Mutual Admiration Society
I have to admit that I check the blogs of Lindberg, Chidester, Defran, Dowling, and Bryant every hour or so, hoping for updates, a spark of the power I feel when hanging around them. Man, did that sound gay, but I mark out for those dudes early and often.
I mark out harder if I'm actually mentioned in said blogs, and I was today, as Lindblog's inspiration of his atheist rant.
I guess I consider myself an athiest, though it's tough being married to a catholic... anyway, I'll hit that another time.
What I want to post about is the rise of atheism, or at least laziness with regard to religion, and its perceived (by me) correlation to pop or mild mental disorders.
My contention is that so many people nowadays are diagnosed as depressed, bipolar, manic, whatever; depression being the big one, and I think that has a lot to do with the decline of religion in our lives.
My Disclaimer: I do believe that all these mental conditions are real. I see people with them all the time. Also, I am not religious. I can probably count on available digits the number of times I've been in a church.
I believe that it's so common for people's mental states get out of hand because they don't take that hour to stop and confront their problems. Think about it. That's all prayer really is (or meditation or whatever the religion calls it). For that hour a week, people who participate in religion look inside, and then 'talk' through their problems with God (I started typing "whatever deity they worship" but I don't need to sanitize this. You get the idea).
All they're doing is taking the time to mentally confront what's troubling them, even if they have to address their thoughts to God to get them out. Most prayer is asking God to keep an eye on your worries, be they touchdowns, loved ones, or the good ol' US of A.
There are few things more cleansing than dumping out that stuff you keep bottled up inside of you. In today's society, so many people don't take that time. They may even put off that reflection by trying to drink away their thoughts. Soaking your brain in alcohol or worse certainly helps you forget, but unless you lay out all your problems in front of yourself and plow right through them, they'll continue to eat at you. That will sure as hell cause someone to get depressed. Leaving that unchecked can sure as hell lead to worse.
Just a theory I have...
I mark out harder if I'm actually mentioned in said blogs, and I was today, as Lindblog's inspiration of his atheist rant.
I guess I consider myself an athiest, though it's tough being married to a catholic... anyway, I'll hit that another time.
What I want to post about is the rise of atheism, or at least laziness with regard to religion, and its perceived (by me) correlation to pop or mild mental disorders.
My contention is that so many people nowadays are diagnosed as depressed, bipolar, manic, whatever; depression being the big one, and I think that has a lot to do with the decline of religion in our lives.
My Disclaimer: I do believe that all these mental conditions are real. I see people with them all the time. Also, I am not religious. I can probably count on available digits the number of times I've been in a church.
I believe that it's so common for people's mental states get out of hand because they don't take that hour to stop and confront their problems. Think about it. That's all prayer really is (or meditation or whatever the religion calls it). For that hour a week, people who participate in religion look inside, and then 'talk' through their problems with God (I started typing "whatever deity they worship" but I don't need to sanitize this. You get the idea).
All they're doing is taking the time to mentally confront what's troubling them, even if they have to address their thoughts to God to get them out. Most prayer is asking God to keep an eye on your worries, be they touchdowns, loved ones, or the good ol' US of A.
There are few things more cleansing than dumping out that stuff you keep bottled up inside of you. In today's society, so many people don't take that time. They may even put off that reflection by trying to drink away their thoughts. Soaking your brain in alcohol or worse certainly helps you forget, but unless you lay out all your problems in front of yourself and plow right through them, they'll continue to eat at you. That will sure as hell cause someone to get depressed. Leaving that unchecked can sure as hell lead to worse.
Just a theory I have...
posted by Zach at 4:31 PM
5 Comments:
a...men!
(now hand me that bottle boy and mind your own bid-ness)
i'm with you. feeling lost is about the worst a person can feel, and if you feel there's no exploration or growth found in that lost feeling, then it's simply very lonely.
in addition, couple that with something dramatic: losing someone, getting married, feeling threatened or insecure, or even threat to your own life... without religion, how do you cope? i guess you don't, at least most don't well, and then you're deep in the throes of depression.
i am not religious; i guess i am spiritual. i believe that people are interconnected and that there may be something afterward, but i don't really know, and i don't have patience to think about it every moment. i have, in the past, talked to something or someone or it, something higher than me. i don't now, but i still think about it. life was much easier when i did. maybe because the burden seemed off my shoulders.
while recognizing that some have died and killed in the name of "god"; i believe that religion is slightly more good than bad, and just barely. for the most part, if it makes people reflective when they wouldn't be, that's good. if it makes people more thoughful towards others because we fear consequence, i guess that is good. it's really reminiscent, though, of reward/punishment when you are 6 years old. are we destined to live that way our whole lives? we can live kindly without it, can't we?
also, thanks for mentioning me.
i love you a ton.
marking out,
td
Dostoevsky suggests in Brothers Karamazov that faith is belief in the intangible. With that in mind he also suggest that those without faith are those without imagination or belief in the power of imagination. I think Pocket Thunder displays his "faith" in every single performance. And also, catholic girls are hot!
I don't believe I said anything against faith. Just because I don't believe in a higher power doesn't mean I don't believe in the intangible. What we share may be intangible to anyone but us, But I know it's there. It's my Whole life. If I have faith in anything, it's you, Kiki.
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