Thursday, June 22, 2006

Afterlife Belief Makes You Insane

It appears that many jurors for Andrea Yates' new murder trial already think she is insane. And I agree with them.

Andrea Yates, proud member of the Offspring Murder Club, is undergoing a new trial for murdering her 5 sons because God told her to do it. The last trial's verdict was thrown out over some stupid Law and Order TV episode.

I believe Andrea Yates should win this trial. She is totally insane. That's what religion does to you. When you believe that death != death (for the less geeky readers, "!=" means "does not equal"), and you act on it, you are insane. However, I also believe that insane people who kill others because they don't recognize that death = death should also be put to death. Hey, if they don't think that death = death, then let's put their theory to the test with them as the test subjects! After all, they already forced some innocent victim to be their own test subject.

Any afterlife-believer that kills another person, believing that they are doing them a favor, should be recognized as insane, and should have their belief of death != death put to the test on themselves. According to their own beliefs, we would be doing them a favor! Andrea Yates, and indeed all the members of the Offspring Murder Club, believed they were doing their poor children a favor.

Kill The Afterlife, not the children.

13 comments:

Aaron Kinney said...

Well now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

GI Joe!

Aaron Kinney said...

Yes, insanity arises when one believes that death != death.

Legion, do you believe in an afterlife, or do you believe that your consciousness will cease to exist upon your bodily death?

Aaron Kinney said...

Well Legion, thats a good way to put it I suppose.

I think thats the best comment youve left on my blog so far :)

Now here is another good question for you: Do you think your soul or consciousness existed before you were conceived/born?

J said...

Right on!

I did a bit on this concept a while back. Why does God always tell people to do creepy things?

http://jaundicejames.blogspot.com/2006/05/as-i-was-saying-crazy-people-just-love.html

-JJ

breakerslion said...

"Why was I born and not someone else?"

For the answer to this question and others like it, we turn to the book of Belushi, Chapter 3, House of Animal. And it is written:

Blutarski: "From now on your Delta Tau Chi name is 'Pinto'."

Kroger: "Pinto? Why Pinto?"

Blutarski "(burp) Why not!?"

breakerslion said...

"Thats like me asking "Why is that rock that shape?" and you say "Why not?" I can apply "why not" to everything ..."

Of course you can! Who said you couldn't? (run-on sentence warning) To use your rock analogy, if you understand the nature of the stresses to which the rock has been subjected (wind, wave, hot, cold, kinetic forces, glacier, earthquake, plant root, jackhammer, etc.), and if you understand that the forces were specific in nature, every single minute for millions of years, then it is not necessary to know the exact history of those forces for the question to become, "What other possible shape could that specific rock be?" Or, to phrase it slightly differently, "Whyever would it not be that shape?"

The problem as I see it is one of perception. Since the human brain is capable of "what if" scenarios, we who own them tend to drift into why/why not scenarios. The answer is that there is a chain of causality behind every "why" and we are re-writing history to come up with "possible" alternatives which are in fact, not possible. Think of it like this: when a dice shooter throws the dice, there are probabilities and variables at work that will affect the outcome. Once the dice come to rest, there is no more probability of any other outcome. If every variable of orientation, velocity, air current, and trajectory was known the instant the dice left the shooter's hand, the exact outcome would be predictable. If you take that scenario and multiply it by several orders of magnitude, your outcome would be predictable from the specific sequence of events of your parent's reproductive event. Suffice to say that your parents pulled the handle on a taylor-made slot machine with a very large number of wheels, and when the wheels came to rest, they spelled out the DNA for you. Once those wheels stopped, no other combination was possible. Since yours was one of the possible outcomes, why not?

Want to talk about nature versus nurture as a defining force for your identity?

breakerslion said...

"How did the DNA code for "me?"

(sigh) The same way it codes for everyone else. The number of combinations are colossal, and some are even non-viable. The exact combinations of Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, Cytosine in you produced the physical you. There are, according to my favorite theory, at least three contributors to personality in that mix.

1. Subtle differences in the way your brain is wired can enhance or diminish libido, language skills, visualization, susceptibility to "religious experiences", etc.

2. Physical capabilities or handicaps (strength, agility, coordination) will shape personality by shaping play/work preferences. This one is a blend of nature and nurture, since behaviors can create upward or downward spirals of ability, but the baseline is determined by genetic factors.

3. Instinctive behavior. No matter how hard some religions would like to separate humans from the rest of the animal kingdom, some behaviors are passed down as an archetype of being a human being. The effect of these instincts varies from human to human (see item 1). This is a somewhat neglected field of study for a couple of reasons.

a. It was contrary to church dogma.
b. Measuring it would probably entail doing some unethical experiments on human babies.

The rest of "you", is what you have been taught, both formally and informally. You have observed and assimilated the behaviors of your parents, siblings, authority figures, and peers. You have internalized what they have encouraged and what they have discouraged. Emotional pain caused by the disapproval of others has shaped your inhibitions. All of this contributes to the filter of skepticism, acceptance/non-acceptance that we apply to new information. Those with a poorly developed filter we call gullible, or innocent. One can also add a layer of personality-shaping for the icons and events of a particular time frame. My perceptions were influenced by the Cold War, the Space Program, and Muscle Cars, for example. I shudder to think what the "Game Boy" generation is going to be like. Some will survive....

Did I understand your question?

Aaron Kinney said...

Legion,

Thats nice, except you still did not answer my question. I said: "How did the DNA code for "me?" You said: "out of all the options it could have coded it coded for you." Thanks, I alredy knew that since I'm here typig this crap. (xD) My question is HOW.

Are you implying that DNA DIDNT code for "you"?

Are you implying that God is actually responsible for what scientists believe DNA is responsible for?

If so, can you explain how God made you, you?

breakerslion said...

Or, if you are just interested in the mechanics, try this for starters.

BlackSun said...

CNN Leads off their story about Yates with this quote:

"HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Seven-year-old Noah Yates struggled so hard as his mother drowned him that his small fists remained stiff and raised over his head hours later, the medical examiner testified Wednesday."

Andrea Yates should be sent to her afterlife immediately--preferrably being drowned with the same lack of mercy she showed to her own children. This is where the biblical "eye-for-an-eye" principle should be followed.

(Unfortunately the first prosecutor bungled her death penalty case, and she can't be retried for the death penalty.)

Maybe she'll get taken out in prison--Dahmer style.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Kinney, the conclusions you draw from the Andrea Yates case are simply riciculous. The woman was bipolar and was on meds. Like LOTS of people that are dependent on pills to maintain a normal life, she stopped taking the pills and then things went to hell real fast.

It's the sanity of people that ignore facts in order to make silly political rants that I'm in question of.

breakerslion said...

Stooge:

Belief. She had to learn that crap from someone. It doesn't matter that she was demented, that only affected the degree to which the information had an impression. The extrapolation was "logical" to her.

"It's the sanity of people that ignore facts in order to make silly political rants that I'm in question of."

Even ignoring the nitpick of ending a sentence with a preposition, that still does not make sense. You are only forgiven if English is not your first language.

mdf1960 said...

What's the difference betwen someone who thinks he's Jesus Christ and someoone who thinks God is going to transport him to an eternal Disneyland after death?

This proves what a sham psychiatry is. I don't actually believe in literal mental illness, but if you are going to use the term religious belief should certainly be included as a mental illness.