Death-seeking in Religion

After reading the whole, damned, thing, I must denounce your statement as highly misleading. You failed to mention how it was also associated with worsening of the recovering patients' conditions, when not being part of the madness itself, especially in cases of schyzophrenia (there's been people literally plucking the offending eye out, for God's sake). It's hard to come out with a solid conclusion without reading the multitude of cited articles (some of which are either highly informal studies, or had a sample pool too small to be significant), but the general impression I get is that the author is trying very hard to make integrating religio-spiritual therapy into standard procedures in hospitals seem viable, and hardly achieves "inconclusive". The many concerns are mentioned, but not addressed. It was a very frustrating read, and it was especially annoying to see how the author seemed to think that, by carefully arranging phrases, he could make one read things that weren't there. I haven't read the other articles, but I hope they're less Exact Words-y than this one.

edited 28th Mar '14 4:14:01 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Where did the topic go?

I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.

De Marquis proposed that Religious/Spiritual practice is not only not death-seeking, but outright life-enhancing and sanity-healing, and backed these claims with research papers. I read one of them. It was very, very disappointing. If I had to summarize, I'd say that the affection and sense of belonging that being welcomed in a religio/spiritual community entail are great for healing sadness and sorrow and loneliness (not the same thing as outright depression, but can be stages in the recovery from it), but that they are of no help at all when it comes to troubles separating reality from fiction, such as in the case of schyzophrenia (which is not Multiple Personality Disorder). Haven't read the articles on meditation yet; I'm procrastinating after the first disappointment.

Now, the cultists of Santa Muerte, they don't seek Death; instead, they... what was that terms Catholics use for not-worshipping saints? Not quite on-topic, but tangential.

Martyrdom across the planet and the ages is an interesting topic. I would bet it's always been a challenge to make eager followers understand when it's a noble and brave thing to sacrifice yourself for the faith, and when it's just throwing one's life away.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I believe the word you're looking for is venerate.

Which is definitely not worshipping and merely asking for intercession.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

OK, here's a here's another one. It's a review of other research literature: "...Taken together, they present convincing evidence that rates of morbidity and mortality vary across religions and religious denominations, as well as less, but still somewhat consistent, evidence that, on average, high levels of religious involvement are moderately associated with better health status."

OK, not a ringing endorsement exactly, but the overall point is that religion isnt bad for you, and can be good for you, depending on the exact circumstances.

Another one. Based on a survey of old people: "...Findings reveal excellent overall fit in all three samples and the presence of statistically significant religious effects, notably positive net effects of organizational religiousity, in all three samples."

Probably at least somewhat due to the effect of community support, but still not harmful.

This article is based on research on African Americans. "...Evidence mostly supports a protective religious effect on morbidity and mortality and on depressive symptoms and overall psychological distress among African Americans."

Here's another article that summarizes a lot of research and proposes a model that links religious practices, beliefs, and community effects with biological, psychological and social benefits respectively.

As for explanatory mechanisms, here is an article by a researcher who believes the effect is due to meaningful positive emotions that are associated with religious belief. Of course, this implies that if one could obtain such meaningful positive emotions from another source, then that too would provide similar health benefits.

There's literally a mountain of research on these effects. Here's a link to the Handbook of Religion and Health.

I havnt seen any evidence that religiosity makes any difference with Schizophrenia.

edited 29th Mar '14 9:37:51 AM by demarquis

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

I imagine they have enough trouble with vague disembodied presences and voices that introducing another (real or not) doesn't particularly help.

edited 29th Mar '14 10:27:19 AM by Elfive

I'm going to note a few things here: First, that Buddha proposed a Middle Way - a path to take between the extremes of indulgence (that is, excessive consumption of food, sex, similar things) and self-mortification. These extremes are no good, and lead to much suffering one way or the other.

As far as Cessation of Existence goes, Nirvana can be interpreted in different ways, and this destruction of the ego, as you call it, is ultimately impermanent. It could be said to be simply a way to temporarily escape the suffering of samsara, of the cycle of reincarnation.

Buddhism can be considered a way of life as much as it can be thought of as a religion, so that's something to keep in mind, as well.

I thought Nirvana was a permanent stop, a final destination?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I think Crinias meant that the Ego is impermanent. It's not the real you.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Isn't that a No True Scotsman plus Personal Dictionary thing? What is this real-me that survives once the false-me is dead?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Ok, what if nirvana is like a big soul soup and when you achieve it you end up mixed with all the other souls, but if something gets born and there isn't an available soul a new one gets made out of a ladle of the soup?

So in essence a bunch of bits of old souls get mixed together and start a new journey, but the old souls themselves are gone forever. Therefore it's both permanent and impermanent at the same time.

edited 30th Mar '14 7:14:59 AM by Elfive

ಠ_ಠ

I am not impressed.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

But, I like that thought. If matter works like that, why not that-which-is-not-entirely-matter?

I mean, everything we're made of recycles. <shrugs> I don't know where all my molecules have been before they became me.

Yes, yes, the Ship of Theseus, the limits of the notion of identity, etc. etc. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter if some of the atoms in me have been part of other people, dead or alive...

Hm... kissing...

Anyway... ... anyway, if you put something in a blender and then from the resulting mush make something else, that thing has ceased to exist and function anymore as such in any meaningful way. There is a new thing, which is not the same thing, and only shares some elements with it.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

But, it's not like it's totally, brand-spanking new. Causality means that the new wouldn't be without the old. So the old still counts — even if it might not be in a position to know it does. <shrugs>

But, that's not the same as *bang* not there at all.

edited 30th Mar '14 7:56:48 AM by Euodiachloris

Plus, if nirvana is supposed to be the natural state of things that implies that all souls were extracted from it originally. Who's to say this isn't an ongoing process?

The worst you can really say about nirvana is that it sounds a little boring. Looking at it from one perspective you could see individuality as a sort of metaphysical drug. Ultimately harmful, but also rather addictive, so much so that every time someone dies and they have the choice of quitting or going back for another hit most choose the latter. Buddhism is basically an Existenceoholics Anonymous group. They even have a twelve-step program, of sorts.

edited 30th Mar '14 8:10:23 AM by Elfive

I suppose it's something like that. You're basically describing the first seal of Buddhism.

In Buddhism, all things compounded are impermanent. All things have a beginning, so they have an ending. Everything can be thought of as impermanent, ultimately transient. If I have a house, is one of its doors part of it, or its own object? Well, clearly it's part of it, as much as the door's planks are part of the door, but if the door isn't an object then the house isn't, either. So all of them must be objects.

And as such, one day those objects will be broken down, destroyed by violence or accident or the flow of time. The house can't remain the same at any time - it might suffer damage, be repaired, get a new paint job, whatever - but in the end it's only temporary. Same with people. Our bodies grow older every day, changing bit by bit, and one day they will end.

That's not quite it. Nirvana is supposed to be a liberation from extremes, an escape from the cycle of reincarnation. It's supposed to be a state 'without': without ignorance, without attachment, and without aversion. The very word means 'blown out', like a candle. The flame is gone, but the rest is still there. Now, I'm no expert on the subject, but at no point is it implied that all souls spring from Nirvana. From where the world comes or whether there is a creator god is not something that directly concerns Buddhism.

Eight-step program!

The correct term for the awakening of Buddha is "Sambodhi", which inherently cannot be described in words, only experienced directly. It's been described as "liberation from the world", which is accurate so far as it goes, but really inadequate. Bear in mind that one of the things that awakening is supposed to liberate you from are precise, objective definitions of subjective experiences, because they are seen as illusions, barriers to directly experience the thing being described, much like taking a picture of a historical monument prevents you from truly appreciating it. I'm not a buddhist, so it isnt clear to me whether, after death, the individual completely ceases entirely to exist, or whether you simply dispense with a self-definition based on an arbitrary set of boundaries and limitations, and become what you really are, an unfiltered awareness of everything that is happening within and around you.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

The boundaries aren't arbitrary. They're permeable and approximate and fuzzy, but that's not the same as not-being-there. It's certainly not the same as being meaningless.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

The Handle, to a Buddhist, those boundaries are arbitrary. It's part of what makes Buddhism, Buddhism; the belief that those boundaries are arbitrary and can be overcome.

Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but what I'm seeing is that you seem to be dismissing fundamental, foundational tenets of a religious system that you don't agree with, then objecting that the rest of the system doesn't work the way you think it should with those tenets removed.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

You're certainly wrong when you say that Buddhism is defined by Holism. There's a lot more to it than that, and Holism in neither a necessary nor sufficient part of it.

As for the socond part, please show me some examples.

edited 30th Mar '14 4:09:17 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I'm not clear what you mean by "holism", but Buddhism is critically concerned with the liberation from the world of form and the mind's net of words and concepts. Since the boundaries and limitations that you use to define your self are part of that world, an important part of the philosophy is to let go of all that. As an individual entity in the universe, you exist, but there is no "self" that you can perceive, understand or define. True Reality is beyond human intellectual comprehension. And this is before death. I'm not certain what Buddhists believe about the afterlife once you are freed from the round of reincarnation, but I doubt it resembles the Christian heaven.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

That would depend on the Buddhist school. From what little I know of Zen Buddhism, specifically, "True Reality" is just "Reality", period. It's just about learning to stop trying to think of everything verbally and learn to rely on non-verbal parts of your brain for a faster, more immediate understanding. The sort of "thoughtless", open-sensed awareness that you'd need to survive a sword duel, for instance. But, I'm pretty sure my understanding is very flawed. Problem is, with this religion as well as with many others, even with many ideologies, I find myself facing the same roadblock.

Different groups having different interpretations of stuff.

Explaining it differently to each other than to outsiders.

The common folks having one set of understandings, the most educated ones having another entirely.

The official, canonic set as opposed to the commonly-accepted one.

And it goes on, and on, and on. There will always be someone to tell me "You've got it completely wrong, you've misunderstood the very basics of my religion and you're drawing the wrong conclusions. Obviously my understanding of the religion is the correct one." Heck, I almost did that to De Marquis about Nietzsche, when he said that Nietzsche was the only philosopher he knew that advocated for selfishness.

But, to get back on topic, we're talking about Death being seen as a desirable state by religious systems. There's an entire, huge wikipedia entry on martyrdom, that absolutely no-one felt the need to pick up. Instead, we're discussing whether Nirvana counts as death or not. I already find it a bit of a problem to talk about death within a system that assumes a circle of reincarnation; what does "death" even mean, in that context? The end of a point-of-view? As for the specific interpretation of Nirvana as a soul-blender, again, what's the point of getting there if your soul-stuff is merely going to get recycled and redistributed into new souls? If the self is an illusion, and everything is one, then what do the words we're speaking even now mean? What's the point of anything? What is anyhing? What is? What?

?

edited 30th Mar '14 6:43:03 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Oops, did I get Nietzsche wrong?

"You've got it completely wrong, you've misunderstood the very basics of my religion and you're drawing the wrong conclusions. Obviously my understanding of the religion is the correct one."

So why is this a roadblock? A roadblock to what? Unfortunately, you may be up against the fact that there is no one correct interpretation of something as complex and subjective as religious belief. In a sense, there are as many Christianities as there are Christians.

As for Zen and Buddhism, just to bring some closure to that, bear in mind that the reason the Zenners believe that the reason nonverbal thinking works is because that reflects the way reality actually is. And Buddhists believe that life doesn't have a meaning that is separate from the experience of life itself. By trying to analyze it, you reduce it to a mere idea. Throw away your ideas about life, and simply live. That's the idea, anyway.

The way you reduce your question gradually to a question mark actually captures that approach pretty well.

Martyrdom, that's a tough one, I dont have any personal experience to bring to bear on it. It's not always a good thing. The 9/11 attackers were martyers, or thought they were. There appears to be a difference between people willing to die for a cause and people who are suicides or mass murderers (including terrorists) so perhaps the defining attribute is not the act but the motivation. Actively seeking death is not as the same as ignoring death in the performance of some mission. I would certainly describe that as a typical Christian attitude.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."