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Showing posts with the label psychology

Haunted Hospital, Gaslighting, or...

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Here I am at Westchester Medical Center waiting for open heart surgery for a double or triple bypass in a couple of days. There was a strange sequence of events that got me here, I was originally expecting to have a short visit to the Urgent Care for a different problem. This is being written using an old cell phone, speech to text, and other technological wizardry. There is a small table on wheels just under 3 ft long for me to use. I did not notice before, it has a small drawer that is not very deep. I put some things in there that I wanted to be close to me. I needed something, went to look for it - and it was gone. Creepy hospital, Unsplash/ Andy Li Time to write off on a short but relevant side trail. The word gaslighting is overused nowadays, but it is still something real. When used correctly, the word involves psychological manipulation to make someone deny their perception of reality -  or even their own sanity. You can see that it is malicious, not just a mistake

Atheism, Mental Health, and God

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  It seems that every day has been designated as a national or world day for an observance, whether to "raise awareness", celebrate, or something prosaic. October 10 is World Mental Health Day. Fine, I reckon it is a good idea to point out that millions of people have mental health issues. Many are simply things we just learn to deal with, others are debilitating and need counseling as well as medication. Several times, this child has admitted to dealing with depression. Everyone probably has it to some degree on occasion, and other times it is a lifelong struggle due to chemical imbalances in the brain. My hypertension medications contribute to it. People in the Bible were troubled with depression. My photo of the Hudson River, the Rondout Lighthouse is very small on the left side Some of those problems were short-term based on circumstances, others seemed to be lifelong. David wrote some psalms showing his depression over events and his own sins, and E

The Destructive Nature of Narcissism

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen This is an article that I was going to write for a long time. Originally, I thought I could make it work over at Piltdown Superman and use the material in a discussion about atheists and anti-creationists, but it was not a good fit over there. This was inspired by an article that had been in my e-book reader for a long time and is linked later on. Cropped from Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, 1903 Is it just my imagination, or are people becoming more and more self-absorbed nowadays? We hear about people who are overly fond of themselves and are often referred to as narcissistic. The word came from an ancient Greek myth where Narcissus was excessively handsome and fond of himself, then fell in love with his own reflection. Narcissism is a personality disorder that takes many forms. The word is bandied about far too casually, describing people from world leaders to anyone else that may be disliked. As with any disorder (or even a physi

Dealing with Persecution

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Although some sidewinders try to deny it, persecution of Christians is increasing in Western nations . Some professing Christians think that they are promised a life of giddy happiness, but we should expect persecution (1 Peter 4:12-14, Matt. 5:10-12, Matt. 24:9, John 15:20, 2 Tim. 3:12) , and we've had to deal with it since the beginning. Credit: Pixabay / Gerd Altmann Some of the persecution is nonviolent, having to do with having our rights to freedom of religion and free speech eroded. We also have to deal with bullying, defamation, misrepresentation, criminal cyberstalking, and so on. Reports of direct, personal violence against Christians, such as this one , are more frequent. Do you know the origin of the word persecution ? We got it from the French, who in turn got it from the Latin. It means to follow with hostility. Some make a point of following us on the Web, then lying about us on forums, weblogs, harassment on our own social media ac

Secular Science Industry Getting More Nutty

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In " Blind Bias in the Secular Science Industry ", we saw that those organizations are not aloof and impartial in the slightest, and have a distinct leftist bias. For that matter, I'll borrow a line I heard: they're so left wing, they fly in circles. We're used to secularists in the science industry and their sycophant press opposing biblical creation science and using devious as well as distinctly unscientific methods. Now they're getting downright nutty — but then, we've seen quite a few leftists becoming totally unhinged from hatred, haven't we? Credit: Freeimages / Jason Antony At this writing, Donald Trump has just completed the first month as the American President, with 23 left to go. I'm not his biggest fan, but from what I've seen so far, he may end up doing a very good job; I'm cautiously optimistic. Before the inauguration and in that first month, people were acting like he's going to destroy their civil rights and bec

It All Adds Up: Many Atheists are Nuts

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Good day to publish this. Not only is it Friday the 13th, but also a full moon. At the end of 2010, I had the audacity to even dare to ask if atheism causes brain damage . Apparently, it is one of the ultimate crimes to question anything about the intelligence, morality or sanity of The Mighty Atheist™ because I received a number of attacks, misrepresentation and outright lies . (A guy can't even ask?) Later, atheists were incensed and went into full denial mode when I later pointed out that there is a definite link between atheism and autism . They do tend to become furious and attack like piranhas at any perceived slight, or if someone criticizes one of their religious icons, such as Clinton Richard Dawkins: For that matter, priests of atheism and evolutionism like Bill Nye and Neil de Grasse Tyson will tell blatant untruths and then their fanboys will gleefully spread them around.  Observing their behavior (especially online, where th

Does Mental Illness Cause Atheism?

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On a broadcast of Evidence for Faith , Keith and Kirk discussed a study from the Psychology Department at the University of British Columbia called " Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God ". It shows that people with a tendency toward mental disorders, especially autism, are more likely to be disbelievers. The more severe the autism, the stronger the disbelief. Several projects attempt to determine the causes of atheism. There is probably no single cause, however.  Most atheists appear to be Caucasian adolescent males (which is not a surprise, considering the complaints of sexual harassment from the less numerous atheist females) A majority of atheists seem to have had bad or nonexistent relationships with their fathers A desire for attention Sociopath behavior (especially trolling, personal attacks, unhealthy amounts of time on the Internet in efforts to antagonize Christians) Further, it is seen in their irrational insistence on asserting t