The easy answer is yes. Look at all the crazy things people have done in the name of religion. Of course people have often used the pretense of religious belief to magnify their own power or influence, but I think that many sociopaths are actually capable of religious/spiritual beliefs independent of the motives of trying to fit in or manipulate others. At least many famous sociopaths have expressed such beliefs at one point or another.I'm religious/spiritual. I guess that might seem surprising. I was grateful to be raised religiously because it provided me with a standard of morality that I could follow and use to fit in perfectly with my community. As much as people try to argue otherwise, legal systems and social norms are very closely linked with religious concepts of morality, so learning a religious code taught me a lot about what was expected of me in society. Being religious also gave me a built-in excuse for any eccentricities in behavior. I am still religious, I think, because I like the idea of there being a creator of all things, including sociopaths. I like having a check on my behavior, a reason for being a good sociopath. And I like the reward for good behavior -- the feeling of elation and other-worldness inherent in religious devotion.
But I do not allow my religious devotion to confuse me or to make me feel conflicted about who I am. Like one of the brothers Karamzov said:
I'm a Karamazov... when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful. And so in that very shame I suddenly begin a hymn. Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that garment in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at the same time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be.- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
It seems you hold your beliefs for pleasure and not much else. Eventually, the belief's reason leads back to your own gain.
ReplyDeleteAs for morality, I'm not exactly sure how I came about mine.
I guess it happened through me being an empath and finally becoming a sociopath as I awoke due to different things irritating me in life. So, I had a set of morality already and I eventually just looked at it objectively, looked for reasons to keep one moral belief over another eventually finding a pretty suiting moral code.
Something like basing it off of observation of other people's morality and then taking only the good parts--in a parasite-like manner.
"something like basing it off of observation of others people's morality and then taking only the good parts in a parasite like manner"............
ReplyDeleteWell Life's Outcast Of Death..... that sentence pretty much sum's up the way the entire bible is used anyway. Doesn't it?..
As for Religion and sociopathy, who knows? Not all so called mentally stable people believe in God, so i guess its a case of each to their own.
I myself, realise that i am a dreadful sinner and always will be, because if i wasn't then i most certainly would be God "itself" and i definately know im not. ha
I believe in God, i have finally, after many sleepless nights of pointless procrastination, concluded that the world is a giant intricate chess board and its creatures the chess pieces. We as people/whatever are nothing merely than a social experiment. God was extremely bored on those 7 days, hence giving up on Sunday.
The reason for evil is because Adam/Eve broke the 1st major rule of the entire "game"....and there and then is where is got interesting for God.
Then when God decided the game was not going his way like a child he tipped up the board game to start again....hence the flood and Noah etc....
I believe it won't be long before God tips up the board again...mind you the world could do with some much needed refreshing.
Those worthy of heaven are kept for later use, because they are the best of a bad bunch (so to speak)...the undesirables go to live with the Devil, because all good games need a nemesis!... A bit like Charlie and the chocolate factory.
I have a firm belief that there is a God. The great thing about God is that its unable to be seen so one has to learn to trust their basic instincts and go forward blind...anyway imagine if God had an office, wow the world would be in total chaos as hoards of worshippers lined the streets..society would be at a complete stand still...The game would be over.
Isn't it far more interesting for God to gaze in on the world from a distance, sit back and allow for free choice to reign. Sought of like watching the plot of a gripping blockbuster movie unravel.
We all have choices.....no matter how slight they may be. And God had choice's to make different races, animals, plants etc....to make the game interesting.
And that crap i'v just typed is a classic example of why i need to cut down on my meds and get out more!!!
....by the way hi Mr.Birdick (Life's Outcast of Death)...Tinkerbelle xx
ReplyDelete"....by the way hi Mr.Birdick (Life's Outcast of Death)...Tinkerbelle xx"
ReplyDeleteAh, am I honestly that much of a version of him? I found myself to suit him in a syntax-like manner, but not much else. I am someone else, however hello to you.
"Well Life's Outcast Of Death..... that sentence pretty much sum's up the way the entire bible is used anyway. Doesn't it?.."
How true. Cliche.
"I myself, realise that i am a dreadful sinner and always will be, because if i wasn't then i most certainly would be God "itself" and i definately know im not. ha"
I think we're neither God nor at the bottom, simply the balance between.
"the world is a giant intricate chess board and its creatures the chess pieces."
I don't believe we as people are actually confined in such a manner.
Evolution really does show we have absolutely no limit to what we can become. It all depends upon which traits are the best. There truly is no "perfection" it just goes on forever and ever.
"Those worthy of heaven are kept for later use, because they are the best of a bad bunch (so to speak)...the undesirables go to live with the Devil, because all good games need a nemesis!... A bit like Charlie and the chocolate factory."
It seems as though sociopaths would actually neither really conform to Heaven or Hell. They're more of an in between, so to speak.
I've studied religion and the God concept thoroughly. It always fascinated me. I've came to the conclusion that there is no God after months of contemplating and seeking out arguments/evidence for God.
I have as much reason to believe in god as I do the Loch Ness Monster. I have no use for religion on a personal level. I can however see that in the right (meaning sufficiently intelligent) hands religion can be a powerful tool. Servility is an apparently widespread human instinct. If billions of people are determined to act like slaves before their invisible friend, why shouldn’t the power hungry become their visible master? Give people meaning, easy answers, and a reason to think they are “special” in what appears to be a meaningless, inscrutable and indifferent universe and they are yours.
ReplyDeleteLife’s Outcast of Death said: “It seems you hold your beliefs for pleasure and not much else. Eventually, the belief's reason leads back to your own gain.”
That’s true of all religious people, isn’t it?
Outcast also wrote: "I've studied religion and the God concept thoroughly. It always fascinated me. I've came to the conclusion that there is no God after months of contemplating and seeking out arguments/evidence for God."
I agree, only it took me years of sorting through all sorts of religions before I could finally shake it off altogether. When it comes to religion, there really is no there there.
"....by the way hi Mr.Birdick (Life's Outcast of Death)...Tinkerbelle xx"
Howdy Tink!
Tinkerbelle also said: “And that crap i'v just typed is a classic example of why i need to cut down on my meds and get out more!!!”
LOL! I hope this means you don’t actually believe any of things you typed. You seem too intelligent for that.
"That’s true of all religious people, isn’t it?"
ReplyDeleteYes, in her case, I found it to be overly apparent. I doubt this is visible to most people, though.
"I agree, only it took me years of sorting through all sorts of religions before I could finally shake it off altogether. When it comes to religion, there really is no there there."
Dude, check out spiritual Satanism. It's hilarious. They basically talk about how Christians are all liars and are spreading lies about Satanism while Christians talk about how Satanism is bad and Satan is the king of lies. It's loltastic.
"LOL! I hope this means you don’t actually believe any of things you typed. You seem too intelligent for that."
My thoughts exactly.
Is this an American site?? I have a very English sense of sarcastic dry humour. I can very self deprecating...
ReplyDeleteMy version of God was me being my usual sarcastic self..ha. I do believe in God purely because i "like" to. Its a source of self comfort i guess. A bit like masturbation.....ha ha
T.
I base my sense of honor and ethics on logic and fairness, since I'm an atheist. Some people call my ethics evil or some synonym, but at the end of the day, it's easier to set some sort of boundary for yourself, and I have a line or two I won't cross for any reason.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said, "I have a line or two I won't cross for any reason."
ReplyDeleteYou sure about that anon?
if someone says something like:
ReplyDelete"i choose to believe because i want/like to"
i immediately lose all respect for them because they must have no self-knowledge and no desire for their beliefs to have any correlation with truth.
it is disappointing that M.E. thinks like that.
This seems quite interesting to me, if one claims to be truly intellectual and reliant on facts and evidence, then one would come to the conclusion that the matter of arguing whether god exists or not is a moot point. It's very obvious the human race knows nothing about the existence of god, and a purely logical viewpoint-or even analysis-would be to say, one does not know. We don't have the power or information to make any empirical judgement on the matter. It would appear that psychopaths, just like empaths, are influenced by the belief of society and detachment is not a shield for "SELF" opinionated stupidity.
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere that some psychopaths are prone to settling for less--growth of intellect is not barred from that.
If there were a god (philosophically speaking god wouldn't exist in the material--as in some interpretations, god is no-thing) it would make sense for a psychopath to take a position on the "winning side". So it wouldn't be far fetched to muse the idea that there are even higher level psychopaths that either have a neutral stance or do believe in a diety.
The demiuge
Discussions like wether god exists are only popular because they cannot be refuted by testing the evidence. Therefore both sides of such debates naturally attract idiots seeking attention and status by presenting indefensible positions in a convincing way, and maybe convincing themselves of their own bullshit as well, since so many people live in a pseudo-reality created by words.
ReplyDeleteBut of course beliefs have a practical effect by influencing human behaviours. Contrary to Richard Dawkins and the New Atheists, religion improves family size and therefore evolutionary fitness. Of course such religious practice (not the explanations) evolved for a reason, ask Richard Hoste, Kevin Macdonald and now even Susan Blackmore who has now admitted that the costs of religion are outdone by its benefits in a value-neutral, Darwinian sense.
Discussions like wether god exists are only popular because they cannot be refuted by testing the evidence.
ReplyDeleteClare Bear, sometimes the absence of evidence really is evidence of absence. Theists have no more reason to believe in god than you have to believe in flying unicorns. Why? There isn’t any evidence.
Absence of evidence is only evidence of absence when positive evidence can otherwise be expected. (For example the lack of physical Nessie remains in an area as small as Loch Ness, or the absence of hard evidence for alien visitors, despite all the UFO sightings that are reported and no reason why there should be any less of it than there is for human aviators.) There is no default position where statistics based upon evidence cannot lead someone unbiased to a default position.
ReplyDeleteBut Clare Bear, we can expect positive evidence of most god claims: miracles, prayers answered, lives changed in ways that can only be explained by invoking a particular deity, a neon sign written in the stars saying something along the lines of “behold, I am the lord your god”... you get the gist. Notice how nothing like that has ever been reliably reported or found. Ever. In the absence of said evidence, the most rational default position on the question of gods is that there probably aren’t any.
ReplyDeleteAs much as it makes sense that man, though uneducated towards garden fairies, invented garden fairies to fill the explanation void of the fairies they knew existed.
ReplyDeleteArguments from ignorance and incredulity are always fallacies. When somebody imagines something, it does not mean it actually exists, it just means they're capable of imagining things. To show existence you need evidence of existence, not evidence that humans are capable of imagining things.