God is getting dementia/Alzheimers?

[Sunburn74]

The good subset of people are paranoid schiophrenics who do indeed often say god speaks to them directly
These people often have tangible differences in brain structure that are different from controls

The fact there is a disorder associated with hyperreligiosity should make you concerned about where the origins and maintenance of religion comes from. When historians look back in time, the oracle at delphi is alleged to almost certainly be a schizophrenic and was a major religious leader at the time. Was st paul? It could also be argued he was. and so on...

If I show you studies showing fmri differences between schizophrenics and controls what does that prove to you? There are many studies available on the matter such as the one below. You can't make the diagnosis based on imaging. The diagnosis is clinical. However, when people study these individuals they find certain brain changes that are interesting, even in childhood sometimes.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22480958
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22474104
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22464726
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22454243

I really can go on and on listing studies.
If you want to read more on the diagnosis schizophrenia, I suggest you reference the DSM and start there. However, what I am telling you about features and themes of this psychiatric disorder is quite true and comes from both taught and first hand experience.

 

[cybrsage]

If I show you studies showing fmri differences between schizophrenics and controls what does that prove to you?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22474104

All I am telling you is that there is a well studied and common disorder that is associated with hyperreligious thought that has tangible brain abnormalities seen on imaging.

You have yet to show what you are claiming is true. Either admit you are a liar or show these scientific studies you keep claiming exist.

It is not a hard concept to understand, which is why I suspect you are only pretending to not understand it.

 

[Sunburn74]

I don't understand. I described the disorder and told you where to look for further information on defining the disorder.

I told you have I have first hand experience working with these people, who's symptoms often do respond to antipsychotic drugs.

And I've sited numerous studies showing brain structure changes in these individuals compared to controls, suggesting their psychosis has a biological basis.

What else do you want? What part am I not doing well here?

 

[cybrsage]

None of this addressed my post which you quoted. I will repost so you do not "forget" what both you and I wrote (bolding done by me):

Science cannot prove the existence of god. However, science can prove that for a good subset of people who say God speaks to them directly, they have legitimate pathological biological reasons for thinking so (paranoid schizophrenia). That alone throws doubt on all who claim they hear God speak to them directly.

Can you show the study which details this info?

You need to support the bolded claim you made. Ignoring it and supporting something else does not work. You need to support the claim you made.

 

[Sunburn74]

In pyschiatry, there is a disorder called schizophrenia which has many subsets. One such subset is paranoid schizophrenia.

I'm going to quote some wikipedia here just for speed

"Paranoid type: Delusions or auditory hallucinations are present, but thought disorder, disorganized behavior, or affective flattening are not. Delusions are persecutory and/or grandiose, but in addition to these, other themes such as jealousy, religiosity, or somatization may also be present. (DSM code 295.3/ICD code F20.0)"

Schizophrenia is a clinical diagnosis. A delusion is a fixed idea that is unchanging and inflexible regardless of the evidence that opposes it (ie believing someone is alive, even though its been well documented they are dead). A clinical diagnosis means the diagnosis comes from the physicians acumen, not from a lab or a test or a scan. You talk with the individual and his ideas of grandiosity, jealous, persucution, religious fervor etc come out in his speech. The physician makes a judgement of whether or not the guy is normal or is abnormal. It actually can be very very hard and sometimes it takes quite a lot of talking to get those features to come out. Many of these individuals claim to see visions, see god and the devil very clearly, hear god, hear other voices, are extremely religious (ie carry a bible everywhere, even in the shower, etc), consider themselves very holy and righteous (may refuse to eat certain food, etc), renounce society and family, and so on and so on. I'm expanding on the "religiosity" theme here. There are other themes that may be present as stated above, but since we are having a discussion about religion, that is the theme I want to expand on. The other subsets of schizophrenia can have some of these features, but can also include more frank pyschosis, thought disorder, speech disorder, and so on. However, again since this is a discussion of religion and the idea that its normal to believe god speaks to people, I want to focus on the paranoid subset because those hyper religious themes are most common there.

This disorder is extremely common affecting about 1% of the population. However, since the symptoms are on a spectrum from mild to severe, its possible to misdiagnosis or frankly miss these individuals entirely.

When you look at the brains of 100 people with this disorder and compare them to the brains of 100 people without this disorder, doctors and scientists find certain peculiar changes. Draw from that whatever you want about what is proved. My personal inclination is, if you have a disease and can show biological links that are consistent with the disease and not found in controls, they are probably cause/effect with the disease process. Also when you consider that antipsychotic medication often makes these religious thoughts go away and that these are the symptoms most responsive to antipsychotics, it makes me wonder about everyone who claims that God speaks to him directly.

If after all that, you still don't understand where I am coming from or what I am trying to argue here, then I give up. You'll just have to read about paranoid schizophrenia, watch videos, see patients, go to med school, study neuroscience and find out on your own.

 

[Siddhartha]

The only case of know of where someone said god told them to do something was god telling my uncle's first wife to move her and her family to CA. It turned out that she was an affair with the pastor or the head of her church and got pregnant...

 

[cybrsage]

If after all that, you still don't understand where I am coming from or what I am trying to argue here, then I give up. You'll just have to read about paranoid schizophrenia, watch videos, see patients, go to med school, study neuroscience and find out on your own.

You keep showing that paranoid schizophrenia exists, then you inject your personal opinion into it. This does not support your statement. What you STILL REFUSE to support is this statement:

However, science can prove that for a good subset of people who say God speaks to them directly, they have legitimate pathological biological reasons for thinking so (paranoid schizophrenia).

You need to show the scientific study that was done SPECIFICALLY ABOUT the claim you made. This PROOF of which you wrote.

We both know the reason you keep refusing to support your claim is that we both know you lied when you made the claim. At least be man enough to admit you lied.

 

[Sunburn74]

This is honestly getting quite crazy... The subset of people who say God speaks to them directly are paranoid schizophrenics. The legitimate pathological biological reasons for their odd thoughts and delusions are the various abnormal findings seen on MRI of their brains compared to controls.

I'm not sure which part I didn't already prove, that 1) paranoid schizophrenics often state god speaks to them or that 2) there are tangible, measurable biological differences between the brains of paranoid schizophrenics and normal people. I feel like honestly I have done both quite well.

I showed you that in the clinical diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia auditory hallucinations, delusions of grandeur, and hyper-religiosity are key themes. I then also showed you numerous papers that discuss noted measurable changes between the brains of paranoid schizophrenics and the brains of controls with various imaging modalities. If both statements have been proven to be true (ie these individuals with such odd delusions and behavior have a different brain structure than normal people), then the assumption that the biological changes in the brain are the cause of the odd behavior is the reasonable, obvious and accepted conclusion because the brain in general does control behavior and thoughts.

Anyway I am done here. If you want to learn more about paranoid schizophrenia go out and do your own research to disprove my crazy claims. The info is out there and is all easily accessible.

 

[wirelessenabled]

None of this addressed my post which you quoted. I will repost so you do not "forget" what both you and I wrote (bolding done by me):

You need to support the bolded claim you made. Ignoring it and supporting something else does not work. You need to support the claim you made.

cybrsage get out of my thread! You are not anything of interest.

 

[cybrsage]

cybrsage get out of my thread! You are not anything of interest.

No.

 

[polarmystery]

You keep showing that paranoid schizophrenia exists, then you inject your personal opinion into it. This does not support your statement. What you STILL REFUSE to support is this statement:







You need to show the scientific study that was done SPECIFICALLY ABOUT the claim you made. This PROOF of which you wrote.

We both know the reason you keep refusing to support your claim is that we both know you lied when you made the claim. At least be man enough to admit you lied.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13674670210130027

Do we not use google anymore?

Measures of religiosity validated for psychotic patients do not exist. This study sought to examine the psychometric properties of a modified version of the Religious Life Inventory (RLI) in this population. It was anticipated that religiosity would be affected by psychotic symptoms. The religiosity of patients with schizophrenia was assessed while symptoms were more evident and again after treatment, to evaluate changes in religiosity. Four factors were found which characterized the religiosity of people with schizophrenia. These factors were found to have good construct validity. Patient's responses indicated a reduced need for religion when re-assessed once symptom scores were reduced.

 

[cybrsage]

We do not support other people's statements for them. The person who claims something as true is the one who needs to support said statement as true.

But that you for showing his statement of opinion is just that, an opinion and not anything based on facts. Science has not proven that for a good subset of people who say God speaks to them directly, they have legitimate pathological biological reasons for thinking so (paranoid schizophrenia).