While driving today I decided to listen to AM radio for a change, and came across a religious station. Their guest (don't remember who) had just written a book denouncing psychology and psychotherapay, calling it the "devil's deception". He derided Christian clergy who have taken training in counseling, saying they are pawns of the devil if they don't rely soley on the bible in helping people. I just couldn't believe my ears. Everybody who called in gave him their support, which isn't surprising I guess - those who disagree probably don't make up much of their listening audience. Listening left me wondering if we were back in the middle ages.
Psychology is the deception of the devil
by poppers 9 Replies latest jw friends
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daniel-p
Hearing these people, you'd think the Enlightenment was all for nought. I wonder how they feel about penicillin?
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bikerchic
Their guest (don't remember who) had just written a book denouncing psychology and psychotherapay, calling it the "devil's deception". He derided Christian clergy who have taken training in counseling, saying they are pawns of the devil if they don't rely soley on the bible in helping people.
Dumb doG for making us to have a psychological side, the nerve of Him/Her/It!
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poppers
"Dumb doG for making us to have a psychological side, the nerve of Him/Her/It!"
Right you are.
He said Freud hated Christians because they were antisemitic, and that the foundation of his work rested on the rip-off of Greek mythology (Oedepus). Carl Rogers ended his life through assisted suicide (or was that Maslow?). Maslow left his wife and then communed with her spirit after her death. Carl Jung got much of his insight through channeling.
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looking_glass
Freud started and others have since followed the psychoanalytic movement. Freud's books Beyond the Pleasure Principle and The Ego and the Id are very interesting and many have built off of Freud's studies. There are many theories of psychology - here are some basics that might seem a little interesting in light of JWs and what they have experienced in the process of living the life as such or leaving the religion:
Alfred Adler - the central idea in Adierian thinking is the "feeling of inferiority". The goal of every one to varying degrees is to overcome this feeling by manifesting superiority. This striving toward superirority may be expressed as an attempt to dominate others which is negative, childish, neurotic, or at the other extreme it may take the form of a striving to master life's difficulties.
Carl Jung - the collective unconscious (arhetypes). Jung believe in racial inheritance which is shared by all groups of mankind. Archetypes emerge in fairy tales, folk legends and religious traditions. In many religions there is a story of a fall from a lost paradise and of a crucial battle of angels or gods. The persona and the shadow is another theory. The persona is the social front, the facade or the mask that each person puts forth for [the] society (the exact term that Jung used). The shadow is the undeveloped part of the human personality, the other self, distinguised from the persona.
Eric Fromm - Fromm believes that culture is the major shaper of personality. He believes in character types. Authoritarian, humanistic, receiptive, exploitative, hoarding and productive. He also believed in forms of relatedness.
Erik Erikson - He supports some of Freud's beliefs. He pursued child psychoanalysist and became interested in the growth of the ego. Erikson was intrested in how the personality was affected by culture and society. A person's identity is the produce of three forces: your body, your mind and your environment. Eight stages of life: Basic trust v. basic mistrust; autonomy v. shame and doubt; initiative v. guilt; industriousness v. conformity; identity v. role confusion; intimacy v. isolation; generativity v. stagnation and ego integrity v. despair.
I have found thru the study of psychology that I am able to deal with my JW family and the belief system that was established and was the structure of my being for years until I left. I think that many fundamentalist religions are afraid of people looking inside themself to find happiness, because they count on people looking outside themselves for happiness. What will these religions do if people find happiness within themselves and not in fundementalist religions. Wow people may actually start to have a mind of their own.
P.S - sorry this post is really long ... obviously this is an obsession with me! Ahh the reason for psychology.
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Carmel
A Baha'i perspective...
"Psychology is still a very young and inexact science, and as the years go by psychologists, who know from the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh the true pattern of human life, will be able to make great strides in the development of this science, and will help profoundly in the alleviation of human suffering".
(Compilations, Scholarship, p. 12)
carmel
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poppers
Thank you looking_glass for your brief illucidation on some of the giants in the field psychology.
"What will these religions do if people find happiness within themselves and not in fundementalist religions."
Yes, indeed. So much of one's core identity is invested in religious/philosophical beliefs that any challenge to those beliefs threatens that identity - who will I be if I don't have my religion? Is "what I am" really separate from "god"? Religion is control and with control no one has to actually think for themselves and consider other possibilities.
Thank you as well, Carmel.
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Bstndance
Usually people who campaign against Psychology are affiliated with scientology.
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daystar
I think that many fundamentalist religions are afraid of people looking inside themself to find happiness, because they count on people looking outside themselves for happiness. What will these religions do if people find happiness within themselves and not in fundementalist religions. Wow people may actually start to have a mind of their own.
Group think vs. individuality. Group think; God. Individuality; Satan.
Psychology is from the Devil, Bobby Boucher!!
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Spectrum
looking_glass,
"Eric Fromm - Fromm believes that culture is the major shaper of personality. He believes in character types. Authoritarian, humanistic, receiptive, exploitative, hoarding and productive. He also believed in forms of relatedness."
This is the one that I can relate to most ie the one that I can see empirical evidence for. And it is easy to test for. All you have to do is go to a country whose culture is quite different from yours and start getting pally with the natives. You will quickly find that there is a base personality that they share with each other. Maybe characteristic traits is more accurate. But anyway the upshot of it is that you pretty much know how the majority will react to a situation. You can easily apply this to JWism as they all share the same cultural environment with all it's constraints that they fanatically subscribe to.