religion and "mental illness"

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According to Christianity, everyone must suffer because Lucifer invented sin. I think this would make the Christian god the ultimate neglectful parent. It's like if you had this one kid who was molesting, beating, and killing your other kids, and instead of trying to stop him, you just sat back and said "Well, I told him not to. They'll just have to learn to deal with it."

I was never taught that my meltdowns were un-Christian, just unmanly. Men don't cry and scream, apparantly, even if they can't control it or even if the guy who said it freely admits to crying...

I sympathize with the OP; that's why the world hates Christians is because of the stupid actions of a few who decide that only their idea of perfection is worthy of their acceptance. Fortunately I've grown up with understanding people where I've been to church. However I can tell you right now that AS does not in fact equal demon posession, and the meltdowns have nothing to do with demons. I'll be praying for you.

Oh, I don't throw tantrums very often. My mind shuts down occasionally because of anxiety. When I am very anxious, my brother can't stand it and often interprets it as anger, even though I am not angry with him. I'll call - livnig along I need someone to talk to, and I have several mental illnesses - and he interprets a lot of things I say as being about anger, but usually I am not angry with him, not angry at all, but anxious.

Trying to to control it too much, for me, can lead to repression and not identifiying what is really going on.

You detest me?

"Perfect" is a flawed concept. This flaw tells us more about the limitations of language than it does about the nature of reality.

Even disease has a purpose. With some disease I build up my immune system when fighting it. I become stronger because of the disease. You might say I become more perfect when I get a disease and my immune system beats it.

No. No, it is not. Jesus actually debunked the "disability=sin" myth directly:

Disability is not the result of sin.

And here, epilepsy is separated from demon-possession (epilepsy was lumped with mental illness, a belief that persisted into the middle of the 20th century).
So... yeah, Christianity has been used as an excuse for prejudice; but if you actually take things the way they were written instead of the way they've been perverted by bigots, it doesn't support prejudice at all.

I don't see how that proves anything. That basically states it wasn't the parent's or his own sins. Makes sense. It's still the result of Adam and Eve's sin and the fact that sin is in the world and it isn't perfect.

Any hardship situation or disability can be twisted into being some trial or way God gets closer to people or as an example.

Jesus himself could "blow his cool" . He made quite a scene that time at the temple knocking over tables when he got mad at the money grubbing merchants.
So I dont think always being "in control" is necessarily always being Christian.

The "money grubbing merchants" were carrying out the details of Jewish Law that required that people who could not bring sacrificial animals to the Mikdash in Jerusalem over a great distance could purchase their sacrifices locally. What money grubbing?

That phrase "money grubbing" is a typical Gentile calumny against Jews.

ruveyn

i'm an offensively and irreverently "militant" atheist and i feel the need to point out that there is nothing "unchristian" about losing control or the tendency to lose control. jesus (one of my favorite fictional characters) was pretty good at explaining to everyone he came across that he didn't give a flying f*** how righteous they thought they were, they were f***-ups who could have been better and, therefor, require forgiveness. what need would a righteous man have of forgiveness if he didn't have the natural tendency to lose control?

if you want to read more about why god has no problem with your quirks, pm angelrho. he's definitely my second favorite wp christian and a generally positive guy.

if you want out of your self-contradicting-deathcult, read some of the threads in ppr where awesomelyglorious argues about religion. hop in and participate (and try not to take anything too personally).

regardless, your church sounds like it's full of jerks.

And Jesus supposedly cursed a fig tree because figs weren't in season. That doesn't demonstrate a lot of self control. Kinda makes lil' ol' Gawd Junior seem like a spoiled brat.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1tg46ScP8w[/youtube]

maybe everyone's trying to put too much pressure on the hardest working being in existence?

religion is a temporal lobe epileptic seizure.

why does the subject header say "moved" on it?????

Because the thread has been moved to a different forum. In this case it was moved from the General Autism Discussion forum to PPR (the Politics, Philosophy and Religion) forum due to the heavy religious content. The original link remains in the original forum but shows the word "moved" at the start of the title to indicate the body of the thread is now in another forum.

Ya kinda lost me here.
Jesus was a Jew out to reform Judaism and didnt even have any gentile followers. Kinda like Lincoln and the two Roosovelts were American reformers of America. Admiring lincoln doesnt make you anti american. Decrying the commercialization of Christmas doesnt make you anti christian. So gentile vs Jew has nothing to do with the story.

Forgive me for going somewhat off topic--but what IS the deal with Jews being tight with money? That's not JUST a Gentile thing. Two of my favorite professors from college days are Jewish, one MUCH more orthodox or conservative than the other. One, the less-observant one, told me the story of when the other first came to that school and wouldn't spend a penny more than he absolutely had to. As he put it, he was doing the "typical Jew" thing, and it took him a while to get his friend to loosen up a little and enjoy having a few things that he'd certainly worked for to have the privilege.

Prior to my graduate studies, I worked a temp job for a few months with a Jewish lawyer. This guy had a nasty temperament but, overall, was quite a shrewd lawyer and employer. He was ALWAYS looking for every way possible to avoid spending money and get as much money as he could. I even rented his attic while I was between schools, and he kept trying to convince me to rent his guest cottage instead, for which I'd be charged more in rent (obviously).

Individual personality quirks aside, which has nothing to do with ethnicity or religion (or lack thereof), these were wonderful guys to work with. I didn't want to say anything about the whole penny-pinching thing because I didn't want to appear to appeal to stereotypes. But it is one thing I found amusing, and even more so when my more laid-back professor brought it up in casual conversation. If it's just a stereotype we Gentiles invented, I can accept being wrong. I just fail to see how it's incorrect to say certain of the Jews are perhaps overly frugal in terms of their expenditures, particularly the more observant ones.

I don't think being "frugal" is the same thing as greed, though. I think frugality is a virtue, something we've begun to work out in my own family. And I don't think this was what was going on with the merchants at the Temple.

I think the deal with the "money grubbing merchants" at the temple was a matter of overcharging for their services. That's the only reason I can think of to explain Jesus' outburst of divine wrath. It's not an affront to Jews in general. We are ALL capable of greed and the corruptive influence of profit-making. It doesn't seem to me that Jesus was interested in ending the practice altogether. More like He wanted to make sure that the practice was fair.