Folks who desire the end of the world, are they INSANE?

[Philosoraptor]

Andrea Yates was found not guilty of killing her five kids by reason of insanity. Yet God and the Devil told her to do the awful deed.

Now we have millions of end timers, who actually desire the end of the world, the height of arrogant elitism, they the virtuous will be sucked up into heaven while we, the stupid sinners will all to go hell and suffer forever. How exclusive!

Are they hung up on biblical prophecy much? Why would anyone desire the end of the world? Oh yeah, their eternal reward for being in that oh so special clique, the righteous.

I know a few personally, in my family, who actually believe that time is up and Gabriel's horn is about to play a solo in the sky.

I see them as deluded, and crippled by their own dogma and beliefs. I can't imagine that they are sane anymore, they function normally on the surface, go about their daily business, but they aren't wrapped too tight in my opinion.

I'd go so far as to classify them as dangerously insane and a threat to us all.

[ixion]

1. technically, ANY religious extremist is insane

IMO.

Heaven, a place run by a bearded old man named GOD is a fairy tale. Like Santa Claus, like the Easter Bunny.

[ladjf]

17. I agree with your statement. I believe that the style of cognitive

processes religious people use to draw their conclusions is exactly the same as mental with mental disorders. It's a matter of deciding on truths without benefit of any objective observation. That will ultimately lead to ones demise.

Churches train their followers to stop thinking, just believe, trust. They euphemistically call this process "faith", a mis-use of the term.

[Triana]

2. Yes. And they're running our country..

...Feel better?

[zanne]

3. I don't know if they're insane

Religious conviction seems to give people the right to be as selfish and cruel as they want to be. It's also an excuse to live in denial. They don't have to prove anything or supply any facts and figures; they have "faith". There's one thing I'd like to know; what makes these people any different from extremist Muslins who believe they'll be given 42 virgins when they go to heaven?

[Cyrano]

5. I think it's 70 virgins for Muslims, but maybe the fundies

know something we don't know. Maybe they are secretly told that after The Rapture, they'll each get 70 porn stars (with the gender and sexual orientation of their choice).

I have no idea how one could handle 70 porn stars anymore than one could handle 70 virgins, but their sanity is definitely in question.

By the way, I wonder if it ever occurred to those who want 70 virgins that, after the first time, they wouldn't be virgins anymore. That has to be one of the biggest bait and switch cons in history.

[zanne]

12. Good point, Cyrano

And we never hear about what women would get. (I certainly wouldn't want virgins).

[Fredda Weinberg]

4. No, I was not

I was raised devout and at one point, fervently awaited the arrival of the messiah. I wasn't insane - I simply recognized the wrongs of life as it has evolved and wanted to see moral principles applied. Oddly enough, that's not far from the atheist position I hold now.

Do you realize that you are now expressing the same fear and loathing as those you claim to oppose?

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. There are different levels of devotion

However, there are plenty of charlatans out there, who are more then willing to take advantage of susceptible people and manipulate their weaknesses and their trust.

I believed all the fairytales they told me when I was little. But I grew up and realized that most of it was fairytales. The problem is people who can't tell the difference. So many people want someone else to tell them what to do, when to do it and how. They want a set of black and white rules and if everyone would just follow their rules, the world would be perfect. It is so much easier to deal with your problems, when you can just say 'It's god's will'. What they completely ignore is that christian teachings say that god gave us 'free will'. In other words, everything you do is your will, no one else's, otherwise known has personal responsibility.

So here we are at the dawn of the 21st Century and in the US mainstream christianity has morphed into a hideous monster. With crooks and liars running huge organizations, that enrich themselves with money from a plentiful supply of suckers looking for someone else to tell them the answer. In the process, mega-churches who cater to the religious insane are all over the country training their Armies of God so their 'messiah' can come and save them.

[ladjf]

19. During the past several thousand years, conditions have been favorable

for the flourishing of religion. It satisfied certain basic instinctive needs. However, dramatic changes are taking place that are extremely unfavorable for continuation of the vast religious movements. If fact, unless the human race can recognize the dangers of religion, they are very likely to be reduced to pre-stone-age levels of subsistence.

[atreides1]

9. I have a few questions

What are the wrongs of life? I'm not trying to be a jerk, but your claim of recognizing them has me
curious.

And what or who defines what moral principles are acceptable?

The reason I ask is because of your statement about having almost the same position now as an atheist, that you held when you were devout.

The fear I think is to what extent these "fanatics", and that definition fits, would take this belief in the "End Times"?



Through the ages moral principles have included the slaughter of those who will not be forced to worship a certain deity, the genocide of people for personal, political, monetary, and property gains.

[crim son]

15. Not to be critical, but the whole concept of "wrongs of life"

and "morality" are man-made and subjective. This being the case, there are different ways to manage your personal response to the inner turmoil that arises from wanting society to conform to your personal ideal when it clearly does not. Concocting and forming a lifestyle around a story about a virgin birth, a man who is supposed to be the "Son of God," and which describes a set of impossible rules defining right and wrong behavior; and condemning others who do not partake in this magical thinking, is NOT the only way to do it. And it is definitely not a rational response though it may be a comforting one.

Having said that, I was a christian until my late twenties. I know where you're coming from.

[soothsayer]

7. Nah, they've just got balloon mortgages

[Tesha]

8. Yes.

And as someone above pointed out, pretty much any religious
extremist is insane, whether they specifically long for the
end of this world or not.

The sooner we, as a society, start viewing and openly
acknowledging the religiously insane *AS INSANE*, the
sooner we'll be able to get past their insanity and
the perversions it causes our society.

Tesha

[treestar]

10. Ironically, they are even worse than the Muslim suicide bombers

who will kill themselves and take some others with them. These people are essentially suicidal and they want to take the whole world with them.

I think you've hit something on their idea they are some sort of elite, too. Many right wingers are like that. We used to wonder in my family why blue collar members of our family were aligning themselves with the Republican party. The best answer came from the fact they are such racists. They are white, see, and at least they've got that. They have a need to feel they are better than somebody and the Rethugs play on that.

Not that they really are better than the blacks and the hispanics, etc. Just that the desire to believe that gives them something. They don't have achievements to make them feel superior, but as long as there is somebody they can think of as inferior, they're happy. They just need somebody and the slightest reason, usually something they were born with and don't have to make any effort maintaining (like being white).

[sweetheart]

11. Death is the end of the world...

and it is 'sane' to contemplate death and what WILL happen.

What does it take to contemplate death, to realize that the ending of the world is
entirely personal, and intimate, every moment slipping away forever lost
and lifeforce squandered to the latest ego-workout of the day.

When fundamentalists grasp the contemplation of death, they turn the ending of
the world in to an outer event, something physical and grossly misinterpreting
the occult significance of jihad, where death is the revolution that ends and
overthrows all the artifice of mammon; all with fated time's clock ticking.

[crim son]

13. I was reading about this recently, in Krakauer's "Banner Under

Heaven" (I think it was called) about the Mormons. Technically, the delusions of the extremely religious do suggest that extreme religiosity is a form of mental illness. But it's an accepted form, and so long part of civilization that we rarely question it. If I were to say that I believe in the Easter Bunny, and that the Big Bunny and I have a "personal relationship" and that I must worship and proclaim the divinity of the Bunny or I will be cast into a pit of pig manure after death... well then, I sound insane. The belief in "god" is just as insane; more so, because the delusion is vast & detailed & incredibly illogical. But we accept it nonetheless. Maybe it would be more fair to say that relgious beliefs are form of self-indulgent fantasy, albeit one that some are ready to kill or be killed to preserve. Which brings us back to the possibility of insanity.

Edited to give the Bunny his due respect, in the form of capitalization.

[TheFriedPiper]

14. Some insane, some not

If you talk to a god, you are just gullible

If a god talks to you, you are insane.

[riona]

16. n/t

[Swamp Rat]

18. I really don't care as long as they 'rapture' themselves very soon

I am getting impatient.

[ladjf]

20. The problem is that they are killing the rest of us with their lunacy.

[The2ndWheel]

21. No more insane than anyone else

We're all a little nuts in our own way. We all have our cause, and think we could make that cause work if we could just get the power and authority to implement our plan.