De-facto truth. If you are an atheist, and you want to run for office ... don't say you are an atheist.

On the other hand if you are an atheist, and you don't want to run for office, but you DO want to it to be possible to be represented in government by people who either are atheists or at least people who understand and accept atheism:
Never back down from an opportunity to show two things, especially in combination. A) You are an atheist, as well as a normal human being, and you are comfortable / proud about it. And B) you are a good, contributing member of society, who doesn't need the threats of religion to "keep you in line".

Showing that you can be both A and B (again, especially in combination at the same time) is the only way to challenge and break down some of the stigmas associated with being an atheist. Like the one viewing atheism as a "repudiation" of religion, as pointed out by Mr. Frank here.

@Enzoblue

Thunderf00t is probably the least level-headed response you will find. His video is terrible for a lot of reasons, mostly because he does all the same things Anita Sarkessian is accused of doing (for example, cherry-picking) to an exponential degree, but I recommend you watch it anyway and draw your own conclusions.

As much as some Gamergate supporters would like the movement to be about ethics in gaming journalism, it has its roots in a witch-hunt started by claims from a jilted ex-boyfriend that his girlfriend (Zoe Quinn) slept with reporters to get good reviews--claims that were later shown to be completely untrue but not before the Gamergate movement had found a cause to rally around. From the very start, the movement had trouble separating actual journalistic ethical problems (i.e. gifts from game publishers to game reviewers... see pretty much any tweet or video by TotalBiscuit about Gamergate for a reasoned overview of the problems) from anti-feminist screeds against Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and later Brianna Wu. And it only got worse over time.

To understand why people might be opposed to Sarkeesian's critiques, you should probably read: this article. Just to summarize the article's main thesis: there is a group of gamers out there who refuse to see a problem with the status quo and make the claim that anyone trying to point out a problem is demanding special privileges. This is not to say that Sarkeesian's critiques aren't without flaws. It is rather to explain how so many people got enraged by her analysis that they felt the need to personally attack her.

So, to put it in a nutshell, there ARE some problems with gaming journalism but they are akin to the same kinds of problems entertainment journalism has in general (Colbert's point). But there are also some serious problems with gaming culture that were brought under the magnifying glass by the whole Gamergate phenomenon.

Frankly, as a "hardcore gamer" (30+ years of gaming experience including games across dozens of consoles and the PC), watching the "debate" on the topic has been embarrassing to say the least. Gaming was finally overcoming the stigma and stereotypes that it had been shackled with before this thing blew up and made us look like the bunch of socially inept man-babies the rest of society assumed we were.

I think not only is it going to take years for our social image to recover, it is going to take years to overcome the toxicity that has pervaded the debate. People on both sides are seriously butt-hurt about how everything went down and the back and forth has been more on the emotional side than the intellectual, leading to lots of flame wars and very little critical reflection.

Meh. I don't even like that there is a cultural stigma associated with just admitting that teaching is a hard job and you can't mention that without attaching the disclaimer of "Well there ARE bad teachers who do _______ and that's bad."

Here's some food for thought: There is ALWAYS a self-check in place to guard against bad teachers, an army of people who will complain about said teacher constantly and actively work to remove that teacher from the position, the students. Students love complaining about teachers that they don't like, or they let it slip in different ways. "I love that sub, he let us do whatever we wanted."

Other professionals in education quickly zero in on comments from students and, with reliable accuracy, can identify problems with colleagues. I, myself, overheard a conversation students were having about another teacher stumbling around 'acting drunk and swearing' and went over to ask about it. I was shocked when I was shown a video shot from under a desk of this happening, stopped what I was doing, grabbed the principal who conveniently was in the hall, and that was the last day that person was in our building.

I'm fairly confident; in spite of morale being low, teachers being bashed in the news, students suffering from more problems than I can count, and being forced to teach to a standardized test; damn-near every person in my school is doing the best they can.

p.s. the pay sucks too.

I'm finding it was a fair discussion on both sides. Harris is clearly more knowledge in the subject but Cenk came up with enough counter-examples to keep the discussion interesting.

Ultimately I think they've spent far too much arguing on the part/predominantly Islam to blame and whether Islamic is worse than certain other religions. Both are very subjective positions and I feel Harris comes off dogmatic here. He may be well placed to argue that people will undersell the role of Islam (perhaps due to political correctness) but to take a very absolutist position cheapens his argument.

I'm only half way but I feel they skipped over socio-economics far too quickly. The reason a middle class citizen in a western country can be radicalised by Islam (say ISIS) is because of the wellspring of specifically radical Islamic communities on the internet relative to other religions. This makes the chances of an impressionable individual stumbling on these much higher than say on a radical Christian call to action which I'm sure exist. As an area, the Middle East is also far more conflict prone and engender an immediate need to respond.

That Islam is so important in many Middle Eastern countries is in itself a product of their low socio-economic level. I suspect that in societies where religion rather than the nation state (which is corrupt or ineffectual) is the main cohesive entity and where low education may make many events we attribute to science unexplainable, it is no surprise that religion (Islam) is taken more seriously and literally. For example insofar as there being no effectual system of law and punishment to more humanely deal with criminals. Also because religion is such a more important glue of community, it's strictures are enforced more rigidly - more varied interpretations would lead to disagreements and risk breaking the community apart (or alternatively, I am saying that only communities with rigid ideologies have survived).

The reason why a Palestinian Christian behaves less radically than Palestinian Muslims on average may also have manifold explanations if it is true. If we accept that many religious groups are linked globally, it is arguable that western countries with their more moderate Christian view are a moderating influence relative to the more radical average global interpretation of Islam. Perhaps with suicide bombings being such an Islamic stigma, it is an activity they as a community have actively tried to avoid? Perhaps anthropologically being in the minority in a community engenders less radicalism and more passive behaviour?

I think the two sides presented here were actually in more agreement than either felt they were.

Affleck's comment at the end was great -- but I don't think that Harris or Maher are really guilty of conflating Muslims with Islam. Maher said "if 90% of Brazilians..." not to suggest that we would/should be critical of Brazil or Brazilians at large in such a scenario, but to suggest that IF that was true, we'd need to take a good hard look at what is producing those trends. And particularly, we would need to be free to criticize and bring the root problems under scrutiny.

To me, that is pretty much exactly what the end of your comment is saying -- "there clearly is a cultural problem within the Muslim world, and it needs to be addressed." Maher and especially Harris (his books are largely on this topic, with regards to Christianity and religion in general) are saying exactly that -- if there are dangerously bad ideas / cultural trends in Islam, or Christianity, or any other group, we need to be free to point out those issues and bring them under scrutiny.

Islam frequently gets a pass because A) it is a religion, and we are taught that criticizing a religion is OFF LIMITS, and B) not only that, but it isn't OUR religion. In the American/Western media, we're getting a little more ready to accept criticism of Christianity, because that feels more like self-criticism (and therefore carries less of a stigma) to Westerners. But the moment the topic turns to Islam, the PC part of all of us gets a lot more uncomfortable.

But like Magicpants says, when you compare across equivalent jobs, the number is closer to 90-95%.

That can be attributed to employers factoring in potential maternity leave and the general lower likelihood of women working overtime. These are not necessarily fair as some women will work long overtime and not have kids (or have the father take leave) but there's a rational reason for employers to assume this on average.

Realistically, I would argue that the best way to approach this is purely through awareness. Mandates on pay scales or opening up companies to lawsuits for unequal pay would, if anything, make the issue worse. Which is why this being brought up in politics seems like a play for votes for an issue that can't be effectively tackled with policy and instead requires cultural changes.

Take for example, South Korea, which has much more serious discrimination. Women earn 63% of what men do, and are expected to not return to work after having children. This has created an opportunity where domestic cultural biases allow foreign firms to come in a scoop up female talent cheaper. Over time, this will give them a competitive edge, raise wages for women, and help overturn the cultural stigma.

http://www.economist.com/node/17311877

One of the many core and wrong ideas in Feminism is that the sex of a person doesn't seem to play much of a role in anything. And in this case, Feminism is responsible for holding back medical science. Feminism is a blight on intellectual discourse. I'm not going to spend the time it takes to unravel a snake like Feminism here, but in brief, it's an untenable ideology.

One of its core philosophies is the idea of the Patriarchy, which is not only theoretical, but creates hypocritical scenarios in Feminist debate.

For instance, Feminists state that the Patriarchy supports and allows men to lead privileged lives. Yet when it is pointed out that men are sentenced twice as long for exact same crimes; men have zero protection of their genitals as babies; that there is FAR more funding for women's schooling, businesses, and health; or that in any emergency situation it is expected that men's lives are forfeit - the argument you'll get back is "See, Patriarchy hurts men too!". This rebuttal is in obvious contradiction to the idea that Patriarchy allows men to live privileged lives.

Another core idea is wage gap which has been disproven over and over for decades, even by some Feminsts:

http://www.topmanagementdegrees.com/women-dont-make-less/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html

Feminism also focuses a great deal on "objectification", which presupposes that men are (always) sexually attracted to something *other* than the curves of a womans body. This is not only obviously off kilter for anyone with a basic understanding of evolutionary psychology, but has been scientifically proven false. Men are biologically wired to base mate finding on looks.

So the word 'objectification' actually becomes Feminist propaganda for the demonizing of male sexuality.

Furthermore regarding female objectification in society - we all often see the viral videos "How Women's Bodies Are Changed Beyond Recognition in Photoshop!" But consider that 80% of consumer dollars are spent by women. So in essence we have women complaining about women being objectified while women buy into objectification. What exactly do we expect advertising agencies to do?

I've even seen scenarios for men in which, if he found a woman attractive, then he's objectifying her; and if he found her unattractive, then he's shallow for only caring about looks.

Then there is argument from Feminists that Feminism helps to empower men as well. No, it doesn't. In fact much has been shown in the opposite: http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/g2eme/feminists_tell_you_that_the_solution_to_mens/

98% of workforce deaths are male. You never see Feminists rallying to take on these jobs on the front lines in combat, or in jobs that involve heavy machinery, working outdoors in inclement weather, inhaling toxic fumes, or apprehending dangerous criminals. Why not? After all, fair is fair! Let's remove the stigma around men being "losers" if they are stay-at-home Dads, while Moms can be the breadwinners for once.

It's clear that Feminism isn't about gender equality. You never see Feminists rallying about how He-Man set an unrealistic body image for boys, but the focus and attention on Barbie has been unreal.

Take into consideration, among everything else I've stated, that words like "mansplaining" are part of Feminist vocabulary, and I think you start to get a picture why no self respecting man has anything to do with Feminism.

There's much much more research, evidence, and articles I can cite, but the final point is that Feminism is a toxic and counterproductive movement.

Perhaps there will be "equality between the sexes" when the likelihood of men becoming estranged from their children and families after a divorce is the same as it is for women... Or when the expectation of "supporting" one's family is actually spending time with them and not simply being their "wallet"...

I'll see equality when the life expectancy between men and women is the same... Or when the risk of becoming homeless is the same... Or to become a victim of violence (or simply being suspected of violence or threatened with violence due to ones gender) is the same.. Or when the probability of dying by suicide is the same. . . Perhaps we'll all be equal then.

The influence of religion has peaked hopefully. Along with that, as symptoms of overpopulation become more and more impossible to ignore, there will eventually be a huge negative stigma on anyone who has a large family.

Hell we already live in a world where religious baby-factory families are mocked and ridiculed, at least when we see them on TV, so I suspect the shaming of large families will only become more prevalent as time goes on, so one can hope that we won't need government to tell us to stop breeding so much, but given human arrogance, who knows?

Technology will help, but only so much. If anything, technology is contributing to the factors that say we don't need this many people on this planet as automation and computers reduce the amount of people we need in the workforce.

First things first, these cops are assholes and should be jailed straight away (and I'm with @bcglorf, if you commit a crime while on duty as a cop, you should face extra jail time).

That said, (and god it pains to me to agree with lantern) I still don't think it's fair to tar all cops with the same brush. We don't judge any other group by it's worst members, why do the cops get singled out?

"Because the good ones don't speak up"

Ok, I'll admit this is a problem. But it's really not that simple. If you are a good cop, by definition, you're working within the law. You need to gather evidence, build a case and so on. In practice, that's pretty difficult to do, especially when the bad cops, also by definition, aren't bound by the same rules the good cops are.

Not to mention the social stigma of "ratting out" your colleagues (and that applies in every walk of life), the potential harassment or even threats (again, bad cops aren't bound by rules).

The problem is a cultural one, and it has to change from the bottom up.

Hi voodooV..sorry it took me so long to reply.

you're committing another logical fallacy here. Argument from ignorance. just because you can't think of any other reason for morality doesn't prove god did it.

The fallacy you mentioned doesn't apply. The argument isn't for Gods existence, the argument is that atheism is incoherent because it has no foundation for morality, among other reasons. Ravi asked the question, without God what are the Ontic referrants for reality?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontic

To answer your question though. Survival...pure survival is pretty much the foundation of morality. what behavior ensures a long, prosperous and happy life? That's your morality right there. And it's all based on logic and reason, not an imaginary god.

is it better to be a dick to someone or is it better to work with other people. hrm...which ensures a higher probability of success in your endeavors.

is better in the long run to help or to hurt. Which ensures a greater likelyhood that people will be willing to help YOU out when you need it.

virtually everything that we consider moral today is the evolution (gasp) of instinctual rules we've learned over the millions (not thousands) of years that ensure a longer, happier life.

What you're talking about is pragmatism, which is to say that if it works then it is the best way to do things. Yet plenty of people have led long, prosperous and happy lives by exploiting other people for their gain. That's what works for them, so why shouldn't I emulate that standard of behavior instead of being self-sacrificing? Some of the most successful people who have ever lived got there by being terrible human beings. Basically, your standard of survival isn't about what is right, but what is right for me and that is entirely arbitrary. It also is an incoherent standard for morality.

Which is why only two of your commandments still hold up as secular laws.

I forget where I learned this but even biblical morality can be traced back to rules that made sense, at the time, that ensured survival. I think it has been shown that many of the biblical rules involving not eating certain foods can be traced back to diseases or some other logical reason, but hey, we didn't have an understanding of these pesky little things called bacteria and microorganisms back then so when you ate a certain food and died, that wasn't science, it was your imaginary sky god who was angry with you.

What's really interesting about that is that Moses was educated as an Egyptian prince, which was the most advanced country in the world at the time. He would have certainly been exposed to their medical knowledge, but you won't find a shred of that in the bible. The Egyptians were doing things like applying dung to peoples wounds, whereas the Laws of Moses detailed procedures for disease control, like hand washing and quarantine procedures, as well as public sanitation, and dietary laws which prevented the spread of parasites. They were thousands of years ahead of their time; we only started washing our hands to control disease in the past 200 years.

Even your fear and hatred of homosexuality and abortion can be easily explained by survival. When your village only numbered in the hundreds or maybe thousands and simple diseases and winters wiped out LOTS of people, discouraging homosexuality and abortion is actually a pretty good idea when the survival of your species is at stake. But when you've got advanced medicine and we've got the whole food and shelter thing dealt with and our population is now 7 billion. the whole "be fruitful and multiply" thing just isn't necessary anymore. In fact, it's becoming a problem. and Once again, survival will dictate our morality. If we do nothing to combat overpopulation and resources become an issue, I guarantee you that large families will eventually have a negative stigma attached to them until the situation is resolved.

You're talking to a former agnostic who once approved of homosexuality and abortion. I am not afraid of it, and I don't hate the people doing it. This is a clash of presuppositions; if there isn't a God then I couldn't give you an absolute reason why people cannot have homosexual relationships or murder their unborn children. If we're all just glorified apes contending for limited resources, then in that paradigm it may be necessary to cull the herd. I think the appropriate response though to someone contending we should eliminate vast swaths of the human populace to save the planet is, "you first".

But God is in control and this is His planet, and since He is still creating human beings, He will provide the resources to take care of them. It's the iniquity of mankind which is limiting the resources when the truth is that we have way more than enough to take care of everyone. Take for example the fact that over 30 thousand people starve to death every day. Is that because we don't have enough food? Actually, we have more than enough food yet we waste about 1/3 of the world food supply every year. The gross world product in 2012 was over 84 trillion dollars, more than enough to feed, clothe, house and vaccinate every single person on the planet. Those people die not because there isn't enough, but because the wickedness of man.

Don't ask me though, ask an anthropologist or sociologist. They've been studying this stuff for decades. I'm sure you could even find an anthropologist/sociologist that believes in god and they'd still say the same thing. our understanding of reality changes....as does morality. no one takes seriously the old biblical rules about stoning unruly kids, working the sabbath, and wearing clothing of two types of fabric anymore. So why should we listen other outdated biblical rules that don't apply anymore. As countless others of sifters have already informed you, you have the burden of proof and you haven't met it yet.

Call me when someone discovers a disease or some other problem that arises when you mix two fabrics and we'll revisit those rules k?

God has three kinds of laws, moral civil and cermonial. The rules you're referring to were civil and ceremonial laws for Israel and not for the rest of the world. They have no application today because they were connected to the Old Covenant God had with Israel. God has a New Covenant with the whole world that doesn't include those laws. The moral laws of God do not change with time, or ever. And although we fancy ourselves as more enlightened today, the reality of the world we live in tells us that human nature hasn't changed one bit. Human nature is every bit as ugly and self serving as it always has been. If you peel back the thin veneer of civility you will find a boiling pot of iniquity.

Stop committing basic logical fallacies and you might learn this stuff for yourself You haven't ever said anything that isn't easily invalidated by a simple logical fallacy or hasn't already been debunked long ago.

It's easy to speak in generalities; if I have committed a logical fallacy, then specifically point it out. The one that you detailed earlier did not apply.

Do you watch the Atheist Experience videos Shiny? because every time I watch one of the videos and listened to the same old tired theist "arguments" over and over again. I'm always reminded of you because you just aren't saying anything new. If you're serious about understanding why your ideas just don't pan out and you're not just trolling, you should seriously watch those.

I've watched the show, and again, I was a lifelong agnostic before becoming a Christian. I was pretty far left and would have probably fit in well with the lot of you not too many years ago. So, this is all to say that I understand where you're coming from and why you think and believe the way you do, because I used to think and believe in the same ways. Your mindset isn't a mystery to me. What I've learned about it is that God has to reveal Himself to a person before they will know anything about Him. Everyone gets some revelation and it is up to them to follow it. I received the revelation that there is a God and I pursued that for many years until He revealed Himself to me through His Son Jesus Christ. He has revealed Himself to you and everyone else on this website in some form or fashion. You would be shocked to hear some of the revelation people have received and turned away from, or rationalized away later. Statistics show that 10 percent of self professing atheists pray, and that is because they are unable to within themselves completely deny the revelation that they have received. I guarantee you there are atheists on this board who wrestle with all of this but since it isn't something atheists talk about (or would admit to publicly) you would never know it, that you're all keeping a lid on the truth.

you're committing another logical fallacy here. Argument from ignorance. just because you can't think of any other reason for morality doesn't prove god did it.

To answer your question though. Survival...pure survival is pretty much the foundation of morality. what behavior ensures a long, prosperous and happy life? That's your morality right there. And it's all based on logic and reason, not an imaginary god.

is it better to be a dick to someone or is it better to work with other people. hrm...which ensures a higher probability of success in your endeavors.

is better in the long run to help or to hurt. Which ensures a greater likelyhood that people will be willing to help YOU out when you need it.

virtually everything that we consider moral today is the evolution (gasp) of instinctual rules we've learned over the millions (not thousands) of years that ensure a longer, happier life.

Which is why only two of your commandments still hold up as secular laws.

I forget where I learned this but even biblical morality can be traced back to rules that made sense, at the time, that ensured survival. I think it has been shown that many of the biblical rules involving not eating certain foods can be traced back to diseases or some other logical reason, but hey, we didn't have an understanding of these pesky little things called bacteria and microorganisms back then so when you ate a certain food and died, that wasn't science, it was your imaginary sky god who was angry with you.

Even your fear and hatred of homosexuality and abortion can be easily explained by survival. When your village only numbered in the hundreds or maybe thousands and simple diseases and winters wiped out LOTS of people, discouraging homosexuality and abortion is actually a pretty good idea when the survival of your species is at stake. But when you've got advanced medicine and we've got the whole food and shelter thing dealt with and our population is now 7 billion. the whole "be fruitful and multiply" thing just isn't necessary anymore. In fact, it's becoming a problem. and Once again, survival will dictate our morality. If we do nothing to combat overpopulation and resources become an issue, I guarantee you that large families will eventually have a negative stigma attached to them until the situation is resolved.

Don't ask me though, ask an anthropologist or sociologist. They've been studying this stuff for decades. I'm sure you could even find an anthropologist/sociologist that believes in god and they'd still say the same thing. our understanding of reality changes....as does morality. no one takes seriously the old biblical rules about stoning unruly kids, working the sabbath, and wearing clothing of two types of fabric anymore. So why should we listen other outdated biblical rules that don't apply anymore. As countless others of sifters have already informed you, you have the burden of proof and you haven't met it yet.

Call me when someone discovers a disease or some other problem that arises when you mix two fabrics and we'll revisit those rules k?

Stop committing basic logical fallacies and you might learn this stuff for yourself You haven't ever said anything that isn't easily invalidated by a simple logical fallacy or hasn't already been debunked long ago.

Do you watch the Atheist Experience videos Shiny? because every time I watch one of the videos and listened to the same old tired theist "arguments" over and over again. I'm always reminded of you because you just aren't saying anything new. If you're serious about understanding why your ideas just don't pan out and you're not just trolling, you should seriously watch those.

I'm not sure about the American education system, but here in Canada the dumbing down of it is appalling to me. It's been getting dumbed down in the name of being 'open minded' and other nonesense by people that don't understand basic reading, writing and arithmetic are not subjective studies and can't be taught in a everyone can do it how they feel manner. Our curriculum is being designed around 2+2=5 isn't 'wrong' it's just that a student applied a different method and should still get partial marks. Our schools are also implementing 'no-fail' policies that basically do away with the 'social stigma' attached to failing and insisting that all students pass each grade unless parents agree, teachers and all staff agree. It's no wonder our western standards are falling, as we are exploiting every last inch of the luxury we have to do so.

That said, I do believe comparisons of students here to those in places like say China are misleading. Shanghai may top the global charts on student results, but I question how complete those statistical methods are. China is very focused, and understands you don't need or even want EVERYONE to be an expert in politics, economics and astrophysics. As a result most people aren't going to go beyond our equivalent of middle years or maybe junior high before entering the workforce. The students that remain in school will be the best and brightest. If you then take ONLY students enrolled in high school from a place like that and compare it to the west, your numbers will of course badly favor the countries limiting student enrollment.

As I noted above, it's no reason for complacency. I'm spending hours and hours each week compensating and supplementing the education my kids aren't getting because of systematically flawed education system .

I love the human body (though admittedly, primarily the female one), and I don't think the US should have such a stigma about nudity, but I'd be damned irritated if I were eating dinner and someone decided to do their bullshit photo-shoot in the middle of it.

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.

This was amazing!

Many mental 'illnesses' can lead to sensory hallucinations, and it's likely that everyone knows someone with some such condition. There are neuroscientific reasons for these hallucinations, where sensory information is cross-linking with different portions of the brain. A person experiencing this is certainly abnormal, though the result can be harnessed as advantageous for a person to gain superhuman powers. A person who hallucinates halos of color around numbers gains an extra pneumonic for remembering them, a person who perceives a halo of color around people gains insight towards some of their own hidden feelings toward that person.

Many of us have problems dealing with traumatic events, or finding a healthy way to emotionally cope with problems. Some of us find healthy ways, and many of us don't, though it's an internal struggle for all of us. In her case, her condition let's her have an EXTERNAL struggle with her problems, which she uses as a tool to help her cope with otherwise unmanageable emotional issues.

Kudos to her for helping to remove some of the stigma for some of these mental disorders! I wish she could expand her horizon to people with other disorders, to help them achieve the same level of understanding and benefit.