Archive for category Religion
Depression, Suicide, and the Self-righteous
Posted by Tsunami.No.Ai in Christians, Misc. on January 30, 2008
About a month ago I was invited on facebook to join a group called Four guys, one destination, one mission: Suicide Prevention. The point of the group, obviously, is to prevent suicide. however, their methods seemed a little dubious to me. First of all, they are riding bikes across the continent to prove to those who are depressed that anything is possible. Second, they are trying to draw attention to the problem of suicide using this ride and the group. A noble cause you might say, but it seems to me that the people who made the group and also the people who joined and commented in it know next to nothing about what actual depression and suicidal thoughts are like. I wrote the person who sent me an invite to the group and stated these thoughts. They in turn asked me what I would say to a suicidal person. My response is the point of this post.
But before I get to what my response was, I should add this. I’ve been putting off saying anything about this until today. Today I saw another group simliar to the first one. This one is on facebook as well and is called Love is the Movement. The point in this one is to tell people on the day before Valentine’s Day that they are loved. Thats a nice thought. Except the people who are actually depressed will see straight through this veiled attempt at others trying to make themselves feel better. It would seem to me that people don’t know the difference between “the blues” and actual depression. Actually depressed people don’t care what you think. They will see you for the tool you are if you decide to show them any kind of attention on one day and tell them parrot “I love you and think you are important”. Doing this on one day, to anyone, is meaningless and only serves to let those who don’t bother to understand depression to feel like they are doing something.
At any rate, here is my response to “well then what should people say to suicidal people if not the above?”:
hmm.. what to tell them indeed. Actually this is a pretty complex problem and not nearly as simple to try and work out with someone as the people in that group would like to think it its. Generally there are two types of people who contemplate and/or attempt suicide (of course each case is different). Ill try and tell you what I personally think about both of them here.
The first type is the most common, they are what I would like to label as impulsive suicidal people. These individuals are typically prone to talk about suicide as a way to get the attention of those around them. They are normally basing their decisions on irrational logic in their head. A good example would be someone who wants to kill themselves because their girlfriend broke up with them or they lost a lot of money. The problem they are fixated on is an extremely temporary issue i their lives but to them it is all encompassing and they cant see past it. What they are seeking is something or someone to either remove the problem from their lives or fixate them on something else. If and when they decide to attempt suicide their method is typically something non-lethal (or something reversible) such as trying to overdose on aspirin or cutting their wrists, or something else that takes some time to work. Its not actually an attempt to die so much as a cry out that they need someone to help them out.
A good plan of attack for helping these people is pretty straight forward. First you need to let them talk to you. Let them know that you are available to talk and that you will listen to them if need be. If they trust you enough they will probably end up spilling all the problem on you in the course of just a few conversations. The problem is one that is usually identifiable from the outset and you can then try to help them deal with that issue. Instead of telling them things will be better, try relating to them if possible. Get them to relate to you as well. share stories and experiences that are close to what they are now going through and show that in those cases eventually things did in fact get better. You have to let them work through the stages of grief on their own with you as someone holding their hand, not as someone dragging them to “acceptance” in one sitting. Eventually the problem will either be resolved or accepted and the person will be able to stand on their own again. In my experience working with people like this the response time from initial “I have a problem!” to them being stable again is about a month.
The second type of suicidal person is much more difficult to explain and treat. I would label these people as truly suicidal. You have to understand first that the decision to end their life is not about a single event, perhaps not even a series of events, its their whole being that they want to escape from. The depression that precedes suicide in these people is something that isn’t easily conveyed to others who tend to have a cheery disposition on life. The depression they are facing is something that is life long, or at least longer than a year and is all encompassing. The best way to describe what its like is this: imagine that someone’s personality is like a star. In most people they shine brightly and occasionally have their problems but all in all are happy people. In impulsive suicidal people they are like temporarily dim stars that just dont have enough fuel to keep going, or have something in their middle that makes it so they cant shine. If left alone those stars will go out. truly suicidal people are like black holes. Their personality has collapsed in on itself and begins sucking in everything around it. The person at the middle cant reach out to anyone else without feeling the need to pull them into their own despair and so they tend to shy away from previous social pleasures. Even if they try and touch someone else to let them know of their problem any positive influence is quickly sucked back into the depression and crushed with tremendous force. Its a shroud of blackness that is nearly impenetrable and that follows the person no matter where they go or what they do. It haunts them even in their happiest of moments so everything is twinged with black. truly suicidal people want to escape this blackness which emanates from within themselves and to do that they rationalize that if they remove the source (their own self) that the torment will end.
There is no clear way of dealing with this. If it was just clear cut then it wouldn’t be that much of a problem. We could just say “god has a plan” and they would feel gods love and feel better. But the problem is that these people are actually rational. All the inversion gives them time and opportunity to think about their situation. In their case, if they are on the verge of suicide and happen also to be religious, they have normally already concluded that god has abandoned them or at least allowed this to happen to them. They have prayed and prayed to god to give them peace which has not come for years and years. They will not take any advice about god from anyone without a dark smile that speaks volumes about how much they now trust god to deliver them. Also, to them, everything will not be alright no matter how much time you show them. Their life has been a constant blackness for years and its now all they know. Show them the happiest moment and they will still find the blackness hovering above it, waiting for them to be weak.
The best course of action with this situation is to just be a friend to them. This is more intense than the previous type where you merely had to listen, for this type you must be interactive with them for as along as it takes. You have to be prepared to be sucked into their despair with them to help guide them back out. You have to be able to sacrifice for them. Unfortunately, in today’s society, people would take one look at this and say that it wasn’t worth it to them. The amount of effort and the amount of immediate return is slim if any. The problem here is, either you can get sucked in as well, or you can give up half way in and leave them twice as bad off as they were because they will feel abandoned or betrayed. They need a guiding light as well as someone to lean on, someone they can trust completely so that they will follow.
Eventually they will open up and in the twisting nether of their reasoning you will have to find the one or many root causes of the depression and help them to overcome them. These root causes are generally not so simple as the previous type. While they may appear initially to be something like “my girlfriend left me” theres usually something more underneath it all like “i hate myself and push people away” or “why do i have no confidence?” You have to identify this first and then let them know thats what you think. You have to get them to question their own rationality behind connecting all the bad events in their life to their depression and ultimately to the conclusion that death is the only escape. Once you can get them to accept these root causes you can then help them try to overcome them with time.
Even if you can eventually pull them away from the edge of death, there is no solution to the depression, only degrees of it. If in the course of finding the root causes you find voids that need to be filled, you can help them fill them. But in the end that twinge will probably always hang there for them. If you can, try to get them to see a physician. Sometimes medicine is a good help to have as depression of this sort is commonly biological as well as psychological. You can get their family and other friends to help you. You don’t want to tell them everything that you have been told as that would betray their trust, but you can let them know that they need help and need it from those closest to them. If everything works out perfectly you can minimize the depression and maximize the contentment. The process will take years and be a constant battle all their life.
Anyway, the problem I have with the group you joined is that it seems like the same old thing again and again from young adults. They want to be helpful and don’t know how to be so they invent ways of pretending to help to make themselves feel like they are doing something. Suicide hot lines don’t work for truly suicidal people, neither do groups like this. I personally believe that if these people want to help the truly suicidal and depressed that they need to try and understand what kind of problems and torments plague those they are trying to help. We can all sit back and say well this and this would work on so and so, but really it doesn’t do anything but make those who use such lip service feel like they have contributed to the cause. If you want to save someone, you have to sacrifice part of yourself to that person. It takes nothing less to save a life.
I hope I answered your question…
Where Does This Ocean Go?
Posted by Tsunami.No.Ai in Christians, Nature of God, Religion on May 20, 2007
There is a reason I haven’t written in the past few months and its not the normal excuse of “I was busy.” The reason I didn’t write anything since February is because I have been spending that time thinking. You may, or may not, remember an article I linked to on here about a show I watched entitled “The Twelve Kingdoms.” Having just read the Code of the Samurai, a book that contained the code by which the warrior class of Japan lived for nearly four centuries, the show invigorated a sense of obligation in me to find out what life was really all about. I had my wanting to understand our purpose in the universe, if any, see what made us us, and what we could do to change it, if at all.
As such, I would like to think I began a small excursion towards “enlightenment” (or really it was more me deciding to stop acting like a jackass and find something more meaningful in my life). Part of this excursion was what has turned out to be a possible end to the logical progression that started several years ago.
As I have explained before, I think that logic is the best way to find truth in anything. You start with something monumental like “Jesus is lord” and break it down into its constituent parts. For this case you would start asking “What is lord?” and “Was Jesus a real person?”. Continuing the example, the latter branch breaks down further into “Was Jesus who he claimed?”, “How do we know?”, “Where the gospels accurate?”, “Why should we believe them?” and so on.
This logical journey started probably eight or so years ago when an event in my life shattered a fairly picturesque view of God and life in general. The details are not important, but what is important is that I lost my faith once almost entirely except for a tiny piece in me that wanted to hold on to a belief in a God. Subjective and insubstantial now that I look back on it, but really, thats all that there was. Since then I have been picking apart not only Christianity, but also the fundamental building blocks of most major religions: spirituality, morality, societal mores, an afterlife, etc.
The purpose ultimately was two-fold. One, I wanted to prove to myself that I was not just blindly following the supposed words of a prophet from two millennia ago whose existence may not even be real. And Two, I wanted to discover the true joy in finding God and maybe share it with others. The first part of this, to me anyway, was essential to the second. Proving God’s existence through logical argument should be possible if God exists as described within the Bible. To quote Galileo, “I do not believe that a God that gave use logic and reason would mean for us to forego their use.” What was essential to me was a picture built, not of stories and lose fitting feel-good messages, but a solid picture of something I could touch and explain.
The second part stems from the first. Over my few years of being on earth, I have discovered one thing: non-Christians who become christians tend to have a fuller and deeper faith then those who had grown up in the church. C.S. Lewis, Saint Augustine, Francis Schaffer, among others, all came from disbelieving backgrounds, sought out to disprove God and ended up finding him instead. Their journey netted them understanding, peace, and what I consider to be a more “real” relationship with God. As such, their writings spell out for the non-believer what our faith means and by extension can help those who would initially reject God outright gain a foothold in the path towards understanding. This is my main goal: to reach an understanding as best I can and then help share my spiritual journey with those who have spent their lives with the same scientific and philosophic backgrounds as myself and who categorically deny God. Maybe I can plant a seed of self-reflection.
But I digress. The end result seems to have netted some logical arguments that are at the root of the God question and other problems as well. I will cover these more in depth in future articles but I will share them with you here as well. If you would like to contribute your thoughts on these I seriously welcome any argument for or against. I currently believe these are indivisible, root arguments but I would like to be proven wrong ( I would hate to have the arrogance of saying “I found it!” when I’m only 23).
1) Q: Given that belief in God requires a certain leap in faith, how large of a leap must there be from total atheism to the start of a journey to God? (i.e.. To start becoming a christian, would you have to accept all of Jesus all at once, or is there something smaller that can be built upon?)
A: The smallest leap of faith required between atheism and the beginning of the belief in God is the belief that humans posses a soul, or something within them that is not material that without the body continues to be human.
2) Q: What is the fundamental difference between atheism and theism?
A: How a person from either persuasion views the concept of death and how they adjust their lives accordingly.
3) Q: Historical trends of relativism can, in part, explain a loosening of societal norms over the last half century and can be argued that they are contributing to a decay of social stability, but can something more concrete be at the root of these trends?
A: While it itself is a consequence of these trends, a fear or unwillingness to commit to anything philosophically solid (meaning it would force us to conform to something outside of ourselves) can be found at the root of nearly all growing social “ills”. (e.g.. divorce, sexual promiscuity, crime, etc)
These are the three big ones. I am sure there are others. I will probably be writing an article on each of these three and I would very much appreciate any and all feedback on them. If you have any insight you can comment here or send me an email at kami at falseblue.com.
Where Does This Ocean Go?
Posted by Tsunami.No.Ai in Christians, Nature of God, Religion on May 20, 2007
There is a reason I haven’t written in the past few months and its not the normal excuse of “I was busy.” The reason I didn’t write anything since February is because I have been spending that time thinking. You may, or may not, remember an article I linked to on here about a show I watched entitled “The Twelve Kingdoms.” Having just read the Code of the Samurai, a book that contained the code by which the warrior class of Japan lived for nearly four centuries, the show invigorated a sense of obligation in me to find out what life was really all about. I had my wanting to understand our purpose in the universe, if any, see what made us us, and what we could do to change it, if at all.
As such, I would like to think I began a small excursion towards “enlightenment” (or really it was more me deciding to stop acting like a jackass and find something more meaningful in my life). Part of this excursion was what has turned out to be a possible end to the logical progression that started several years ago.
As I have explained before, I think that logic is the best way to find truth in anything. You start with something monumental like “Jesus is lord” and break it down into its constituent parts. For this case you would start asking “What is lord?” and “Was Jesus a real person?”. Continuing the example, the latter branch breaks down further into “Was Jesus who he claimed?”, “How do we know?”, “Where the gospels accurate?”, “Why should we believe them?” and so on.
This logical journey started probably eight or so years ago when an event in my life shattered a fairly picturesque view of God and life in general. The details are not important, but what is important is that I lost my faith once almost entirely except for a tiny piece in me that wanted to hold on to a belief in a God. Subjective and insubstantial now that I look back on it, but really, thats all that there was. Since then I have been picking apart not only Christianity, but also the fundamental building blocks of most major religions: spirituality, morality, societal mores, an afterlife, etc.
The purpose ultimately was two-fold. One, I wanted to prove to myself that I was not just blindly following the supposed words of a prophet from two millennia ago whose existence may not even be real. And Two, I wanted to discover the true joy in finding God and maybe share it with others. The first part of this, to me anyway, was essential to the second. Proving God’s existence through logical argument should be possible if God exists as described within the Bible. To quote Galileo, “I do not believe that a God that gave use logic and reason would mean for us to forego their use.” What was essential to me was a picture built, not of stories and lose fitting feel-good messages, but a solid picture of something I could touch and explain.
The second part stems from the first. Over my few years of being on earth, I have discovered one thing: non-Christians who become christians tend to have a fuller and deeper faith then those who had grown up in the church. C.S. Lewis, Saint Augustine, Francis Schaffer, among others, all came from disbelieving backgrounds, sought out to disprove God and ended up finding him instead. Their journey netted them understanding, peace, and what I consider to be a more “real” relationship with God. As such, their writings spell out for the non-believer what our faith means and by extension can help those who would initially reject God outright gain a foothold in the path towards understanding. This is my main goal: to reach an understanding as best I can and then help share my spiritual journey with those who have spent their lives with the same scientific and philosophic backgrounds as myself and who categorically deny God. Maybe I can plant a seed of self-reflection.
But I digress. The end result seems to have netted some logical arguments that are at the root of the God question and other problems as well. I will cover these more in depth in future articles but I will share them with you here as well. If you would like to contribute your thoughts on these I seriously welcome any argument for or against. I currently believe these are indivisible, root arguments but I would like to be proven wrong ( I would hate to have the arrogance of saying “I found it!” when I’m only 23).
1) Q: Given that belief in God requires a certain leap in faith, how large of a leap must there be from total atheism to the start of a journey to God? (i.e.. To start becoming a christian, would you have to accept all of Jesus all at once, or is there something smaller that can be built upon?)
A: The smallest leap of faith required between atheism and the beginning of the belief in God is the belief that humans posses a soul, or something within them that is not material that without the body continues to be human.
2) Q: What is the fundamental difference between atheism and theism?
A: How a person from either persuasion views the concept of death and how they adjust their lives accordingly.
3) Q: Historical trends of relativism can, in part, explain a loosening of societal norms over the last half century and can be argued that they are contributing to a decay of social stability, but can something more concrete be at the root of these trends?
A: While it itself is a consequence of these trends, a fear or unwillingness to commit to anything philosophically solid (meaning it would force us to conform to something outside of ourselves) can be found at the root of nearly all growing social “ills”. (e.g.. divorce, sexual promiscuity, crime, etc)
These are the three big ones. I am sure there are others. I will probably be writing an article on each of these three and I would very much appreciate any and all feedback on them. If you have any insight you can comment here or send me an email at kami at falseblue.com.
Where Does This Ocean Go?
Posted by Tsunami.No.Ai in Christians, Nature of God, Religion on May 20, 2007
There is a reason I haven’t written in the past few months and its not the normal excuse of “I was busy.” The reason I didn’t write anything since February is because I have been spending that time thinking. You may, or may not, remember an article I linked to on here about a show I watched entitled “The Twelve Kingdoms.” Having just read the Code of the Samurai, a book that contained the code by which the warrior class of Japan lived for nearly four centuries, the show invigorated a sense of obligation in me to find out what life was really all about. I had my wanting to understand our purpose in the universe, if any, see what made us us, and what we could do to change it, if at all.
As such, I would like to think I began a small excursion towards “enlightenment” (or really it was more me deciding to stop acting like a jackass and find something more meaningful in my life). Part of this excursion was what has turned out to be a possible end to the logical progression that started several years ago.
As I have explained before, I think that logic is the best way to find truth in anything. You start with something monumental like “Jesus is lord” and break it down into its constituent parts. For this case you would start asking “What is lord?” and “Was Jesus a real person?”. Continuing the example, the latter branch breaks down further into “Was Jesus who he claimed?”, “How do we know?”, “Where the gospels accurate?”, “Why should we believe them?” and so on.
This logical journey started probably eight or so years ago when an event in my life shattered a fairly picturesque view of God and life in general. The details are not important, but what is important is that I lost my faith once almost entirely except for a tiny piece in me that wanted to hold on to a belief in a God. Subjective and insubstantial now that I look back on it, but really, thats all that there was. Since then I have been picking apart not only Christianity, but also the fundamental building blocks of most major religions: spirituality, morality, societal mores, an afterlife, etc.
The purpose ultimately was two-fold. One, I wanted to prove to myself that I was not just blindly following the supposed words of a prophet from two millennia ago whose existence may not even be real. And Two, I wanted to discover the true joy in finding God and maybe share it with others. The first part of this, to me anyway, was essential to the second. Proving God’s existence through logical argument should be possible if God exists as described within the Bible. To quote Galileo, “I do not believe that a God that gave use logic and reason would mean for us to forego their use.” What was essential to me was a picture built, not of stories and lose fitting feel-good messages, but a solid picture of something I could touch and explain.
The second part stems from the first. Over my few years of being on earth, I have discovered one thing: non-Christians who become christians tend to have a fuller and deeper faith then those who had grown up in the church. C.S. Lewis, Saint Augustine, Francis Schaffer, among others, all came from disbelieving backgrounds, sought out to disprove God and ended up finding him instead. Their journey netted them understanding, peace, and what I consider to be a more “real” relationship with God. As such, their writings spell out for the non-believer what our faith means and by extension can help those who would initially reject God outright gain a foothold in the path towards understanding. This is my main goal: to reach an understanding as best I can and then help share my spiritual journey with those who have spent their lives with the same scientific and philosophic backgrounds as myself and who categorically deny God. Maybe I can plant a seed of self-reflection.
But I digress. The end result seems to have netted some logical arguments that are at the root of the God question and other problems as well. I will cover these more in depth in future articles but I will share them with you here as well. If you would like to contribute your thoughts on these I seriously welcome any argument for or against. I currently believe these are indivisible, root arguments but I would like to be proven wrong ( I would hate to have the arrogance of saying “I found it!” when I’m only 23).
1) Q: Given that belief in God requires a certain leap in faith, how large of a leap must there be from total atheism to the start of a journey to God? (i.e.. To start becoming a christian, would you have to accept all of Jesus all at once, or is there something smaller that can be built upon?)
A: The smallest leap of faith required between atheism and the beginning of the belief in God is the belief that humans posses a soul, or something within them that is not material that without the body continues to be human.
2) Q: What is the fundamental difference between atheism and theism?
A: How a person from either persuasion views the concept of death and how they adjust their lives accordingly.
3) Q: Historical trends of relativism can, in part, explain a loosening of societal norms over the last half century and can be argued that they are contributing to a decay of social stability, but can something more concrete be at the root of these trends?
A: While it itself is a consequence of these trends, a fear or unwillingness to commit to anything philosophically solid (meaning it would force us to conform to something outside of ourselves) can be found at the root of nearly all growing social “ills”. (e.g.. divorce, sexual promiscuity, crime, etc)
These are the three big ones. I am sure there are others. I will probably be writing an article on each of these three and I would very much appreciate any and all feedback on them. If you have any insight you can comment here or send me an email at kami at falseblue.com.
Something to Think About
Posted by Tsunami.No.Ai in Other Religions on February 24, 2007
Lately, I’ve been studying some Eastern philosophy; specifically the codes of honor from Japan. Here is something that everyone, regardless of creed, should probably read and take to heart.
From Code of the Samurai by Thomas Cleary
One who is supposed to be a warrior considers it his foremost concern to keep death in mind at all times, every day and every night, from the morning of New Year’s Day through the night of New Year’s Eve.
As long as you keep death in mind at all times, you will also fulfill the ways of loyalty and familial duty. You will also avoid myriad evils and calamities, you will be physically sound and healthy, and you will live a long life. What is more, your character will improve and your virtue will grow.
Here are the reasons for that. All human life is likened to evening dew and morning frost, considered something quire fragile and ephemeral. While this is so of all people’s lives, the life of the warrior is particularly precarious.
If people comfort their minds with the assumption that they will live a long time, something might happen, because they will think they will have forever to do their work and look after their parents—they may fail to perform for their employers and also treat their parents thoughtlessly.
But if you realize that the life that is here today is not certain on the morrow, then when you take your orders from your employer, and when you look in on your parents, you will have the sense that this may be the last time—so you cannot fail to become truly attentive to your employer and your parents. This is why I say you also fulfill the paths of loyalty and familial duty when you keep death in mind.
In any case, when you forget death and become inattentive, you are not circumspect about things. You may say something offensive to someone and get into an argument. You may challenge something you might as well have ignored, and get into a quarrel.
Or you may stroll about in resorts where you have no business, not avoiding the crowds, where you might bump into some oaf and get into an unexpected brawl. You could lose your own life, get your employer bad publicity, and cause your parents and siblings difficulties.
All this trouble comes from inattentiveness when you fail to keep death in mind at all times.
When you always keep death in mind, when you speak and when you reply to what others say, you understand the weight and significance of every word as a warrior by profession, so you do not engage in futile arguments. As a matter of course you do not go to dubious places even if people invite you, so there is no way for you to get into unexpected predicaments. This is why I say you will avoid myriad evils and calamities if you keep death in mind.
People of all social classes, high and low, constantly overeat, drink too much, and indulge in their desires to an unhealthy degree, all because of forgetting about death. This puts a strain on their internal organs, so they may die remarkably young, or else become sickly or invalid.
When you always keep death in mind, even if you are young and healthy, you already know how to take care of yourself. You moderate food and drink, avoid sexual addiction, and behave prudently. As a result, you are physically sound. because you are healthy, you will live a long time.
When you assume that your stay in this world will last, various wishes occur to you, and you become desirous. You want what others have, and cling to your own possessions, developing a mercantile mentality.
When you always keep death in mind, covetousness naturally weakens, and to that degree a grabby, greedy attitude logically does not occur. That is why I say your character improves.
Yet there is the question of how to keep death in mind.
To just keep sitting there all the time waiting for death twenty-four hours a day, like the monk Shinkai of whom Yoshida no Kenkou wrote in his Tsurezuregusa, might be appropriate for monk’s training, but it is not in accord with the aim of martial training. If you face death in that way, loyality and familial duty to your employer and parents will be neglected, and your professional warriorhood will wind up defective. That will never do.
The idea is to take care of your public and private duties day and night, and then whenever you have any free time when your mind is unoccupied, you think of death, bringing it to mind attentively. It is said that the great hero Kusunoki Masahige’s instructions to his son Msasyuki, he told him to “always get used to death.”
This is for the understanding of the neophyte knights.
From Code of the Samurai by Thomas Cleary (reproduced section is from the freely available chapter viewable on Amazon.com. Copyrights and so on belong to the Mr. Cleary)