Was wondering if it is common to audibly hear "God" (if schizophrenic) and how religion plays a part? For example, one prophet, Benjamin Baruch ministeries, claims to hear God audibly. God argues with him, yells at him, and even complains to Baruch. This is not a theological debate, but rather an interesting subject about schizophrenia and religion being entwined. Does religion play a large part in what the schizophrenic hears or believes?
Was wondering if it is common to audibly hear "God" (if schizophrenic) and how religion plays a part? For example, one prophet, Benjamin Baruch ministeries, claims to hear God audibly. God argues with him, yells at him, and even complains to Baruch. This is not a theological debate, but rather an interesting subject about schizophrenia and religion being entwined. Does religion play a large part in what the schizophrenic hears or believes?
Don
Hey Don, interesting question. I dont know if it plays a part but it sounds like a dangerous combonation. I hope I am not offending anyone but after all I have seen it seems that someone who suffers with schizophrenia is better off and a lot safer to be atheist. I doubt such a person exsist.
What is schizophrenia anyway, it is hearing, seeing and beleiving in things that do not exsist. Why add to problem with something as POWERFULL as God or Saten when no one can even prove that they exsist.
I hope this post does not turn it into a theological debate but probally will. I will not try to prove my point, I should not have to these people are in the news everyday.
My brother is schizophrenic and the only time he really worries me is when he starts talking religion. I think God makes him stronger in a negitive way.
You know, as scarry as it sounds, I think you hit it on the nail. The schizophrenic that thinks they are hearing audibly from God is probably feeling that much more pressure to do what those voices in his head are telling him. I have heard so much about people who have killed their entire families because of these voices. WHen they think it is God that is audibly talking to them, this gives them the "reassurance" that it is okay. This is very scarry indeed.
I'm really sorry to hear about your brother. I had a friend that was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and he was also manic depressive. He kept hearing God telling him to prophesy his messages and he went out and got a tattoo of Jesus on his arm.
The reason I posed this question is that time and time again, I hear people say they hear audibly from God. My first impression is that they are schizophrenic (because they hear audibly from God) but if they were to (the schizophrenic) say that they BELIEVED IN GOD and trusted in him, (without all that hocus pocus about God talking out loud) than I think it is safe to assume all is well. Again, this is not a theological debate, but a question posed to better our understanding of schizophrenia. Any ideas on schizophrenia being genetic? For example, if a parent had it, what's the chances of a child getting it?
Hey Don,
Good point. I think there is a fine line between religious and crazy. There are so many people that label schizophrenia and anxiety disorders as being crazy. If you ask me people like, for example big CEO's, have a mentle illness too. I mean are they ever satisfied. I know they work hard for all they have but so do those under them. It seems to me that we are all busting are butts to make these people rich. What I am trying to say is in a way we are a little crazy. The one thing I have noticed about my brother is his obsessions and jealousy. He is very jealous about what others have and what he does not.
I am skeptical about scizophrenia being inherited. In my family i have an aunt and a brother that are. That is it. My aunt, mother and all there siblings grew up with an abusive father who died young. There mother died soon after. The aunt I speak of was the youngest. She got into nursing and soon after was abusing drugs. Not until after the heavy drug use was she labled schizophrenic. My brother was into drugs heavy including LSD. He ran away from home and was arrested for armed robery. He spent 3 years in prison. I should remind you that we were raised upper middle class. Prison is not a good place for someone like my brother. He became schizophrenic while there. Dont get me wrong he deserved a three year sentence.
Sometimes when I am with my kids I see something that reminds me of my brother and it scares the **** out of me. The other day my boy was chasing the cat around the house. I could not help but think of my brother, he was doing that in his twenties before I left home. Sometimes I have to remember that all kids do those sort of things. It still worries me.
There is no scientific evidence to support that schizophrenia is inherited.
So being religious is being crazy because human beings aren't supposed to believe, feel, or experience anything that is not arrived at through the scientific method? lol (there goes schizophrenia, then)
Psychiatry directly attacks religion and faith. Psychiatry killed off thousands of priests and clergy before and during the "holocaust". Psychiatry started and kept the holocaust going with their disgusting ideas and beliefs (such as what is proposed here in this post that religion is insanity).
Psychiatry was responsible for developing the idea of mass sterilization and mass murder, from the first extermination centers to the gas chambers and crematoriums. Psychiatry systematically murdered 100,000 or more "patients", including religious people, as a prelude to Hitler's extermination program. Psychiatry carried out the first wide-scale murder of the Jews and then trained the SS killers who later took over the task from them. In 1937 the Third Reich embarked upon a "cleansing" of the churches and charitable establishments. It was two psychiatric books, along with leading psychiatric literature, that inspired Hitler's "Mein Kamf". They were "the Destruction of Life Devoid of Value (1920) by Hoche and Binding and "The Principles of Human Heredity and Racial Hygiene (1921)" by Bauer, Fischer and Lenz. In 1941, Fredric Wertham, M.D. reported that the Hadamar psychiatric institution "celebrated the cremation of the ten thousandth mental patient in a special ceremony. Psychiatrists, nurses, attendants, and secretaries all participated. Everybody received a bottle of beer for the occasion.”
(whose beliefs are more dangerous..psychiatry's or the "schizophrenics"?)
The majority of human beings have some kind of faith, spirituality, or belief in something that cannot be "proven" scientifically. It is not a "brain disease" and it does not mean you are "crazy".
Just because a person thinks they hear God does not mean they hear God but people can hear God. Moses heard God. I don't think a person should be locked up, forced to take drugs unless they commit a crime (and no not if they "might" commit a crime) and I don't think people should be prevented from going to jail because they heard God tell them to commit a crime and they did. The "insanity" defense is obnoxious.
Psychiatry is a modern day witchhunt.
Last edited by prometheus; 06-05-2004 at 09:09 AM.
Schizophrenia And Religion 
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