Amerika

How might most of us experience the effects of the mind on the body?

In an average week you probably experience numerous examples of how what’s going on around you affects your subjective health. Most people instinctively know that when bad things happen, they affect your body. You can’t sleep, you feel anxious, you’ve got butterflies in your stomach… you feel awful.

When does that turn into an illness?

Such symptoms only become a problem when people get trapped in excessively narrow explanations for illness – when they exclude any broader consideration of the many reasons why we feel the way we do.

…

We also don’t know why people who have had depression are twice as likely to develop CFS. I get cross with people who want to explain one and not the other. Some people take too psychiatric a view of CFS and ignore the infective trigger, whereas others want to think only about the infection.

New Scientist

We know that a third of patients can be cured with fake medicine and many allege that prayer, meditation and positive thinking can help patients overcome even the worst diseases. Why do we shrink away from these ideas?

The material is tangible. We can imagine it in our hands. We can imagine it under our control. We like feeling in control, because that counterbalances our vision of our mortality. That’s why we like to think we’re all equal; we’re in control, so if we will ourselves to be brain surgeons, we’ll be there — we just don’t do it because it’s not our thing, although we’d sure like the income. Control is also why we militantly demand rights and that others stay back. We want to defend our material turf.

We want no obligations. We want others to be obligated to leave us alone even if we’re doing something stupid. We prefer stupid people who can’t see past next week and so will ignore our stupidity. We are so obsessed by the fear of our stupidity and loss of control that we will even obliterate reality from our memories and live in a dreamworld.

Has it made us happier? No, but… we want control. Individuals, governments, laws, memes and ideas. Control. We wants it. Now.

And this is why we rebel against the idea of religion or philosophy: they’re not tangible. “Science” is tangible, especially the kind most people prefer, where they read the study that is closest to affirming their views, and declare everyone else an idiot for not seeing it their way. They may not be popular, but at least they have control and a reason to scorn others.

We like secular versions of this religion. After all, secular humanism is Christianity morality without the God. Do unto others as you’d like them to do unto you. Every person is important. Do not kill. God loves us all equally… I mean, we’re all equal. And so on. Philosophers and theologians, who study the structure of argument, see that; no one else does, and they consider themselves wise for telling you that you’re stupid if you do. Monkeys throwing poo.

Onward to religion:

A judge in Wake County said three Raleigh children need to switch from home school to public school.

Venessa Mills was in the fourth year of home schooling her children who are 10, 11 and 12 years old. They have tested two years above their grade levels, she said.

Her lessons also have a religious slant, which the judge said was the root of the problem.

WRAL

The case in this article is messy and involves a divorce, but I cite it so you can see the reaction.

Close your eyes, clear your mind, and for just a moment, imagine telling someone else the headline. Try several someone elses.

What’s the consensus?

Most people think it’s great the kids got removed from that Neanderthal religious education and put into public school, even if public schools are an educational failboat when compared to schooling worldwide.

An unconscious bias against the non-material, perhaps. All for control. The illusion of control.

Tags: cognitive dissonance, control, tradition