All have faith (subjective certainty, to varying degrees below absolute...
At first I thought this was funny, figured it might make a good “Sundaily Hilarity”, but the longer I watched and the more I saw the pain this woman was causing her children and the obvious pain she was in herself, the clearer it became that there is nothing funny about this at all.
Clearly the majority of religious people are not remotely like this. Clearly we all get angry and make fools of ourselves. And clearly some people, including possibly this woman, have actual mental illness problems which will manifest one way or another, regardless of whether it is in a religious idiom or in some other one if they lack a religious idiom. So, no, I don’t post this video or others like it to paint all religious people with the same brush or to blame religion for all the problems of mentally disturbed people.
But there are two things instructive about the video, that make it worth highlighting.
1. She could have said everything she said in a calm voice and it still would have been complete lunacy. And a sizeable portion of religious people do say things quite like this on a daily basis and it helps sometimes to show people a mirror that makes clear what they sound like to the rest of us.
2. While psychological causation is complex, people who exploited this woman’s superstitiousness and tendency towards fantasy by encouraging her to read the Bible literally and to believe in all the superstitious entities found in that book (sorcerers, demons, witches, etc.) certainly did her no favors. They may not be the sole reason that she’s a fanatical fantasist but they certainly played a contributory role in encouraging these intellectual and emotional habits as legitimate and in stocking up her imagination with crazy ideas to work with.
They actively cultivated her credulousness fantasies about her own powers (that she could “speak into existence” the things she wants to happen in the world if only she does it “in Jesus’s name”), where any one responsible and concerned with developing other people’s reason properly would have focused on aligning those around them with reality as closely as possible instead.
What I’m fundamentally getting at is this: when you promote or condone or otherwise abet the power and social and/or political authority of religious institutions to teach people epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, you are giving the vulnerable among us over to people who will teach them that their superstitious or otherwise irrationally grounded feelings and intuitions are legitimate sources of truth, who will then exploit that superstitiousness into accepting a metaphysics rife with fantasy beings, and who will structure their ethics around the interplay of these magical fantasy beings, with the result that some of these vulnerable people will vilify their fellow human beings as pawns of the devil or read events as the work of “dark siders”.
Yes, I know, that’s not what religion is to you. It’s a bunch of metaphors and symbols and ineffable sense of something inexplicably magnificent about the universe or whatever might transcend the universe. To you it’s just accepting what you take to be a logical argument that there must be a source of all being and it must be distinct from the universe and whatever that is, it’s worth meditating upon and calling “God”. The average believer needs to believe the metaphors or the noble lies so that she can tangibly grasp this philosophical point she wouldn’t otherwise get, that’s all.
I think that’s unacceptable. If you really think the superstitions are false, if you clearly think this woman is a sad raver disconnected from reality and her family and anyone outside of her cultically closed religious community, then you should really reconsider whether it might not be worth it after all to dissuade your fellow believers of their literalist fantasies as a higher priority than defending them against atheists. Maybe you should ask yourself whether your religious institutions on the whole do people’s understandings of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics an actual service or a disservice—regardless of whether you and other especially smart believers have highly sophisticated accounts of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics of your own.
Your Thoughts?
Two sad things about this, A. the crazy lady accepted the money and B. she lost her oldest daughter in a car wreck in 07. I’m sure you could draw a line of causation from B to A and you’d nail exactly what she thinks.
She has quite the fanbase on MySpace (at least she did in 07). So to say, “to paint all religious people with the same brush” might not be all that inaccurate. In other words, I’m thinking that there’s quite a lot of people that do think in this way if not act it.
If you watch the entire show, you will see that the other wife (and husband) was just as crazy in terms of their beliefs and superstitions. They just were much nicer (saner) about the way they interact with others. I guess that is why I like hippies more than evangelists. They are nicer and more open – even if some of what they believe is on the same craziness level of christianity.
the voice of Ameristan is not the voice of “God”
Even gods rot — don’t you smell the divine putrefaction? — Nietzsche FW 125
• Notice to all fundies in Ameristan:
“God” is not king. “Jesus / Christ” does not rule. They are dead — along with Ahura Mazda, YHVH, and Allah. Your priests and pastors, rabbis and imams fail as divine proxies. They are politicos with delusions of theocracy. Who elevated them or you over us?
If left to yourselves, the US would immediately become a xianized Pakistan, Ameristan. We don’t want our tax dollars helping you. We will defund your illegal “faith-based” tax shelters. We will fine your pedophilic instituitions out of existence.
Secede from the Union! “God” speed you on your way. Do you need a theocracy now? Convert to islam. Move to Saudi Arabia where life for 50% of you would be paradise.
Cynical politicians of Ameristan (like the “C” Street Family) embrace “Vox populi, vox dei” — “ The voice of the people is the voice of god” — Give the mob what it wants. And your name is ‘Legion,’ you are a mob of demonic ignorati.
We know you Ameristan. Home to xian Taliban. Home to haters of reason, haters of women, haters of freedom of conscience. Home to disgusting dominionists and wannabe theocrats.
• Don’t tread on us, xian oppressors.
Though you remain US citizens, you will not dictate what we should think, what we should believe, how we should behave in accordance with laws we give to ourselves under the Constitution. (Law did not originate in a voice from Sinai, or Mecca, or Jerusalem, or Rome, or Salt Lake City, or worst of all US televangelist cesspools.)
We demand that your rights to disbelief and freedom from religion under the Constitution be respected by all in our secular state from which you benefit more than we. That includes our right to free speech against your pseudo-1-god on the air, on the internet, on other media including billboards, bus and subway advertising.
If you imagine that the anti_supernaturalist enjoys “freedom of conscience” think again. Atheists are the most despised group in Ameristan. Look at the back of any dollar bill — “In God we trust” a cynical Civil War slogan supported by our right leaning federal courts— it’s an atavistic insult to 16% of the US population and a lighted match at the corner of the US Constitution.
Even if the morally disgusting, vicious, paternalistic-1-god of the big-3 monster-theisms could be proven to exist, even if old Tom Paine’s white-washed deistic divinity could be established by Reason — we have the sovereign right to reject any claim that it must be acknowledged, accepted, or worshiped.
We have the right (which even you must acknowledge) of going to your non-existent Hell by our own choice. (How else will I get to talk with Xenophanes, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, Diogenes Laertius . . . they knew your kind as frauds and liars before your death impulse even existed.)
– The de-deification of western culture is our task for the next 100 years.
the anti_supernaturalist
Wow it’s a good thing you wrote that out when you did, I think your head was about to explode.
I can’t resist weighing in.
If there was no church, no religious doctrine, no superstition whatsoever, this woman would still be sick. I’m sure there are at least some atheists who suffer mental illness. Are they ill because of their atheistic stance? No, not even if they used their views to justify irrational, delusional thinking.
Was she made worse by a certain religous sect by their teaching? Maybe. Sick people can make each other worse.
Does my toleration of her belief system make her sick? Well, that’s reaching some. First, I don’t accept her beliefs, but I can’t go correcting everyone’s wrong thinking. I wouldn’t let her bring her craziness close to vulnerable people (like the children) as the rest of the family, the camera crew, and the producers of this video did.
Tangentially, we have many people with mental illness walking the streets. It’s a societal problem that has little to do with faith and much to do with issues of economics, selfishness, and laziness.
“I wouldn’t let her bring her craziness close to vulnerable people (like the children) as the rest of the family, the camera crew, and the producers of this video did. ”
Do you think she only gets near children when she’s on camera? She’s got kids of her own and she’s around them every day. People like her are around children all the time. They’re allowed to teach her brand of lunacy to children as fact (“Jesus Camp”, for example).
Yes, she may has some underlying mental illness. But her religious delusions are voluntary, and to the extent that our country continues to encourage and excuse them people like her will exist.
Finally, mental illness has nothing whatsoever to do with selfishness or “laziness”.