Christianity

[attofishpi]

ps Loving the way Indians drive....honk honk honk - I'm going over there - roundabouts with no painted lines for lanes, and if the road has lines nobody cares and just drift across...this kind of madness suits me for some reason!

I have lived in so many lawless places — the N coast of Venezuela being one — that I know what you mean. It is charming, stimulating somehow — until it isn’t. Our Occidental lives are so regulated, so confined within lawfulness and over-order that when we confront anarchic chaos it is like fresh wind.

Yes and it bloody works! The traffic is in a continual state of flux, rarely does it come to a grinding halt, it's fluid. In Australia there are so many dithery idiots that can't seem to grasp the concept and appear to think their car is twice as large as it actually is and end up holding up an entire lane at a standstill because there is a parked car in front of them!

[Alexis Jacobi]

Yes and it bloody works!

I’d only mention how many I know who after a few months in India get worn down … and say how relieved they felt when on a plane going home. (I was in India with my parents and we had our difficult moments).

I am reminded of an old (late 60s I think) documentary of travels in India by Louis Malle. Hours long, very interesting, and there is one part where he encounters 2 enthusiastic romantics who later had different thoughts.

(You can read the transcript if you don’t understand French).

(Unrelated, one of my favorite parts of his documentary is the section on Indian traditional dance.)

Everyone is wondering “Where is IC?” Well, my understanding is that he received my package of Magic Mushrooms picked at the Durga temple in Junagadh, Gujarat, took a “heroic dose” a la Terrence McKenna, and is now living on the beaches of Goa with a young topless kundalini mistress originally from Sweden! They both live on coconut milk and I am assured their relationship is “100% platonic”

(Uh-huh like I believe that).

Wow. You just gotta take things as they come I guess! Hat’s off, Immanuel, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do ….

This is how it always starts ...



... so I always suggest moderation.

Take it slow (and lose the sunglasses).

[Gary Childress]

I've only said that the unafflicted don't understand if they think we can just "snap out of it" or think happy thoughts instead.

You do realize that just about everyone has to work at maintaining peace, happiness, and clarity for themselves, right, Gary? It can be hard work and we can forget how. Sometimes it helps for others to remind us that we have some control over our situations. You don't seem to want to hear that.

You don't seem interested in the compassionate and thoughtful feedback you receive. Perhaps you don't see it that way because you automatically frame other people as having 'a lack of understanding in that you cannot do anything about it'. So, you keep complaining and ignoring people... and that's kind of self-absorbed and rude. What do you want people here to do?

If you want to feel love and appreciation, help someone less fortunate than yourself without desiring anything from them. Maybe that will help get your focus off of your own frustration and reset your perspective.

What part of "you can't just snap out of it" did you not understand about severe mental illness? I'm not talking about be "bummed out" or having a bad day. Would you like to join me on antipsychotics and anti-depressants? I'm not talking about smoking weed or doing meth or whatever you may have ever tried. And I'm talking years, not just weekends or when you feel like getting "high". Maybe then you'll get an idea of what it's like to feel like there's no hope?

All your so called "help" amounts to little more than telling me to just snap out of it, laced with accusations that I'm not trying hard enough, insinuating that this is all my fault. If that makes you feel better, I guess that's what you'll continue to do. Can't you just "snap out of" that attitude, Lace?

[Lacewing]

What part of "you can't just snap out of it" did you not understand about severe mental illness?

I didn't say that, so why do YOU keep framing things that way? I said we all have to continually work at it. You may also require the tools of therapy and drugs, as a lot of people do. We ALL gotta do (different) things to deal with life. GET IT?

accusations that I'm not trying hard enough

Do you think there's anything at all that you can do to improve your thoughts even a small amount, or is absolutely everything useless and out of your control?

If you are unable to help yourself by doing anything other than continually complaining, then I apologize for wasting any suggestions on you. I was under the impression that you had some capability for self-control and mindfulness, considering the deeply thoughtful posts you've written on this forum. I guess that was then, and this is now.

[Lacewing]

This is how it always starts ...

Now that guy knows how to have a good time.

More cowbell!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVsQLlk-T0s

[iambiguous]

Defending Compatibilism
Bruce R. Reichenbach
at the Science, Religion and Culture website
[the focus here being on free will given an omniscient God]

Although theists advance divine foreknowledge in terms of knowledge, Fischer, in the company of other incompatibilists, uses “believe” in place of “know.”

Again, more word games? In regard to a God that we don't even know for sure does in fact exist, and is in fact omniscient, should we use the word "know" or "believe"? What God believed "in His mind" there and then when He created us about me typing these words here and now, or what God knew in His head there and then about me typing these words here and now.

Compatibilism and incompatibilism pertaining to nature revolve around the fact of biological evolution on planet Earth. Here the only alternatives are solipsism and sim worlds and dream worlds and the like.

But once God is brought into play, how is it all not just sheer speculation...in the absence of God Himself? You start with one set of conjectures; others start with very different ones.

We will argue that if we grant that God can have beliefs, only if all his beliefs come as components of his indubitable and complete knowledge can we properly use the term “believe.” As we will see later, denial of the contention that God’s states of knowing and states of believing are identical roots Fischer’s incompatibilist argument.

See the inherent problem? How on Earth would either Fischer or those who think other than as he does, go about establishing what they either believe or claim to know about God?

To me, belief revolves more around what you think and feel in your head regarding something, whereas knowledge pertains more to what you are actually able to establish in connecting the dots between "in my head" and "out in the world".

There are, Fischer suggests, three possibilities about the past that derive from these propositions.

If Jones were to refrain from doing X at T2, then God would have held a false belief at T1, or
If Jones were to refrain from doing X at T2, then God would not have existed at T2, or
If Jones were to refrain from doing X at T2, then God would have held a different belief from the one He actually held at T1.

Or...?

If Mary were to refrain from aborting Jane here and now, then God would have held a false belief there and then when we created us?

If Mary were to refrain from aborting Jane here and now, then God would not have existed there and then to create us?

If Mary were to refrain from aborting Jane here and now, then God would have held a different belief from the one He actually held when He created us?

You tell me.

[commonsense]

What part of "you can't just snap out of it" did you not understand about severe mental illness?

I didn't say that, so why do YOU keep framing things that way? I said we all have to continually work at it. You may also require the tools of therapy and drugs, as a lot of people do. We ALL gotta do (different) things to deal with life. GET IT?

accusations that I'm not trying hard enough

Do you think there's anything at all that you can do to improve your thoughts even a small amount, or is absolutely everything useless and out of your control?

If you are unable to help yourself by doing anything other than continually complaining, then I apologize for wasting any suggestions on you. I was under the impression that you had some capability for self-control and mindfulness, considering the deeply thoughtful posts you've written on this forum. I guess that was then, and this is now.

I think I understand what Lace says here and has said previously. I also can see how Gary interprets those comments from his viewpoint.

While there may be a “spectrum” of sadness, with “the blues” on one end and suicidal actions on the other, I cannot conceive of a demarcation where the sadness that anyone can experience becomes the sickness that only 3.5% of us will face.

Despite all that, the two—the blues and a clinical depression—are very different when it comes to a positive resolution of a sad mood.

There are those who can shrug off bad feelings just by turning their attention to an event or object that brings them joy. There are those with mild-to-moderate depression who will respond favorably to talk therapy. There are those with manic depression in whom there may be a fine line between great creativity and a rather vegetative state. And there are those who are unable to experience joy, for whom pharmacologic remedies are necessary but not always effective.

The approach to someone who is sad must be individualized. CBT is effective for some, yet an individual in a depressive crisis may interpret anything that is spoken as a way to blame the affected person for being at fault. If one is at fault and has been given tools to mend a bad mood, and one has failed to use those tools properly, then one sees the situation as deeply hopeless and the depression can worsen.

I speak both from the standpoint of a patient who had to be hospitalized for suicidal ideation at one point and as one who has been a primary care provider as well. I’ve had almost 30 years of clinical experience and about 50 years of personal experience with major depression. I hope my thoughts are helpful to you, Gary and for maybe others as well.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The approach to someone who is sad must be individualized. CBT is effective for some, yet an individual in a depressive crisis may interpret anything that is spoken as a way to blame the affected person for being at fault. If one is at fault and has been given tools to mend a bad mood, and one has failed to use those tools properly, then one sees the situation as deeply hopeless and the depression can worsen.

Mental illness, severe depression, states of suicidal depression (and so on) can be talked about ‘philosophically’ but when one goes about establishing, consciously or subconsciously, a therapeutic relationship with denizens of an Internet forum, the one who seeks ‘help’ or interchange would do well to realize that such a place is not the place.

Realistically, responsibly, what advice could anyone, should anyone, give? Why seek advice among people not qualified to give it?

Frankly, it is untenable both to seek such and to give such.

[commonsense]

The approach to someone who is sad must be individualized. CBT is effective for some, yet an individual in a depressive crisis may interpret anything that is spoken as a way to blame the affected person for being at fault. If one is at fault and has been given tools to mend a bad mood, and one has failed to use those tools properly, then one sees the situation as deeply hopeless and the depression can worsen.

Mental illness, severe depression, states of suicidal depression (and so on) can be talked about ‘philosophically’ but when one goes about establishing, consciously or subconsciously, a therapeutic relationship with denizens of an Internet forum, the one who seeks ‘help’ or interchange would do well to realize that such a place is not the place.

Realistically, responsibly, what advice could anyone, should anyone, give? Why seek advice among people not qualified to give it?

Frankly, it is untenable both to seek such and to give such.

Fortunately my description does not advise anyone as to what they should do.

[Gary Childress]

The approach to someone who is sad must be individualized. CBT is effective for some, yet an individual in a depressive crisis may interpret anything that is spoken as a way to blame the affected person for being at fault. If one is at fault and has been given tools to mend a bad mood, and one has failed to use those tools properly, then one sees the situation as deeply hopeless and the depression can worsen.

Mental illness, severe depression, states of suicidal depression (and so on) can be talked about ‘philosophically’ but when one goes about establishing, consciously or subconsciously, a therapeutic relationship with denizens of an Internet forum, the one who seeks ‘help’ or interchange would do well to realize that such a place is not the place.

Realistically, responsibly, what advice could anyone, should anyone, give? Why seek advice among people not qualified to give it?

Frankly, it is untenable both to seek such and to give such.

Who is seeking advice? Do you not know the difference between a philosophy forum and a therapy forum?

[commonsense]

Mental illness, severe depression, states of suicidal depression (and so on) can be talked about ‘philosophically’ but when one goes about establishing, consciously or subconsciously, a therapeutic relationship with denizens of an Internet forum, the one who seeks ‘help’ or interchange would do well to realize that such a place is not the place.

Realistically, responsibly, what advice could anyone, should anyone, give? Why seek advice among people not qualified to give it?

Frankly, it is untenable both to seek such and to give such.

You should educate yourself before posting an opinion here. Mental illness patients sometimes join support groups where they seek the advice of other mental illness patients who have had relevant experiences but no formal or expert training on the matter but who share their experiences and offer advice.

[Flannel Jesus]

Mental illness, severe depression, states of suicidal depression (and so on) can be talked about ‘philosophically’ but when one goes about establishing, consciously or subconsciously, a therapeutic relationship with denizens of an Internet forum, the one who seeks ‘help’ or interchange would do well to realize that such a place is not the place.

Realistically, responsibly, what advice could anyone, should anyone, give? Why seek advice among people not qualified to give it?

Frankly, it is untenable both to seek such and to give such.

You should educate yourself before posting an opinion here.

I feel like his advice bypasses the need for random forum users to educate themselves, because his advice is to seek out someone whose job it is to be educated... You can't expect all random forum users to "educate themselves" in this manner, but you can expect a professional to.

[promethean75]

"seek the advice of other mental illness patients"

Sound advice.

I will now take your questions.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You should educate yourself before posting an opinion here. Mental illness patients sometimes join support groups where they seek the advice of other mental illness patients who have had relevant experiences but no formal or expert training on the matter but who share their experiences and offer advice.

I suggest you are “guilt-slinging” and I reject what you are doing. What I wrote stands — a sound opinion.

A therapeutic environment, where professionals and those with direct experience — other mentally ill persons — support and counsel one another is the appropriate place to interact and ‘get support’. I maintain that here it can be talked about, with philosophical remove, but that does not seem to me what the one who stimulates this conversational deviation seeks.

I made one additional comment (in a neutral voice) to a conversation I stated I had left. Now I leave it again and will make no more comments on this topic. That is what ‘it’ does: it sucks one in. That feels unhealthy, to me.

[commonsense]

Mental health patients go to support groups to seek and give advice.