Your video, What If You Hear Voices In Your Head?, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

What I always want to ask these people is, assuming they believe all morality comes from God, who's the first person they would kill if God said it was ok? Or if God gave them, let's say, 1 free rape? I mean since they believe nothing else can give one a moral grounding, presumably they would just go nuts if they weren't hearing voices telling them not to.

Great comment! You raised many interesting points.

One important thing to note that the modern human mind is essentially like an advanced piece of software which runs on antiquated hardware (sort of like running Skyrim on an N64). As many as 7% (though I don't currently have a source for this at hand) of the general population are estimated to experience auditory hallucinations, and surprisingly enough, most of those people aren't psychotically structured. This is why auditory hallucinations are seen as a secondary, rather than primary, symptom of schizophrenia.

Rather, what is actually happening is that the antiquated hardware, for whatever reason, is showing its faults. The primitive responses which tend to stay dormant for most people are finding their way to the surface.

In other words, the truth of schizophrenia is that it isn't so much an illness as it is a regression to a more primitive version of the human mind. And as both you an Eleanor pointed out, this can have both pros and cons. Another example of a broken system which can produce contextually positive results is eidetic memory, which causes a person to be unable to forget.

And this is also something that I find to be quite interesting, because what it means is that mental illnesses are, in fact, contextual illnesses. A schizophrenic person is essentially "sick" because he/she has a bug in his/her software and as a result is unable to download patches from the rest of society. Go back 3000 years and it is entirely possible that auditory hallucination would have been the norm.

The reason for the stigma being so harmful is that it simply focuses on the wrong thing. It takes a secondary symptom, i.e. hearing voices, and makes it seem like the actual disease. In truth, the auditory hallucination is just an externalized version of a process which is actually internal. Where most of us simply have thoughts, the schizophrenic might instead hear a voice. To turn stigmatize those auditory hallucinations is to potentially cripple the sufferer's ability to perform basic maintenance on themselves.

Are you having hot flashes, as well? Cravings for pickles and ice cream? Feel like crying sometimes for no reason at all, or hearing voices in your Wheaties?

Just trying to figure you out. Lots of good and bad info flying around, accordingly spun by the provider's worldview. There exists a fundamental truth here, however, and although it's possible to miss it amongst the din of spin, your position seems to be as ephemeral as your cut&paste cache. The enemy of your enemy doesn't have to be your friend. This isn't just another bogus scandal. I wouldn't even classify it as a scandal. It's much bigger than that. Dystopian future, today. Pick a fucking side already.

>> ^A10anis:
@ Shinyblurry's post starting with "Your welcome" (didn't quote the lot of it because i don't want that dribble being repeated below my post)

Your hypothetical story used to make a point about how you make yourself feel better was quite disturbing. Under the same logic you employed there.. if someone told you "kill 1000 babies" and all suffering would end for eternity, your story would only encourage an idiot to be a horrific murderer because of some deranged persons words.

Actually, the point of the hypothetical was to show the sloppy reasoning inherent in digging for treasure in a spot marked other than X.

>> ^A10anis:
You state "The only thing which is stopping you is pride.". No, it's the use of intelligence.
* It's not believing things because they make me feel better, or allowing me to think less because i can say magic did it.

So, how is you believing that you have a superior intellect to someone who believes in God not pride?

>> ^A10anis:
* It's the love of actually thinking about situations from a 'likely/unlikely true based on scientific reasoning' position, which is what drives human advancements forward.

Since there is no empirical evidence for or against Gods existence, how do you calculate how likely or unlikely His existence is?

>> ^A10anis:
* It's not naively thinking or pretending there are great things to learn from a disgusting book of prejudice, torture, fear and horror (i.e. kill your loved ones because you hear voices or let towns rape your daughters because they're of less value than a male stranger).

The bible, apart from the revelation of God, is a historical account of the actions of fallen men. Men who were sinners and sometimes did things which were morally wrong. That there was no effort to cover up those sins is a point in favor, not against.


>> ^A10anis:
* It's not believing claims that a book is an accurate account of history and the universe, when it gets the most basic things a God would know wrong, coincidentally these claims are just the way things would appear to a human's untrained eye (sun revolving around the planet).

If you want to address the accuracy of the bible, you must first accurately portray the bible. My guess is that you have only studied the bible through the lens of skeptics. Do you know the actual history of how this idea came about? The bible does not say the sun revolves around the earth, but it was interpreted that way by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century. Claudius proposed a theory of geocentricity, which at the time, was far more accurate than the existing theory of heliocentricity, and he interpreted certain passages of scripture to support his assertion. These passages, specifically Joshua 10:12-14, and Psalm 93:1, do not teach geocentricity at all, but were taken out of context by Claudius and others to promote the theory.

>> ^A10anis:
* It's because the bible (unbelievable in it's own right), once claimed to be a book of literal truth, becomes more and more metaphorical as science stomps its way all over the human races ignorance of the universe reaching greater level's of understandings that are testable through mathematical predictions.

The scientific theories which contradict the literal truth of the bible, such as the theory of deep time, macro evolution, and abiogenesis, are not subject to empirical testing. You cannot prove these theories in a lab. They are inferences based on circumstantial evidence, and are not truly scientific. You must *believe* them, and real science is based on knowledge, not belief.

>> ^A10anis:
Quote "Yet, it wasn't evidence at all, it was simply what I preferred to be true.". Seems like not much has changed, except your preferences.

Your preaching is nothing more than the same unjustified crap that those who don't have facts to support them continue to make. IMO you've either given up on your critical analytical abilities, or you're a troll copy/pasting.. given how similar your sentences are to other preachers.

What changed is that I fairly investigated the claims of Jesus Christ, instead of dismissing them based on a superficial knowledge of Christianity. When I did that, I received supernatural evidence that they were true.

>> ^A10anis:
Christianity is a sacrificial cult, full of unsubstantiated claims.

Your gross mischaracterization not withstanding, how have you investigated the claims of Jesus Christ?

>> ^A10anis:
Jesus's so called miracles appear in many other religions, usually descriptively to the letter.

Have any actual evidence to support this claim? Be sure to include the original sources and not just the claims of skeptics.

>> ^A10anis:
Your beliefs come from a time where women were valued as little more than a discard-able possessions.

Galatians 3:28

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Scripture teaches that woman have the same value in the eyes of God as men do. God has assigned us different roles, but he shows no partiality between men and women.

>> ^A10anis:
And If your God did exist, then said God can go fuck themselves, as i have no desire to follow the direction and teachings of a psychopathic asshole.

I would suggest it is the distorted lens through which you see God that informs your negative opinion of Him.

>> ^A10anis:
PS: although I'm not censoring myself too much, it's not my primary intention to offend you (but don't care too much either), just can't stand how people spouting this type of content can think they 'should' be taken seriously.

Atheists rarely censor themselves when they speak to Christians. Nothing you've said here is unexpected. I do not take offense at what you said; on the contrary, I care about you as a human being made in the image of God, and I see you as being worthy of love and respect. My hope is that you come to know the love of Jesus Christ. You simply have no experience of God at the moment, but God is willing to show you He is there at any time. He loves you more deeply than you understand. Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you.

@ Shinyblurry's post starting with "Your welcome" (didn't quote the lot of it because i don't want that dribble being repeated below my post)

Your hypothetical story used to make a point about how you make yourself feel better was quite disturbing. Under the same logic you employed there.. if someone told you "kill 1000 babies" and all suffering would end for eternity, your story would only encourage an idiot to be a horrific murderer because of some deranged persons words.

You state "The only thing which is stopping you is pride.". No, it's the use of intelligence.
* It's not believing things because they make me feel better, or allowing me to think less because i can say magic did it.
* It's the love of actually thinking about situations from a 'likely/unlikely true based on scientific reasoning' position, which is what drives human advancements forward.
* It's not naively thinking or pretending there are great things to learn from a disgusting book of prejudice, torture, fear and horror (i.e. kill your loved ones because you hear voices or let towns rape your daughters because they're of less value than a male stranger).
* It's not believing claims that a book is an accurate account of history and the universe, when it gets the most basic things a God would know wrong, coincidentally these claims are just the way things would appear to a human's untrained eye (sun revolving around the planet).
* It's because the bible (unbelievable in it's own right), once claimed to be a book of literal truth, becomes more and more metaphorical as science stomps its way all over the human races ignorance of the universe reaching greater level's of understandings that are testable through mathematical predictions.

Quote "Yet, it wasn't evidence at all, it was simply what I preferred to be true.". Seems like not much has changed, except your preferences.

Your preaching is nothing more than the same unjustified crap that those who don't have facts to support them continue to make. IMO you've either given up on your critical analytical abilities, or you're a troll copy/pasting.. given how similar your sentences are to other preachers.

Christianity is a sacrificial cult, full of unsubstantiated claims.
Jesus's so called miracles appear in many other religions, usually descriptively to the letter.
Your beliefs come from a time where women were valued as little more than a discard-able possessions.
And If your God did exist, then said God can go fuck themselves, as i have no desire to follow the direction and teachings of a psychopathic asshole.

PS: although I'm not censoring myself too much, it's not my primary intention to offend you (but don't care too much either), just can't stand how people spouting this type of content can think they 'should' be taken seriously.

I don't hear voices. God makes Himself known plainly, as He has made Himself known to you:

Romans 1:20

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

>> ^Ryjkyj:
Ha!
When Socrates hears voices, it's because of a demon. But when Shiny hears voices, it's the unadulterated word of god.

Ha!

When Socrates hears voices, it's because of a demon. But when Shiny hears voices, it's the unadulterated word of god.

Feelings come and go..if it was just feelings I wouldn't have the faith in God that I do..there were many times it would have been much easier not to believe..and many feelings that came along that were powerful and should have swept my belief in God away if that's all my faith was about..but God has always been there, eternal and unchanging..providing stability in the midst of the chaos..providing truth that is real and tangibly useful in life.

It depends on what you think the nature of truth is..whether it is relative or absolute to you..because in the relative truth world, feelings are king..you are always running a race you can never win. in the world of absolute truth, feelings are like shifting sand..they aren't a foundation for what is real..you must plant yourself on a rock to be well grounded

In reply to this comment by Crunchy:
>> ^shinyblurry:

Well, if I am psychotic I don't have any symptoms. I don't have hallucinations or hear voices, nor am I at all paranoid. My thoughts and feelings are organized and stable. I obey all laws, those of society and those from God. I have empathy for others, compassion for their plights, and generally love and care for my fellow man. I am emotionally stable and can relate to others and form relationships. If I am psychotic, I am the rare well adjusted empathetic type.
My initial experience opened me to an awareness of the spiritual. It started out as an awareness of energy. That in the moment, one could perceive the energy which was flowing through all things. Through other people, through objects, through the room or space you are in..that there was a tangible vibrational signature to everything. This is somewhat described in much of the new age literature.
After getting used to this, God unequivicably showed me He was there. He did this by instructing me in the Spirit about who He is. He showed me how He had always been there my entire life, and that He loved me. He showed me His omnipresence in the moment, that He was always working behind the scenes to bring all things together to His will..and by all things I mean everything, everywhere. He showed me He was the unifying principle underlying reality.
He also taught me He is the God of the bible. He taught me He is a triune God. He taught me there is a messiash, ie, someone whose job it is to save the world. He taught me about good and evil. He showed me that Satan is real and that he has a host of demons which suborindate people to his will and can even possess them utterly. That and many other things before I even knew anything about Christianity.
I couldn't ignore God if I tried..it would be a joke. I would have to pretend He didn't exist. Even still, all I would have to do is look outside and the illusion would be shattered. It is true what this scripture says:
Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
So that's a little bit about it. The most important thing I learned is that God loves us and wants to give us a real future, ie eternal life. All he requires is that we turn from our evil and acknowledge our responsibility to Him to live a moral life. Two things make someone a Christian and saves you..believing in your heart that Jesus rose from the dead, and confessing that He is your Lord and Savior. He died for our sins so that we could be redeemed, and because of that, is worthy of all praise.

<em>>> <a rel="nofollow" href='http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry#comment-1231303'>^Crunchy</a>:<br />Hi, big fan... Ive seen your comments on some sifts and well... they've been interesting and when reading your profile i came across this <BR><BR>"10 years ago I was where you are now. I've was agnostic for the majority of my life. I thought truth was relative, humanism was superior, and was a strict materialist who saw no evidence for spirit or God. Then God woke me up and showed me He is there. God is more real to me than my own reflection in a mirror. I'm here because God commanded me to preach the gospel, and because I care about my fellow man. I am here out of love for God and love for people, and that alone. "<BR><BR>What scared me is that you say that you've been "one of us" and then god appeared and gave commands directly to you, point being you experienced something supernatural.<BR><BR>Now my first reaction was, oh god i hope i dont become bat shit and experience "supernatural" things one day, which seemd plausible since you said you've been one of us.<BR><BR>But then i remembered what i know about the human mind and psychosis. When a person is in a psychosis he/she is deemd mentally insane and has lost contact with reality. "Funny" thing is though, that the person is not aware of it, and so does not feel that there is anything wrong with him/her and might get frustrated about why people think he/she is insane.<BR><BR>Now there are alot of things that can create a psychosis but im not gonna start listing, if youre interested you can google it.<BR><BR>There are no hard lines when it comes to the human mind, theres no 100% insane or 100% sane, everyone have most of the mental illneses to some small extent. And we can witness symptoms of these diseases in most people to some extent. (Denial<BR><BR>The mind is a tricky thing, it has lots of funny defence mechanisms (you guessed it, psychosis), and if you dont know enough of your brain and how it functions, it can royally screw you over one day.<BR><BR>So... to me it sounds like you've experienced something traumatic and suffer from a psychosis, I am however interested in hearing about what turned you religious, how did god wake you up and show you that he is there, and i notice you write he with a capital H so why is he a he <IMG class=smiley src="http://cdn.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/tongue.gif"><BR><BR>Im sorry to say but if you dont tell me more about your experience, in other words convince me that what you experienced wasnt a mental brakedown, im gonna continue believing that youre bat shit and ignore you<BR><BR>You can always argue that im the one who is psychotic, but then you cant convince my because im in denial<BR></em>


The thing is that emotions are much stronger in controlling trains of thought than logic, why is why depressesion is so common and when in a depression you think of only sad things, which is why medication is prescribed, its not to make people numb (which alot of people seem to think) but to ease the pain temporarily so the person can think logically and not in the same trains of thoughts. And from my point of view it seems like you've confused emotions and mechanisms of your brain with the presence of a god (stephen fry talked a bit about this in the infamous stephen fry on god and gods video didn't he ?)

Now that is my opinion, ive created that from the experience and "knowledge" ive gathered in my lifetime regarding the human mind, philosophy and religion etc. Its gonna take alot to change my view on this, and I think it might be even harder to change your view of what really happend and what is going on, with the god and what not.

So, I guess we can just agree to disagree?

>> ^shinyblurry:

I appreciate your concern. Let me assure you that I don't have a mental illness, I don't have any mania, I don't hear voices..I am very balanced, well grounded and internally consistant. I've actually been a counseler for people who have bi-polar, schitzophrenia and even multiple personality disorder. So I am familiar with all the signs and symptons, and I don't have any. If I did I would seek treatment.
>> ^kceaton1:
I'll tell you this one last time. My mania was ENCOURAGED by the religious. Although it was a a mental illness, but they had no knowledge of it... So if in the future you hit the ground running, with those that love you asking you, "Why?", with no understanding...
Think of me then. (And MANY others....)



I know the other conversations are going quick right now, so answer this last.

I'm sorry to say I don't believe you when you say you have experience. I won't specify why too much as it isn't truly needed. What I wish to know is why did I get this answer? To prove to me something? You could have done so with a sincere, "OK" or "I'll look at the classifications; or symptoms".

This response is very terse.

I appreciate your concern. Let me assure you that I don't have a mental illness, I don't have any mania, I don't hear voices..I am very balanced, well grounded and internally consistant. I've actually been a counseler for people who have bi-polar, schitzophrenia and even multiple personality disorder. So I am familiar with all the signs and symptons, and I don't have any. If I did I would seek treatment.

>> ^kceaton1:
I'll tell you this one last time. My mania was ENCOURAGED by the religious. Although it was a a mental illness, but they had no knowledge of it... So if in the future you hit the ground running, with those that love you asking you, "Why?", with no understanding...
Think of me then. (And MANY others....)

hehe, he said "idear"

I'll keep this as eloquent as possible, im sober, and i watched the vid in its entirety. (ineloquent, inebriated, didnt watch full vid, check, check, and check) that being said:

an out of body experience and hearing voices is not in any imaginable way "proof" of anything, at least not in the scientific sense.

a persons individual religious experiences and/or salvation testimonies are a deeply personal thing.....emphasis on personal.

I, myself, am a man of faith, a christian, whatever you wanna call me. Having said that, i would hope that would illustrate where my biases are and im still gonna tell you that this isnt "proof" of anything except this man had a significant, personal religious encounter/experience

>> ^spaceman:

Why I don't care:
1) You once believed in a god.
2) You are a guy.


@spaceman | The reason why the rest of us watch and listen to "just some guy; who believed in God":

The only reason you can type your sentence is from/due-to "other" men. Religion in all forms is from "other" men (unless you claim to hear voices or a physical divinity; but, please, not as an affront to you, make sure you're not psychotic or schizophrenic before telling us your interesting story as that is the case almost always; same with drug use; same with some other illnesses: narcolepsy, sleep walking, night terrors/sleep paralysis, and many other sleep related issues and all nervous system illnesses). Only a few things below talk more about what you said.
--------------------------
--------------------------
A little more to add to the conversation. Hopefully, this gets it all out as it will be fairly long, but the video is hard to reply to in a short manner. I hope this covers a large extent of what I wish to say about this very well done video witness/testimony.


One set of values you can research and witness to it's validity on your own, as he has done. Science also allows for this methodology, using the well known precept of "The Scientific Method".

A quick example is that many people of faith, even Evid3nc3, talks of feeling "x" with their "hearts" and knowing "x" with their "soul". In science there is nothing more than a simple, yet complicated, physical processes. It's all a creation and manifestation in your brain; if you think you "feel" something with your heart you're causing minor self-hysteria to the extent of creating a minor hallucination.

The "soul" is called the(primarily in psychology, neuroscience, and neurology; there are many other terms that try to mean "you"; typically, in grossly inaccurate ways, such as: ghosts, "psychic" remote viewing, many religions use of the magical-energy-divine soul, etc...) psyche which is typically (starting from the outer-functions and moving into core-functions) sensory systems, language center, feelings, memory, and then the key-piece the neo-cortex. So it must be understood that your brain does a lot of things still baffling (mostly the mechanics or mechanisms of function and chemistry), but the overall picture is fairly clear.

But, the brain is not a floating energy source, nor is it an absolute definition at any given point or time. Depending on how and where you look at the brain the very concept of you is different. It more akin to superposition of an electron or a kaleidoscope; the definition of you is not concrete until measured and even then you are already not what was measured.

Even from what little we do know, belief plays a central role in how our neo-cortex makes decisions and operates (even with memory and other functions, which is why we do make many mistakes as it's due to how our brain physically commits to anything it must or will do; it's perhaps the single best reason to show why, "To err is human; to forgive, divine."; you don't understand the human condition if you cannot forgive...). Could this translate into a bigger picture; our connected neurons telling us to accept faith and belief, sometimes, because that is what it does at the small scale?

*Offtopic Look up articles, books, and videos (look at TED for Marvin Minsky, Jeff Hawkins, Craig Venter, Jonathan Haidt and others --some of which are here on the sift-- related topics on there like the Mind, AI, facial-pattern-contextual-semantics-divergent-cat vs. dog software based Recognition, and then other media pertaining to 'Artificial Intelligence') or if you want to know strictly about how the brain works and makes it's decisions, look for a type of setup called a "hierarchical structure"; also known as a pyramid or pyramid scheme. One cell makes a decision based off of the accumulations of "guesses" the other millions of cells connected to it made; these cells are fundamentally the foundation for that setup, but the neurons are more flexible than that as each can be a parent and also part of the "foundation" structure, making the brain a fantastic structure. With time this becomes accurate (this occurs in less than a few milliseconds), although our vision, for an example, is horrifically distorted and wrong, if you could look at one "frame" based on a few cells. Only a small fraction of the frame would be correct; literally it would be as though your senses got one pixel correct in a 1080p image. Yet, repeat this millions of times with different data sets each round (and this is done as said above, fast) you get an accurate picture; or at the least 20/20-to about one-arc minute (the resolution for the human eye, on average).

One set you can't test, we call that belief or faith. "What is the reasoning for taking the leap of faith?", this is what you have to defend at this point. If faith is your only defense, I will (like many others will) assume you haven't looked into your own faith enough yet or you even refuse to look out of fear of being wrong. If you do not understand the topic you must be willing to ask for help as he did or you'll be a slave to your willful decision of ignorance, to the extent that you feel compelled to defend them, but you never convince anyone except yourself--and for yourself it is only because of the rote-righteous indignation.

If it's true it should withstand all scrutiny. Unless truth isn't your ultimate goal. Then, for us and many others there is no reason to follow your faith. Usually, this type of merit and defense are directly related to age due to learning this all when you're a child and devoid of an intense ability to decipher, attribute values, connect, and draw in a belief (if with some facts and proof you could call it a hypothesis).

It's all from men... I'm wagering you're dismissing this flippantly due to religion; if not what exactly is your point, as I truly would like to know why and where this claim of non-relativistic knowledge comes from, without a woman or man?

Also, if it has to do with his belief in being mistaken for believing in God that's a moot point as we have all erred in life. I know of no person that has reliably been able to "claim divinity", other than Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, etc... But, we also know now that mental illness and other factors can account for any manic or psychotic leanings. We also know magicians (or magister, proper) have been around A LONG TIME.

Plus, as Arthur C. Clarke put it, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.". Which then one must ask another question, "Can divinity itself ever be established as being magic only?". This is then rounded up by a statement from Larry Niven (sometimes called Niven's Law(s)), "Any sufficiently rigorously defined magic is indistinguishable from technology.". These collide and distinctly form a conclusion about divinity and any of it's powers (descriptive magic or divinity and it's "how to use it" manual are indefensibly getting closer in each step to being more akin to physics; plus the Christian God hates magic, which begs the question, "Why do you need a God, if we can exact the same effects?"):

Divinity can only hope to use advanced knowledge and technology in a collusion to bring about one standpoint alone: "divinity" if described by God in any kind of ruleset (some of it is in the bible, already) stands on a rigorously tested and time shown: shaky ground.

Men would be gods whether God existed or not.

(P.S.: only the beginning and some bits here and there are for you, @spaceman. The rest is for our vestibule.)

Again I must add that this is a great find @dystopianfuturetoday.
You're doing yourself a great disservice not watching it (or all of it as the case may be).

http://www.lyrics007.com/Scott%20Miller%20Lyrics/Red%20Ball%20Express%20Lyrics.html

I jumped at it when I had the chance,
I joined the army and I went to France
At Roosevelt's request.
Two weeks of sitting in the mud
Made me lie to the man that I could drive a truck
For the Red Ball Express.

All we do is keep it rolling on
Trading bodies for petroleum
Heating rations on the manifold
And never sleep enough to dream about home

Benzedrined and looking through cat eyes
Of a deuce and a half and a days supply
Of jerry cans in back
Ain't no secret how the generals felt.
"Fuck the men they can eat their belts
but the tanks they must have gas"

All we do is keep it rolling on
Trading bodies for petroleum
Heating rations on the manifold
And never sleep enough to dream about home

The gears are sticking and the pressure's low
I felt the bump that means its time to go
Another twenty miles.
Thirty-six hours and I still ain't slept
I'm hearing voices talk inside my head
In Burma Shaving rhyme

All we do is keep it rolling on
Trading bodies for petroleum
Heating rations on the manifold
Even now I've never felt that old

Because fifty years later and you don't forget
Being eighteen and scared to death
In a world that's changing fast
Now my own son sends his own son off
To fight the next fight to be fought
And the Red Ball brings me back