Two images shown on a fundagelical psycho's blog - depict a man who "got prostate cancer and failed to get right with God" before the cancer took him.
The whacko compares prostate cancer in this case to the "plagues" sent by "god" against Pharoah to get him to do right. He further intimates that the men who get this cancer "are not right" in their souls and the cancer is a warning of "imminent damnation". "God", or at least the cosmic clown sociopath that passes for his god, is dictating what must be, and all "hard hearted Pharaohs" must heel to.
What I want to do is first show the marks of psychosis here, then propose an advanced treatment plan. The first key sign of psychosis, or what I call "fundagelical psychosis" is mistaking a 2,000+ year old ancient Jewish fantasy world for reality. Any normal human, with a normal brain allocation - or at least one not deformed- understands that what's in the Old Jewish Talmud are mainly fairy tales: thus, Joshua stopping the Sun in the sky, Jonah being swallowed by a whale (or "big fish") and Adam and Eve, are all fairy tales. Any one who believes they are facts based on an antiquated book is either an overgrown child in need of day care, or a psycho in need of a serious sanatarium, meds and ECT.
Second, prostate cancer isn't even mentioned - even by an euphemism - in any biblical passage, old or new. The argument can then be made that it bears NO analogy to "plagues" dispatched on any alleged Pharaoh. (Besides which, it is hyper- psychotic to compare any prostate cancer patient to an ancient Pharaoh!) The argument can also be made that in ancient times, even apart from the mythological nature of the scrolls or whatever, prostate cancer didn't exist. The reason is that the average male life span was only about half what it is today, and we now know prostate cancer is a cancer mostly seen with advancing age. Thus, 50% of males in their 40s likely have it as do 60% of those in their 50s and 70% of those in their 60s. But most males in ancient times barely reached the age of 35! Hence, they'd not have lived sufficientfly long to get prostate cancer!
Third, "hell" is a fiction invented by a psychotic monk sometime in the 4th century. The story goes that the monk ingested an overload of "magic mushrooms" and then had an all night bender in which he fantasized an eternal place of torment. A subsidiary theory is that he read some scrolls concerning "Gehenna" - the waste dump outside Jerusalem first- so this fueled his hallucinations. Later, the created fairy story was used to try to assert a doctrine (e.g. at the 2nd Council of Constantinople) that there was only "one life to live" and if man didn't make it right he was doomed to "hell". This was intended to oppose the doctrine of reincarnation (or more technically, metempsychosis) advanced by Clement of Alexandria and Origen of Adamantius.
"Hell" became most popularized in the fiction of the Middle Ages with the publication of Dante's 'Divine Comedy', specifically 'The Inferno' (The Purgatorio and Paradasio made up the other two parts of the Comedy). But it remained for Gustave Dore (1832-1883) to actually transform Dante Alleghieri's verbal descriptions of the assorted 'circles' of Hell into an assortment of artistic plates. (These can be seen in the book, 'The Dore Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy', Dover Books, 1976). Therein one sees assorted renditions of the various tortures (peculiar to each "circle") as well as "Satan". What this work did was to render more concrete what had hitherto been only nebulous descriptions.
It is most interesting that many of Dante's images as captured by Dore, rather than being seen for what they really are- essentially elaborate cartoons - were instead invested with reality, mainly by evangelical preachers of the 19th century such as Rev. Josiah Strong. The cartoon images thereby became entrenched in fundies' lapsed brain cells as assorted 'Elmer Gantry' like preachers had at it. (Most of them highly liquored up before going off on their salvation hell rants.)
Of course, salvation itself is a total myth since Jesus or Yeshua was only a mere human, albeit endowed with charisma and special teaching talents. The Gnostic were amongst the first early Christians to note this, and this is why they deemed the whole salvation theology (really a Paulist invention) a 'blasphemy' because it raised a man to the level of an infinite God. Up to now, none of these fundie dolts have figured this out.
Meanwhile, the latest brain research - via positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission tomography (SPECT), shows that Jesus does indeed exist as a God and "savior" but only as an ideational obsession confined to a particular brain region, called the orientation association area (OAA) see e.g. the book ‘Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief’ by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and his asosciate Eugene Daquill M.D.. As the authors note: (p. 5)
“In normal circumstance, the OAA helps create a distinct, accurate sense of our physical orientation to the world. To do its job well….depends on a constant stream of nerve impulses from each of the body’s senses. The OAA sorts and processes these impulses virtually simultaneously during every moment of our lives”
So, in other words, without the benefit of the OAA brain region, we’d be essentially discombobulated vegetables, unable to even get out of bed in the morning. The authors’ investigation of how the brain’s OAA translates an image or idea into a religious reality is described in detail in their book, on pages 121-22. This is in connection with a person given an image of Christ and asked to focus on it. Within minutes, neurological measurements show electrical discharges spiraling down from the right attention area (right OAA) to the limbic system and hypothalamus “triggering the arousal section of the structure”.
Now, we know the hypothalamus has both arousal and quiescent components. The authors’ test results and measurements actually showed that as the subject focused on the image of Christ BOTH were activated. As assorted cortical thresholds were crossed, a maximal stimulation (given by spikes in the SPECT scans) produced a neural “flood” that generated feedback to the attention association area.
To make a long story short, the attention area of the OAA was seen to begin to deprive the right orientation area of the OAA of all neural input not originating with the contemplation of Jesus.
In order to compensate, and thereby preserve the neuro-spatial matrix (in which the self could still exist) the right orientation area had to default to the attention area focusing on “Jesus”. As the authors put it (p. 121):
“ It has no choice but to create a spatial matrix out of nothing but the attention area’s single-minded contemplation of Jesus”
This single-minded "contemplation" effectively leads to psychosis and obsession. It entails not only "savior" baloney but hellfire BS if one doesn't get "saved" - hence forming a permanent mental 'electric fence'- preventing the fundie psycho from remotely considering anything other than the tautology: "Jesus = saved me = no hell for moi". Hence, they end up on a one track pace to total mental degeneration. (Let us bear in mind here that no fundie or other Xtianoid is really "saved", it is only a trick of their minds to believe they are, as opposed to turning into a 3 oz. dust pile at death).
How can these hapless folks be saved from themselves? Talks in the 1970s with Dr. Pat Banister, who dealt with religious psychosis in Barbados lone mental hospital (called Jenkins) led to these standard treatments:
1) Isolate the person from all bibles which are deemed to be adverse sources of mental breakdown and obsession. If they try to quote remembered bible verses out loud, gag them.(Obviously also, they can't be allowed to attend any church services either!)
2) Have the person commit to an intense physical exercise and therapy program to distract their obsessive brains from focusing on "salvation", "devils" or preaching to other patients.
3) Place them in an isolated (padded) cell if they insisted on preaching to other patients. Ensure they received largatyl with each meal.
4) Hook them up to an electro-convulsive therapy machine at least five times a week at first, especially if their obsessions are profound. This can be reduced as their obsessions with "salvation", "hell" are seen to be reduced.
Only in the most extreme cases, where the patients were a definite threat to themselves did she recommend chemical or surgical lobotomy. Of course, at that time, pre-frontal lobotomy was basically all that was known, so patients likely ended up as vegetables.
These are some extreme means of therapy to be sure, but they may be the only means - in the end - to finally eradicate irrational fundagelical ideations of the type illustrated above! We have too many wretched, over zealous fundie brains running loose, and these all have to be brought into submission to the higher brain centers - or we'll all end up in a new Dark Ages.
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