Of Christianity and Delusion
Most psychological terms, if not all, are relative; for example, normal or insane when describing someone. One can easily admit that being normal depends very much on cultural factors, but insanity is usually defined with respect to who should be sent to mental institutions or put under psychiatric care.
In psychological terms, there is no such thing as normal or perfect; however, it can be argued, that no one is totally insane either. Many psychologists disagree on who should be treated and who is normal.
With respect to people who are religious, most universities, students, and their professors refer to Christians as delusional. For them belief in God is one thing, but to believe in the story of Jesus, that sounds totally crazy. Many of them who turn to atheism get really upset when they meet a Christian, especially if he is a fellow student on campus. It has been known and reported that students who include references to Jesus in their papers are usually given the grade of F, and many students have been kicked out from schools for that reason alone. Now oddly enough this does not happen to Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist students; but perhaps because these religions do not claim that their God came to the world in the flesh and called himself the Son of God. (But this is another subject.)
Here we are dealing with what is insanity and what is normalcy. Generally, to see things that are not there is considered insane, yet normal people are fascinated by the paranormal phenomena (PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is the highest grossing picture of today.) Delusional people are very entertaining for American audiences. Five generations of Americans have been taught by schools and universities to believe in the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory. These two theories are the religion of Atheism, if it can be said that Atheism has a religion.
It is widely accepted by academia that the universe and planet earth were formed by the Big Bang out of a pre-existing vacuum which can only be referred to as empty space -- usually we refer to this as outer space. Well, since there was nothing before the Big Bang, there would be no "outer"; but this is not important. The main thing is that the scientific method calls for observation of everything perceivable through the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch) and the testing of all evidence collected. Also, with testing there has to be redundancy, meaning if something occurs only once that is not acceptable as scientific evidence. The experiments must be repeatable, so many scientists can concur on the veracity of the evidence.
The Big Bang Theory has been defended well against those delusional Christians who state that something cannot come out of nothing, that there must be a Creator, and an Intelligent Creator at that, judging by the complexity of the universe and so on. So there are some researchers who have discovered the presence of Antimatter and Black Holes, which are essentially Antimatter that was once stars and planets that died and were sucked into the Black Hole and became so compressed that they disappeared from sight altogether (this was before there were human beings with eyes to observe this phenomenon, of course, but never mind -- let us just say for the sake of the argument that this is so.)
Furthermore, the stars and planets that were formed after the Big Bang explosion occurred, then created many stars, galaxies and planets. Such a planet is earth, where the elements formed organic molecules, interacted and produced living creatures, which then evolved through many stages and millions of years into higher animals, then man. Of course, this is an oversimplification, but this can be readily accepted as there is sufficient evidence of the evolutionary process on earth, the oceans and the whole observable universe. The seminal work on this evolutionary process was started by Charles Darwin, a 19th Century biologist, who upon visiting the Islands of Galapagos discovered some creatures that seemed to be going through a transformation and he theorized that man must have evolved in similar fashion from apes. Darwin wrote a book entitled "On the Origin of Species." His painstaking studies about evolution became the basis of the Theory of Evolution.
It can be safely said that the knowledge of the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory are the highest achievements of the White Culture. This knowledge unfortunately has also given the White Man a sense of superiority over the darker races, as they were relegated to a more primitive stage in the evolution of the Homo sapiens. However, since the Theory of Evolution has not been accepted by the darker races, which comprise the whole world minus the American Whites and the Europeans, nobody today would dare to call the dark races, especially the Muslims among us, primitive or inferior. The only delusional people left, according to secular science, are therefore the American and European Christians who believe in Jesus and the Creation story in the Bible.
The Atheists in American universities are so adamant about calling this delusion that they consider Christianity as a form of insanity. This is essentially what they teach in American schools today. Let us examine this a bit further.
If insanity is the belief in the existence of an Intelligent Creator, then normalcy is the state of believing that the Homo sapiens evolved from apes. Since nobody is 100% normal, everybody falls in-between these two belief systems. However, there is an extension from normalcy at the evolutionist extreme; this is where the paranormal comes in. Paranormal explains the presence of psychological phenomena that are real yet invisible to the senses. The university professors and modern students prefer calling these paranormal phenomena rather than spiritual reality. When someone mentions the Bible seriously, they interject that then the belief in the Easter Bunny is also valid as a subject of discussion. Nevertheless, Christians consider those who believe in the paranormal as the truly delusional. Therefore, insanity is a cultural designation for those people who fall on the edges of normalcy somewhere between Christianity and the Paranormal.
Since there is no normalcy, everyone falls on one edge or the other. Today there is a polarization of those who consider themselves Christians and those who believe in the Paranormal Phenomena. Therefore, in order to determine which extreme is the more insane, there has to be a third party to observe and determine who are the most delusional. Muslims would have been a good choice, except they find both extremes to be insane. For Muslims the belief that Jesus is more than a prophet is delusion and the presence of ghosts, especially the kind that only make their appearance in American movies, is also suspect.
Hindus do not find the spiritual realm to be strange at all, and therefore they are less likely to take sides in calling either extreme delusional. As for Buddhists, the spiritual is easier understood through meditation rather than experimentation and the presenting of proof or facts; so they are also not the best referee. In fact, there is no discipline that can determine which extreme is more delusional.
It is more fair to allow both extremes to be presented in public schools, so there is a dialogue between those people who believe in Intelligent Design and those people who believe in Unintelligible Design. This way there will be fewer victims. If we are a country of freedom, let people choose. Delusions are what makes us more human. Delusions are after all people dreaming their own dreams.
Oct. 26, 2010