It’s a tragedy, but not at all exceptional, I’m afraid…
Oh, come on, it is so exceptional. Mental cases are an exception, that’s why this sort of thing makes the news. Nearly everyone I know believes in some religious myth. How many of them do you think have committed murder?
I must correct myself. The image of the Shroud has been verified to have no paint, powder or pigment. The image of our Lady of Guadalupe has the following characteristics, even though God may have used some sort of paint.
The Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Science
1. The image to this date, cannot be explained by science.
2. The image shows no sign of deterioration after 450 years!
The tilma or cloak of Saint Juan Diego on which the image of Our
Lady has been imprinted, is a coarse fabric made from the threads of
the maguey cactus. This fiber disintegrates within 20-60 years!
3. There is no under sketch, no sizing and no protective over-varnish on
the image.
4. Microscopic examination revealed that there were no brush strokes.
5. The image seems to increase in size and change colors due to an
unknown property of the surface and substance of which it is made.
6. According to Kodak of Mexico, the image is smooth and feels like
a modern day photograph. (Produced 300 years before the invention
of photography.)
7. The image has consistently defied exact reproduction, whether by
brush or camera.
8. Several images can be seen reflected in the eyes of the Virgin. It is
believed to be the images of Juan Diego, Bishop Juan de Zumarraga,
Juan Gonzales, the interpreter and others.
9. The distortion and place of the images are identical to what is
produced in the normal eye which is impossible to obtain on a flat
surface.
10. The stars on Our Lady’s Mantle coincide with the constellations in the
sky on December 12, 1531. All who have scientifically examined the
image of Our Lady over the centuries confess that its properties are
absolutely unique and so inexplicable in human terms that the image
can only be supernatural!
Report abuseQuick Reply
Or ink or paste or feces.
God could have done anything as long as you don’t want to admit that it was just a freak happenstance or deliberately done by humans.
When you can excuse anything by just shifting it to an all explaining force why worry about being accurate if it makes you feel good?
frog @122: There’s a “disease” (symptomology) in East Asia where men believe their penis is shrinking into their body, often leading them to try trap their penis in a box or other contrivance.
Hahaha – that’s called Koro, and it’s freaking hilarious. If you want an example of how delusion, desperation and ignorance intersect to create a superstitious mindset, leading a person to resort to and/or justify anything to make the problem go away, Koro’s a good one.
Of course, once the superstition becomes enshrined and codified, it blossoms into religion. Ah, controlled group hysteria…
Well said, Bryn, @31. One tends to think that a person needs to harbor a good dose of crazy to act like a vengeful god toward women, but that’s not always the case. I thought so too once upon a time.
All it takes is one serious, financially and socially successful man to tell you, “You’re evil..” because you arouse his desires. I laughed at the time, I thought he was joking. It took me awhile to figure out that he was serious. Not a Muslim, not outwardly crazy in any other way, but raised Catholic and still carrying some kind of virus for crazy.
Religion seems to actually strip the mind of some kind of check and balance system when it comes to processing information.
Of course the fundies would blame this murder on atheists. They have an all purpose explanation for everything these days. It is always the gay’s, Darwin’s, and atheist’s fault.
Atheists are busy right now, flooding the upper midwest, seizing ships in the Indian ocean, and sending the odd tornado into the lower midwest.
It’s not all bad though. We’ve reached the point where the mental and moral bankruptcy of fundie wingnuts is obvious to the majority of the population. They are just the lunatic fringe of our country. The USA does everything in a big way. We have a lunatic fringe equal to the population of most other countries!!! Hah!!! Take that world.
Cheezits: Nearly everyone I know believes in some religious myth. How many of them do you think have committed murder?
But the question needs to be posed the other way: how many murderers believe in myths, which myths in specific, and what kinds of murders? How does that relate to the population in general? Do some religions produce more murderers, or is it just that pre-murderers are attracted to certain religions? Or that non-murderers have a tendency to leave certain religions?
Capote once made the joke that the only thing he found in common among murderers is that they all had tattoos. Well, that’s actually quite interesting — it may be unusual for folks with tats to murder, but it’s not unusual for someone who murders to have a tat. Why? Do they usually get them in prison, or do the tats predate the murder? Is it a symptom of a common mindset, or an early step in the development of that mindset? Not exactly the same question, but the same style of question (since no one would argue that getting a tattoo is of the same scale as a religion).
Nerd of Readhead,
Please don’t lump those of us who have tried to kill ourself over someone else with this guy. Or those who have actually done so.
There’s no doubt in my mind, that it’s biology, not ideology, that spurs these people to crazy acts. & religion acts as an umbrella where they can take shelter from curious eyes.
Interesting note @33 about people spurning regular medical care in favor of religious solutions to mental problems. Sometimes people are not spurning medical care so much as being instructed by religious leaders to pray or to see unqualified religious counselors. Mormon Bishops, for example, usually have no training as professional counselors (beyond the Church “training” that is). Bishops are “called” to the position when a superior receives an impulse, supposedly from God, to call a man to be Bishop. But that Bishop will be a primary counselor for relationships in trouble, for young men having trouble relating to women, etc. There are lots of stories on ex-mormon.org about Bishops also not keeping such counseling sessions private. It’s a completely non-professional set up, and is bound to be damaging to many of those counseled.
How many troubled people are counseled by men who have no degree in psychology, sociology or any other related field. This happens in the USA where you’d think the law would prevent it.
Turzoka – bullshit.
2 minutes on Wikipedia. There is plenty of paint and pigments in the image.
As for the Shroud of Turin article – all that article says is that the sample taken in 1978, from the same area as the 1988 sample that was carbon date, was shown to have cotton in it. All this suggests is that another sample should be taken and dated – something the scientist quoted never did. For all we now, the entire Shroud could be lousy with cotton – which would be likely if it’s a fake. Christopher Ramsey, head of the Oxford Radiocarbon unit, is pushing for a re-test, but is on the record as saying he doesn’t believe that the 1988 tests were far off the mark, let alone 1000 years off.
“Scores of amazing qualities”? What qualities? The Shroud of Turin isn’t reputed to have miraculous powers or anything like that. It’s a piece of cloth with a pattern on it which resembles a person.
Turzovka, please take your cheap forgeries elsewhere, we are not interested.
Damn, I shouldn’t have replied – we’ve got a cut-and-paste troll… *sigh*
A debunker showed how the shroud could have been faked using technology from the time of the appearance of the shroud. It also didn’t show pigment by stand-off testing, but an image could be seen by photo. As the Mythbusters would say, “busted!”.
“I swear to fucking god if any of you pull shit like this…”
@ERV #20
This is a sad situation, two people dead, likely due to mental illness and you find a need to make a threat like that?
I enjoy reading your blog, however, my respect for you has slipped just a wee bit.
Not sure I see an issue with ERV’s comment.
RevBigDumpChimp.
I do.
Where does she get the idea any of us are any more likely to do this sort of shit than she is? Or that she is any less likely? Does she know any of us that well?
You don’t have to think someone is “likely” to do such a thing to say “if you ever …”
Didn’t your mother ever say that to you after hearing a story about some kid getting caught shoplifting, or getting drunk, etc? I don’t think she said it because she thought you would do whatever it was, but to let you know that she thinks it is wrong and something you should never do. That is how I read ERV’s comment, as kind of motherly.
“Has there been any attempt to come up with a socialogical explanation for these behaviors? Is this a trend, or does it just seem like it’s happening more often because of increased media sensationalisation?”
If you ask me it has more to do with the idea of masculinity that boys are asked to aspire to. Women (generally) express violence towards themselves instead of outwardly because they are taught to blame themselves rather than others for bad things that happen. Boys do not have that pressure on them, and in fact have the pressure to not do anything deemed feminine ever. Combine the inability to be self reflective (because only wussy boys care about others) with a society that shows control over women and violence as the ultimate expressions of masculinity, and well, you get these outcast murder/suicide types. The themes of what makes one “a real man” can arguably be traced back to religion.
Pretty much all of these guys blame everyone but themselves for the social interaction problems, and that is what makes it ok to kill in their mind.
Im not trying to say that this guy and school shooters are not mentally ill, but damn, it takes some crazy ass culture for this to become a trend in any population, especially when we are all exposed to countless stories where a dude reacts to a challenge on his masculinity in a violent way and wins and everyone is supposed to cheer for him. If it was just about mental illness and nothing else there would be women shooting up schools.
I think the fog of the Internet is clouding the nuance of what she said to making it more serious than intended. But that’s not for me to decide, so Abby would have to clarify.
What SteveM said minus the motherly part and add the friend part.
apostate: There’s no doubt in my mind, that it’s biology, not ideology, that spurs these people to crazy acts.
Those two things are not opposites. Ideology is a quality of certain kinds of biological systems; so ideology must be a kind of explanation about the behavior of biological systems, just as biology is a kind of explanation of physics.
Or do ya think that crazy is due to biology and not physics, or visa-versa?
How long until we finally extinguish the Platonic dualism that is the cause of this kind of thinking (and the Abrahmic religions)?
Naw, that is way too simple. Someone did a study of moslem suicide bombers. By and large they were just normal people driven by hate, despair, and religious fanaticism.
It is both biology and religion with different amounts in the mix. In many cases, it is more religion than biology, other cases like the Colorado shooter who said “anyone who isn’t a xian is going to die” the other way around.
How horrible.
My issue is that we all get immune to babbling when it’s dressed in religious terms.
Religion offers a dangerous cloak to people who really need professional help – it’s difficult to distinguish one kind of crazy from another. Two people believe in virgin births, global floods, heaven & hell, satan & miracles – and one of them is a danger to themselves and others. Ugh.
Of course the fundies would blame this murder on atheists.
Sort of like the way many people on this forum blame it on theists.
PZ keeps posting these examples of religious people going postal, or sending him whacko emails, as if to prove that this is *typical* behavior for that group, and people respond with the obligatory “religion poisons everything”, “Gee, I sure hope none of US do that”, etc. Violence and craziness may be more common among religious types for all I know, but you can’t draw any reliable conclusions from PZ’s selective data. (And the kook email got boring for me a long time ago.)
We’ll see more tragic outbursts like these due to the current economic stresses and heightened political rhetoric from Wingnuttia. The perception that everything has gone to hell in a handbasket will lead many already near the tipping point to act out in murder/suicides. Look for parents killing all their kids and themselves to save themselves from… hell, I don’t know what. There will be more violence toward “liberal” causes and all things “godless”. Most of these people interpret opposition to their ideology as proof of the end of times, along with the stress of lowered discretionary income, and therefore feel they have nothing left to lose.
It won’t be completely rampant or ubiquitous, the media will make it seem so though, but it will occur more often until fears have been placated.
cheezits-for-brains: PZ keeps posting these examples of religious people going postal, or sending him whacko emails, as if to prove that this is *typical* behavior for that group
PZ’s never made that claim — that’s a statistical claim, and he’s never done a statistical analysis. His statement, as he’s made clear numerous times, is that religion in no way makes one immune to this: it doesn’t make one more “moral”.
I’d go farther, and suggest that religion does lay the groundwork for this kind of behavior. Which again, is not a claim of typical Christian-or-whatever, but a claim about the typical whacko. And again, I explicitly only suggest it, because I lack sufficient data to show it.
And of course, blaming nameless atheists, as opposed to blaming some specific doctrine that is congruent with an act, makes your simile just crap. Even people saying this is “typical” aren’t claiming some conspiracy theory, but simply making an incorrect statistical claim.
PZ’s never made that claim — that’s a statistical claim, and he’s never done a statistical analysis.
Of course not, he knows better than that! But I think people tend to treat these stories that way anyway. And he said this case wasn’t exceptional, which I don’t buy.
His statement, as he’s made clear numerous times, is that religion in no way makes one immune to this: it doesn’t make one more “moral”.
That ought to go without saying.
Already seeing that here in the USA and overseas as well. Two of Madoff’s victims committed suicide although both had the common sense not to take more with them.
For a certain kind of fundie Death Cultist, the thought that they will never been able to run the USA into the ground, burn a witch, or stone some kids to death is a serious blow.
Since they aren’t all that sane or smart to begin with, there goes their tipping point.
Crazy Michelle Bachmann recently called for a revolution and the overthrow of the US government, because, you know, it is now run by foreign born commie moslems. Who in the hell keeps voting her in?
I may not have been clear last night. My problem is with those who must kill others before they commit suicide. These people should be labelled total losers, and treated as ciphers by the media.
I don’t feel the same way about people who attempt or commit suicide without killing others first. They deserve reasonable respect, recognition, and help.
cheezits: That ought to go without saying.
No, it has to be said, repeated and illustrated. People do believe and claim that religion X is essential for people to be moral, that without X people are amoral, and that with X they are positively moral.
That’s the whole damn point of these threads. The death-threat letters came out of the claims of Christians that that sort of craziness was a Muslim-thing; No True Christian ™ would ever do such a thing.
Pretending it ain’t so (that ought to go without saying) doesn’t change the facts.
Sad event. I wonder if it is the same nut that goes on Y!A with scripture, ranting about how women should shut up.
Like I always say, religious fervor is the perfect mask for mental illness. It’s hard to tell the two apart. Only when religion is taken out of the picture can we finally diagnose these people.
People do believe and claim that religion X is essential for people to be moral, that without X people are amoral, and that with X they are positively moral.
I guess I meant that for this forum it goes without saying. The people who need to be told aren’t likely to be reading here anyway. Religion obviously didn’t do anything to stop this guy (or countless others) from becoming violent. But that is hardly news.
All those who blamed Columbine on atheism should take a long, hard look at this. Even though he made his intentions public, nobody in the Christian community managed to talk this guy down and help him. Faith simply doesn’t have the advertised benefits.
Sadly, we see the usual equation played out again:
alienation + fantasy = tragedy
Speaking of “proprietary feelings towards women,” there’s great insight presented in the 04-13-2009 Fresh Air podcast. The discussion includes “cleaning up botched abortions all day long” in Africa (author being interviewed quotes doctors working in clinics). Also included in the discussion is the organized effort by fundamentalist Christians, along with conservatives from Iran, etc., to stack committees with conservative forces. “Sex, Power, Women and ‘The Future of the World'” — Conservatives from all religions get together to face their common enemies: feminists, liberals, etc. Michelle Goldberg is the journalist being interviewed. She’s a former senior writer for salon.com. Who should control women’s reproductive rights?
Mariana Lynch @ 21:
Do you mean, as a sort of attempt at “self medicating”, like trying to use alcohol to overcome depression? Myself, I would see it as more likely a case of finding a congenial peer group where he felt he “belonged”. Common social instinct in the human animal.
Of course, there’s no reason it couldn’t be both.
Emmett @ 65:
I see another potential gain, also. When these cases become notorious, the defending attorney can claim that “the case is being decided in the media”, that his client can’t get a fair trial because the potential jurors will already have heard about the case and may have already formed their opinions of the client’s innocence or guilt. Lack name-brand recognition should cut down on this quite a lot, I would think.
@ 150, raven:
Umm….that sounds like chemistry to me. What study, & how many others back it up?
Not to BW, but I a little piece on this point.
Likelihood is good that Murray, Cho, & Powell would’ve done as they did regardless of ideology. These folks use religion as a shield, which is conducive to bizarre behavior such as hearing voices, having visions, & other bits of humbuggery & skulduggery.
Apostate: Umm….that sounds like chemistry to me.
And again, what does that mean? It all sounds like physics to me — it’s just particle trajectories at the bottom. Why is a “chemical” level explanation better than an social explanation, and why can’t we have both, a social explanation for the saliently social aspects, and a “chemical” explanation for the underlying pattern of ion-channels and neurotransmitters that create that social milieu?
We know that they symptoms, time course and recovery rates of mental diseases differ by culture. If that is so, you can’t possibly discount that the disease is partly a social disease — otherwise, a purely “chemical” explanation would have no basis for explaining the difference.
We can explain everything as particle trajectories. But we don’t for good reason.
My Xtian ex-inlaws did not believe in ‘mental illness’ – to them it is a lack of faith. In their library, and heavily annotated, was ‘The Myth of Mental Illness’ and ‘Psychoheresy’ (forget the authors). My sister-in-law was sexually attacked by her own brother (yeech), and got to see a Xtian counsellor a couple of times, whilst the brother got no counselling. Funnily enough, both are pretty crazy people!
In another close branch of the family, a ‘preacher’ crazy father shot and killed his own wife and little boy, then turned the gun on himself. This was in south Texas in the early 80s.
I tell ya, this family had it all – suicides, murder, drug addiction, incest, child-whipping, soap-box preachers at bus stops. And the patriach will still not give it up! He now spends his time trying to indoctrinate the grandchildren. Even though he knows my stance on this stuff, he still sends my kids bible study books for Christmas, which get sent back.
I should write a book! I used to win the award at work in the US for having the craziest in-laws.
Wow. Just wow. I got about 1/4 of the way through that video and just couldn’t take the insanity anymore. WE made up evolution? Somebody made something up, but it sure as science wasn’t us! And speaking of rage, this guy is a great example of how “filled with rage” a person can be.
frog @ 166:
Yeah, that’s apples to oranges. A stray gluon doesn’t send people on killing sprees.
Did I say you couldn’t have both? No. It’s predominantly chemical in nature.
No, still not right. Unless you can point out a (modern) society that’s entirely sociopathic. I’m a value pluralist – that is, specific values share commonality regardless of culture.
The analogy would be, we share a common biology. Ergo, there would be specific values we’d agree upon. Being pack animals, we’d (generally) agree that harming the children, killing the women, doing specific things that endanger the pack are bad in general.
Along comes a pack member – bam! There’s some chemical misfire, a short circuit, & said pack member goes around braining the offspring. Or worse yet, does that & ENJOYS it.
So short answer is, yeah, it’s the chemistry.
Apostate: Unless you can point out a (modern) society that’s entirely sociopathic.
Why entirely, and why “modern”? That’s a strawman your setting up — “modern” means essentially identical given the historical variability, and “entirely” is just absurd, given the stochastic nature of social systems.
And I will point out that Sitting Bull did claim that European-American society was thoroughly sociopathic after his tour with Buffalo Bill.
A stray gluon doesn’t send people on killing sprees.
But stray Ca ions do. A human brain has a “butterfly” effect on the order of seconds — so essentially, a stray particle does determine a killing spree. It’s up to you to show me how that’s different from saying a distribution of serotonin receptors didit is any different from saying a stray calcium ion didit.
Why don’t we have a simple biological assay that 100% of the time distinguishes schizophrenics from non-schizos? Why do we even still have a DSM-IV?
Did I say you couldn’t have both? No. It’s predominantly chemical in nature.
And I’m saying that’s a nonsense statement. You’re explaining apples with oranges. It’s entirely chemical in nature — just as it’s entirely physical in nature. The question is whether that’s a productive explanation in a particular case.
When you’re taking about developing pharmaceuticals, of course the “chemical explanation” is best, just as when you’re discussing bashing crazy people with a hammer the “physical” explanation is best. But why would a “chemical” explanation give us any power to explain insanity in a social setting? That’s your job if you’re claiming it’s “predominantly chemical” — how can I make sense of your statement?
All thought patterns are “chemical”. How is this pattern of thought different from writing a book? Or do you claim that that’s also “predominantly chemical”?
Apostate, you are falling into the trap of assuming people who do terrible things are all crazy.
It is too easy an explanation.
Jim Jones convinced 930 people in Guyana to commit suicide. Were they all crazy?
Over 50% of the US population voted twice for George Bush. Were they all crazy?
How about the Branch Davidians? Mormons? Fundie Death Cultists?
The young woman who starved her preverbal 3 year old to death for…not talking was certified sane and guilty.
How about Scientologists who withold psychiatric medicines from genetically insane people who either kill themselves or kill their families and then themselves.
How about all the suicide bombers in the middle east? All crazy?
You have to realize we are social beings capable of great good and great evil. If you just label people who do what you consider terrible things as crazy, then the word no longer means anything. An explanation that explains everything, explains nothing.
frog @ 170:
You’re just playing word games now. What I meant, is that slaughtering each other is allowed w/in the society. I put in ‘modern’, because the Aztecs sacrificed virgins. The old Norse used to settle their differences by battle
You’ll need to back that up w/some hard data, please.
Because much of the time, we don’t have all the data. It has to be diagnosed from physical behaviors. Not being a chemist or psychologist, I couldn’t give you a pedantic answer that’ll satisfy you.
So you dispute that we’re chemical in nature? Obviously not.
I’m getting an impression here that you just want to argue about this. A distinct lack of empathy? A human being reduced to ganglial brutal grasping of whatever it wants? A short circuit in the brain? What is it, if not chemical?
Well duh.
The Aztecs sacrificed more than just virgins (children, actually), actually. They made a big to-do about sacrificing their prisoners of war to ensure that the Sun could go across the sky every day.
But, if you want a “modern” psychopathic society, what about Afghanistan under the Taliban, where you could be literally beaten for not being pious enough?
raven @ 171:
Ah, sorry, I gumbied up the 1st blockquote by putting the forward slash OUTSIDE the brackets. My bad.
Stanton:
Point.
The question then becomes, was this normative behavior post-or pre-Taliban?
If that’s depression, I’d have hated to see his manic side.
Sermon from a pulpit if I’ve ever seen or heard one. All the basic ingredients are there. Sounds just like many a preacher. A ‘Petitioner of God’ on behalf of his congregation. The kind of public ‘praying’ that’s all about conditioning them in what to think. In short, BEING “God”.
Except this madmman has no congregation, so all he can do is condemn atheists who infect his board.
Even in his limited little YouTube realm, He can still play God.
He get’s off on it. His mouth keeps going even when he doesn’t know what to say.
His is the face of madness. As dangerous as a lit fuse that leads directly to a powder keg.
He supported VenomFangX “fully”. How about that? VenomFangX must be beaming with pride to count a lunatic murderer as one of his most devoted fans. That’s just what resonated with VenomFangX’s message…a madman, full of intolerance and hatred.
How do you suppose VenomFangX will atone for his role in the death of Asia McGowan? Simple. He won’t. He wouldn’t feel he needs to. He’ll hastily scurry back into that dark dank crack in the wall haven from which he hatched while claiming over his shoulder that he’s not responsible for other’s misinterpretation of “God’s Message”. (Do cockroaches have shoulders?)
But it’s all an obsessive CONTROL fetish.
Anthony Powell demands women to be subserviant to their man-kings: “You have to stop and ask yourselves a question: if you are a black female, you’re talking about you want respect. What do you want??Wha..wha..would..what..whad’ywan…why do you deserve respect??…A queen, to me, is a real woman that’s going to stick by her..her king, her man, and his obedient to her husband, submissive to her husband…”
In one of Powell’s rant against atheists: “You don’t hurt me to the heart, because I know I’m right and your wrong; and I’m not saying that to be prideful, I’m not being arrogant; I know I’m right. It’s as simple as that. You’re wrong, you will be wrong no matter what you say.”
He also said, “I could smash you with EASE, it’s not that hard!”
Yet, he said, “You know what it is, atheists? You want to be your own gods.”
VenomFangX HimSelf couldn’t have said it better.
The irony is terrific, but because of the intolerance and seething hatred promoted by Control-Monger God-wanna-be’s like VenomFangX and the madness that resonates with that message, a beautiful, talented and innocent young lady has had her life blown to smithereens.
Smashed with ease. It wasn’t that hard.
Playing God, anything is possible. I don’t suppose that God-cockroaches ever shrivel up and die of shame, do they?
Playing God, anything is possible. I don’t suppose that God-cockroaches ever shrivel up and die of shame, do they?
Sadly, I think the details of this case would point to the answer possibly being… Yes.
In other news…
Ten years later, the real story behind Columbine.
Apostate: You’re just playing word games now. What I meant, is that slaughtering each other is allowed w/in the society. I put in ‘modern’, because the Aztecs sacrificed virgins. The old Norse used to settle their differences by battle
So were they chemically different from us? Or maybe, chemical explanation are insufficient….
You’ll need to back that up w/some hard data, please
No, that’s not a data problem. That’s a theoretical problem — given that ion channel opening is stochastic, that synaptic depolarization is a positive feedback system near threshold, the rate of neural transmission, and the dependency of state on current stimuli, you can calculate the butterfly effect. Physics (i.e., mathematics) trumps “data” (in a naive sense) every time. A single random switch can propagate through the system on the order of seconds; for God’s sake, it’s in the “kindergarten” mini-reviews in Physics 101 textbooks! The chaotic and global behavior of neural networks is well known — what the hell are you doing positing opinions on brain behavior if you don’t know this?
I’m getting an impression here that you just want to argue about this. A distinct lack of empathy? A human being reduced to ganglial brutal grasping of whatever it wants? A short circuit in the brain? What is it, if not chemical?
This is why I think you just don’t get it. I want to argue about this because it’s important. It is simultaneously a physical system, a chemical system, a biological system, and a social system. They are different kinds of explanation, for different problems. It’s a question of what explanation is the most tractable, not a question of which explanation is true. They are all true, but some are less useful, just as a physical system is “really” a quantum system, but the mathematics are usually intractable for systems larger than an atom.
There is a simple answer to my question, which gets to the heart of the problem. Insanity can often be considered a “biological disease” (chemical is very poor word choice), because teleological systems, functional systems, often have small number points of failure. You can explain why a car is not running by talking about a single missing screw; but the inverse isn’t true, you can’t explain why a car is running by just referencing the screw. So, for some mental disorders, for some explanatory purposes, it is simply sufficient to reference a failure in a family of receptors — but not for all mental disease or purposes.
Often that is elided for purposes of brevity; but many, many people never learned the elision (lack of a proper mathematical education for science, IMO), and so they don’t know the limits of this. You can never fully explain mentation by purely biological descriptions; in other words, biological explanations will never be tractable solutions for many problems in mentation. That doesn’t imply any mumbo-jumbo, any more than using Newtonian physics to calculate a bouncing ball rather than doing ab initio calculations are mumbo-jumbo. If you don’t know what you’re summarizing, then you never know the limits of your explanations.
So, just mumbling about religion being a “cover” for mental illness’s biological roots is insufficient in many cases — religion is part of the mental illness, it can be one of the causes, interacting with a biological substrate. Yes, if humans had different kinds of brains, certain mental illness would disappear; but conversely, certain mental illnesses (such as Koro), disappear when you change the culture.
Your final statement “well, duh” shows exactly how far off you are — explaining writing a book as a “chemical process” explains nothing about writing a book. It’s a cheat, like saying Goddidit. Of course, there are chemical processes sustaining the book writing; but there is no way to go from the chemical process to the book writing, so you’ve done nothing other than a trivial statement. You can, and never will, be able to predict the book writing from a biological description of state; the information describing the biological system sufficiently to make such a prediction approaches infinite.
And the whole point of scientific explanations is to make testable predictions. Therefore, saying that book writing is “chemical” is either trivial, or completely non-scientific — an article of faith rather than a scientific theory.
Because much of the time, we don’t have all the data. It has to be diagnosed from physical behaviors. Not being a chemist or psychologist, I couldn’t give you a pedantic answer that’ll satisfy you.
The question is whether we can ever “have all the data” mapping from receptor state to mentation. For some disorders or orders, we never will; therefore, such an explanation is not a scientific explanation. And once again, if you can’t give a pedantic (i.e., correct) answer, why are you bloviating on this? If you want to claim that mental diseases “are” chemical, shouldn’t you be fairly well versed in chemistry and psychology? Or are you like the Christian apologists who never bothered to carefully read their own literature?
Jeez Frog, you’re the last person to accuse anyone of ‘bloviating’, judging from your last logorrheic posts.
Uh, environmental differences as well as cultural?
Ah, I asked for proof that a CA ion triggers mental aberrations. So, that wasn’t it – that was the intellectual equivalent of “Mom, watch me dive!”
Yeah, I do get it. I think you’re missing the KIS principle.
Most of this was informative. Let’s address this:
Hold on.
Many religious practices DO involve changing the chemistry of the individual. Chanting, singing hymns, frenzies, etc. Usually this institutes an Alpha state, wherein participant is highly suggestible. So yes, change the culture, certain physical practices are discarded.
I thought you knew how to do that.
Jeez, strawman much?
Oh gee whiz, Mr. Blog Moderator, how DARE I make an innocent comment w/out at least a DOZEN studies to back up my position, not to mention being prepared w/some long-winded monologue that’ll win me a Molly?
Work on your people skills.
Apostate: Ah, I asked for proof that a CA ion triggers mental aberrations. So, that wasn’t it – that was the intellectual equivalent of “Mom, watch me dive!”
And, as I pointed out, that’s just dumb — really, really dumb. Your very point that mental disorders are “chemical” require that Ca ions trigger mental disorders; do you even know what your theory is? How receptors and ion channels work?
See, receptors interact with neurotransmitter, et. al, and some are sensitive to voltage. At synapses, the ion channels that are opened by either the receptors (often they are a single unit) and/or the voltage change allow Ca to enter. This is part of a feedback loop, changing the membrane potential while simultaneously activating other protein complexes that are calcium-sensitive.
Now, the whole system depends on tiny changes in Ca concentrations, and tiny changes in the distribution of charged particles — infinitesimal if the system is close to threshold.
So, if the system is chaotic, the ultimate firing off the downstream neurons, and quickly the global state, depends on teeny, tiny chemical changes.
The implications of that are obvious, if you bother to think instead of repeating trivial, empty statements like a kindergarden fundie. Of course the system has attractors, which make it unlikely that the global state instability will imply some radical change at the psychological level — but it’s not impossible.
Now, child, in systems like that, you can’t collect data for a particular incident, any more than you can “prove” weather “butterfly” effects by collecting a buncha-buncha data. It’s in the math, kid. It’s “true” — given known data, and the known mathematics — not a curve-matching exercise.
The point is you’re using phrases like “it’s all chemical” without having the least knowledge about what that even means. You’re saying something very, very stupid, and instead of say “Gee, I really don’t know about that, and maybe I should look into it”, you keep on blowing out of your ass. You have OPINIONS, just like the biggest religious cretin, without any basis other than trivial statements about the physical bases of thought.
Ignorance. It’s not just for monotheists anymore.
And you’re right about one thing — I should have accused you of empty bloviation, instead of just bloviating.
Frog:
No, you quote me out of context: YOU MADE THAT STATEMENT. I asked you to back it up. You didn’t.
Let’s recap: I make an innocuous comment (that I thought NO ONE would argue with!), that specifically people like Powell had a chemical imbalance. You immediately holler ‘strawman’! (Which is technically incorrect, since I wasn’t arguing w/anyone.) You then go on @ length on a strawman attack on me. You quote me out of context (a creationist tactic), strawman, & a variety of other histrionic attacks. Oh, let’s not mention the ‘dictating the dialogue’ (“hey, you don’t talk the way I WANT YOU TO, so STFU”), another theistic maneuver. In fact, you argue just like a theist (hey! A Tu quoque! The cognitive dissonance just never ends w/you, does it?).
So GFY, you pompous arrogant windbag. Moderate your own fucking blog.
Unless your off on another thread, yelling @ somebody else about why they dared comment ‘LMAO!’ Which is probably what you’re doing, you control freak.
Oh, I might add that your chances of winning a Molly are pretty slim now.
The silly thing is, he actually said at one time in a video that he had a shotgun or some other gun and that he should use it, because of something he didn’t like (can’t remember what it was). I guess that should have been taken seriously…