"It is my greatest fear that one day, I would wake up to discover that all the my sacred gospels, all my sacred precepts, doctrines, rituals and beliefs were concocted and written by mad men".

The above statement was made years ago by one of my inlaws, a seminarian at the time, during one our many discussions on religious belief.

Its seems that now, I may have to ring him up and give him the very bad new that his worst fears have finally come true .

For a quite a long time now, I had noticed and had began to suspect that there might very well exist some kind of causal link between religion and benign forms of mental disorders.
I had noticed that quiet a lot of hyper-religious people also displayed signs of mild , and sometimes, barely noticeable signs of mental disorders.
Does religion lead to mental disorder , or do mental disorders have some kind of affinity with religious thought or irrationality?
These are the questions I often asked myself.

Few weeks ago, I wanted to to open a simple thread to examine and discuss the psychology of religion, mainly the link between religion and schizophrenia and other related schizoids.

Of course, not wanting to make any unsubstantiated claims, I set out to do a bit of research on the subject to find scientific corroboration for my thesis.

Well , my friends, the amount of materials and the information I came across completely blew my mind in no small measure.
In fact, the treasure trove of information that I have come across on this subject has been so mind-boggling, so explosive, so humbling that it is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb on religion.

I have , in the process, gathered so much material that how best to set them into a simple and coherent format for easy ready has been my greater challenge over the past weeks.

So here it goes.

The first statement that wish to make, which will also be the bedrock of my thesis is :

No matter how you cut it, no matter how you phrase it, all arrows, all roads lead to evolution as the driving force, not only of biological diversity, biological progression, development of consciousness and intelligence as we know it, but also social progress , and as well, as you are about to discover, our philosophies, Aesthetics, Politics and Most Importantly, Religions.

Yes. It is not a typo.
It is now clearly obvious that Religion and God are , funny enough, the chance by-products of the evolutionary process.

" There is something akin to madness in their overwhelming methods".
The above is a paragraph from chinua Achebe's Things fall Apart in describing the irrationality of the newly emerging christian movement in the fictional village of Obodo.

We atheists have always mocked and derided religious faith as a mild form of mental illness. But even though we really believed it to be so, It had never occurred to me all the while that there were enormous amount of bullet-proof scientific and historical evidence to support that assertion.

Psychologist, psychiatrists , neurologists , historians and anthropologist have long noted and written extensively on the very fact that the primary founders of the worlds most influential religions were people who had personality disorders or various forms of schizoid and or OCDs(obsessive compulsive disorders).

Though for this thread , I shall mostly concern myself with religion, the fascinating thing is that various genetic disorders have been eerily and surreptiously shaping the philosophical, political and religious development of human race.

This is simply befuddling , to say the least, that humanity's march to progress has not only been influenced , but actually guided, and in most cases, spawned by a brain malfunction.
I am I the only in shock, or is everyone with me on this ?

The roll call of well known and widely influential historical figures with known or post-diagnosed genetic disroders is quite impressive, and will shock you.

Prominent among these genetic disorders are:
1.Schizoprenia and it's less evil twin Schizotypal disorder.
2. Various forms of OCD
3. Aspergers Disease
4[b]. Temporal Lobe Epilepsy(TLE)- perhaps , so far, the most influential on the world's major religions. [/b]


Lets start with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy(TLE).

Epilepsy is a common and diverse set of chronic neurological disorders characterized by seizures. It is a paroxysmal behavioral spell generally caused by an excessive disorderly discharge of cortical nerve cells of brain and can range from clinically undetectable (electrographic seizures) to convulsions. Epileptic seizures result from abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.

Mutations in several genes have been linked to several types of epilepsy. Some genes that code for protein sub units of voltage-gated and ligand-gated ion channels have been associated with forms of generalized epilepsy and infantile seizure syndromes.

The oldest known record of epilepsy comes from the Sakikku, a Babylonian cuneiform medical text dating from about 1067BC and recorded on tablets, some of which are conserved at the British Museum. This text describes in surprising detail many manifestations of the different seizure types we recognize today, and it emphasizes the supernatural nature of epilepsy,[88] while the Ayurvedic text of Charaka Samhita (about 400BC), describes epilepsy as "apasmara", i.e., "loss of consciousness.

Historically, the disease was often called in Germanic and Romance languages "falling sickness", "falling ill" or "falling evil.

In the past, epilepsy was associated with religious experiences and even demonic possession. In ancient times, epilepsy was known as the "Sacred Disease" (as described in a 5th-century BC treatise by Hippocrates ) because people thought that epileptic seizures were a form of attack by demons, or that the visions experienced by persons with epilepsy were sent by the gods. Among animist Hmong families, for example, epilepsy was understood as an attack by an evil spirit, but the affected person could become revered as a shaman through these otherworldly experiences. The Greek physician Galen wrote that "the moon governs the periods of epileptic diseases" and hence the epilepsies were, by the Greeks and Latins, called lunatics.

To be continued.
Stay tuned.

Well you should know very well that mad people are the only people who change and advance the world.

Sane people are quite boring, and form only the foot soldiers in history.

Mad people revolutionize the world all the time.

The world can't do without mad people.

I am proudly mad.

plaetton: "It is my greatest fear that one day, I would wake up to discover that all the my sacred gospels, all my sacred precepts, doctrines, rituals and beliefs were concocted and written by mad men".

The above statement was made years ago by one of my inlaws, a seminarian at the time, during one our many discussions on religious belief.

Its seems that now, I may have to ring him up and give him the very bad new that his worst fears have finally come true .

For a quite a long time now, I had noticed and had began to suspect that there might very well exist some kind of causal link between religion and benign forms of mental disorders.
I had noticed that quiet a lot of hyper-religious people also displayed signs of mild , and sometimes, barely noticeable signs of mental disorders.
Does religion lead to mental disorder , or do mental disorders have some kind of affinity with religious thought or irrationality?
These are the questions I often asked myself.

Few weeks ago, I wanted to to open a simple thread to examine and discuss the psychology of religion, mainly the link between religion and schizophrenia and other related schizoids.

Of course, not wanting to make any unsubstantiated claims, I set out to do a bit of research on the subject to find scientific corroboration for my thesis.

Well , my friends, the amount of materials and the information I came across completely blew my mind in no small measure.
In fact, the treasure trove of information that I have come across on this subject has been so mind-boggling, so explosive, so humbling that it is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb on religion.

I have , in the process, gathered so much material that how best to set them into a simple and coherent format for easy ready has been my greater challenge over the past weeks.

So here it goes.

The first statement that wish to make, which will also be the bedrock of my thesis is :

No matter how you cut it, no matter how you phrase it, all arrows, all roads lead to evolution as the driving force, not only of biological diversity, biological progression, development of consciousness and intelligence as we know it, but also social progress , and as well, as you are about to discover, our philosophies, Aesthetics, Politics and Most Importantly, Religions.

Yes. It is not a typo.
It is now clearly obvious that Religion and God are , funny enough, the chance by-products of the evolutionary process.

" There is something akin to madness in their overwhelming methods".
The above is a paragraph from chinua Achebe's Things fall Apart in describing the irrationality of the newly emerging christian movement in the fictional village of Obodo.

We atheists have always mocked and derided religious faith as a mild form of mental illness. But even though we really believed it to be so, It had never occurred to me all the while that there were enormous amount of bullet-proof scientific and historical evidence to support that assertion.

Psychologist, psychiatrists , neurologists , historians and anthropologist have long noted and written extensively on the very fact that the primary founders of the worlds most influential religions were people who had personality disorders or various forms of schizoid and or OCDs(obsessive compulsive disorders).

Though for this thread , I shall mostly concern myself with religion, the fascinating thing is that various genetic disorders have been eerily and surreptiously shaping the philosophical, political and religious development of human race.

This is simply befuddling , to say the least, that humanity's march to progress has not only been influenced , but actually guided, and in most cases, spawned by a brain malfunction.
I am I the only in shock, or is everyone with me on this ?

The roll call of well known and widely influential historical figures with known or post-diagnosed genetic disroders is quite impressive, and will shock you.

Prominent among these genetic disorders are:
1.Schizoprenia and it's less evil twin Schizotypal disorder.
2. Various forms of OCD
3. Aspergers Disease
4[b]. Temporal Lobe Epilepsy(TLE)- perhaps , so far, the most influential on the world's major religions. [/b]


Lets start with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy(TLE).

Epilepsy is a common and diverse set of chronic neurological disorders characterized by seizures. It is a paroxysmal behavioral spell generally caused by an excessive disorderly discharge of cortical nerve cells of brain and can range from clinically undetectable (electrographic seizures) to convulsions. Epileptic seizures result from abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.

Mutations in several genes have been linked to several types of epilepsy. Some genes that code for protein sub units of voltage-gated and ligand-gated ion channels have been associated with forms of generalized epilepsy and infantile seizure syndromes.

The oldest known record of epilepsy comes from the Sakikku, a Babylonian cuneiform medical text dating from about 1067BC and recorded on tablets, some of which are conserved at the British Museum. This text describes in surprising detail many manifestations of the different seizure types we recognize today, and it emphasizes the supernatural nature of epilepsy,[88] while the Ayurvedic text of Charaka Samhita (about 400BC), describes epilepsy as "apasmara", i.e., "loss of consciousness.

Historically, the disease was often called in Germanic and Romance languages "falling sickness", "falling ill" or "falling evil.

In the past, epilepsy was associated with religious experiences and even demonic possession. In ancient times, epilepsy was known as the "Sacred Disease" (as described in a 5th-century BC treatise by Hippocrates ) because people thought that epileptic seizures were a form of attack by demons, or that the visions experienced by persons with epilepsy were sent by the gods. Among animist Hmong families, for example, epilepsy was understood as an attack by an evil spirit, but the affected person could become revered as a shaman through these otherworldly experiences. The Greek physician Galen wrote that "the moon governs the periods of epileptic diseases" and hence the epilepsies were, by the Greeks and Latins, called lunatics.

To be continued.
Stay tuned.

I am sure you are aware that religious people for the most part are statistically more sane, happier, healthier, and live longer, than non religious people? Of course, you may call it the placebo effect, but true, nonetheless.

Deep Sight:
Well you should know very well that mad people are the only people who change and advance the world.

Sane people are quite boring, and form only the foot soldiers in history.

Mad people revolutionize the world all the time.

The world can't do without mad people.

I am proudly mad.

Oh well, there's 'good' madness and then, there's this kind of madness..

aManFromMars:

Oh well, there's 'good' madness and then, there's this kind of madness..

Lol. Indeed that's true.

I prefer, and refer to, good madness, the madness of Einstein, Freud, Darwin, Jackson, Mandela, Fela, Marley, Fawehinmi, Galileo, Copernicus, An Sun Su Kyi, Mahatma, Churchill, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Sankara, Che Guevara, Achebe, Soyinka, Luther, Martin Luther King, Columbus. . . . . a zillion others - and then the greatest of all men, of all time - Leonardo Da Vinci.

Deep Sight:

I am sure you are aware that religious people for the most part are statistically more sane, happier, healthier, and live longer, than non religious people? Of course, you may call it the placebo effect, but true, nonetheless.

You do realise that ignorance is bliss.....a drunk man is happy sleeping in the gutter thinking that he is on a "cool" bed.

Epilepsy? Lol!
If i had to draw any link, schizophrenia would be my choice. Talking to donkeys, talking to self, speaking gibberish, etc. No wonder they say it's a crazy world. Good crazy and bad crazy

Logicboy03:


You do realise that ignorance is bliss.....a drunk man is happy sleeping in the gutter thinking that he is on a "cool" bed.

Lol
More like 'water' bed..

Deep Sight:

Lol. Indeed that's true.

I prefer, and refer to, good madness, the madness of Einstein, Freud, Darwin, Jackson, Mandela, Fela, Marley, Fawehinmi, Galileo, Copernicus, An Sun Su Kyi, Mahatma, Churchill, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Sankara, Che Guevara, Achebe, Soyinka, Luther, Martin Luther King, Columbus. . . . . a zillion others - and then the greatest of all men, of all time - Leonardo Da Vinci.

Most of these 'mad' people are simply, and at best, eccentric. Imaginative and idealistic, and so for the most part simply dancing to their own tunes rather than their respective societal norms. They're usually not actually harming anyone, can give you justifiable, sane reasons for their actions even if they may seem odd on the surface, etc etc.

This sort of madness leads away from religion, not towards it. Would you describe the scientists on that list as religious? Their idiosyncrasies generally pushes them away from religion, etc. Especially blind groupthink. Actually, most of them can be described as iconoclasts. And like all good eccentrics they can give you solid, valid reasons for their actions.

Even the writers/etc on that list, even if they usually like to believe in a sky fairy because it makes them feel all warm and fuzzy, they don't tend to be traditional religionists, yes? In fact, they often start new religions or have their own version of whatever religion. And they can often give you good (well..) reason for their behavior

Good and proper madness would involve, for instance, believing something patently false to be true. Eg, believing that santa does indeed deliver presents to all good kids yearly, donkeys talk, people walk on water, etc etc. Especially when they unjustifiably cause harm with their crazy

wiegraf:

Most of these 'mad' people are simply, and at best, eccentric. Imaginative and idealistic, and so for the most part simply dancing to their own tunes rather than their respective societal norms. They're usually not actually harming anyone, can give you justifiable, sane reasons for their actions even if they may seem odd on the surface, etc etc.

This sort of madness leads away from religion, not towards it. Would you describe the scientists on that list as religious? Their idiosyncrasies generally pushes them away from religion, etc. Especially blind groupthink. Actually, most of them can be described as iconoclasts. And like all good eccentrics they can give you solid, valid reasons for their actions.

Even the writers/etc on that list, even if they usually like to believe in a sky fairy because it makes them feel all warm and fuzzy, they don't tend to be traditional religionists, yes? In fact, they often start new religions or have their own version of whatever religion. And they can often give you good (well..) reason for their behavior

Good and proper madness would involve, for instance, believing something patently false to be true. Eg, believing that santa does indeed deliver presents to all good kids yearly, donkeys talk, people walk on water, etc etc. Especially when they unjustifiably cause harm with their crazy

O, yes, no disagreement whatsoever, you are perfectly right. I made my comments as a tangent, and that tangent, of course, was the tangent of the beauty of eccentricity - a madness all its own. Nevertheless we cannot discountenance the place of religion altogether, in keeping society together and "sane" (?) through the ages.

I see we've turned full circle. I mean, over 200 years ago Benjamin Rush, a professor and "the father of American psychiatry", said not believing in God was a mental disorder.

More seriously, though, a lot of the attributes Wiegraf describe would apply to many, if not most, of the religion pioneers. But I guess their believing in tooth fairies would make theirs "bad madness".

"Madness" is subjective, not objective. For the most part.

" Out of chaos comes order", and I might add, visa versa.

This seems to be the consistent cycle of the trial and error mechanisms of evolution.
Epilepsy can simply be described as a localized electrical storm in the brain that causes electrical overload and temporary short-circuits.

It appears that somewhere along the evolutionary trek , some 600 million years ago, during the Cambrian explosion, the emergence of vertebrate species required faster, more complex brains. Over the next millions of years, no doubt, the need for neural speed accelerated and reached a critical threshold with the emergence of homo-sapiens.

To make a very long story short, the trial and error mechanisms of evolution caused or allowed a minute genetic mutation that paved the way for errors in brain electrical activity, resulting in most of what we call today, brain disorders or malfunctions.

This cycle of error out of order, and order out of error is very inconsistent with an intelligent design theory.
Intelligent design would tend to furnish us with consistent order, with no room for error or chaos.
But the history of biological life, the history of the Earth, and indeed the Universe, has shown no consistency in order or harmony.


"If an epileptic seizure is focused in a particular sweet spot in the temporal lobe...the effect is something like a cognitive seizure, marked by changes of personality, hyper-religiosity (an obsession with religion and a feeling of religious certainty), hypergraphia (extensive writing on a subject, usually about religion), the false sense of an external presence, and often, the hearing of voices that are attributed to a god. Some fraction of history's prophets, martyrs, and leaders appear to have temporal lobe epilepsy." - David Eaglman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, pg. 207.

It seems the op has already begun to have temporal lobe epilepsy. Seeing the certainty with which he holds fast to his subjective beliefs that have only made mankind worse and reduced the basis of his morality.

It is pathetic that at this stage you still try to debunk intelligent design because of imperfections in creation sir. Even after repeated explanations..

I wonder how these prophets accurately foretold the future when they were suffering from brain disorders.

Joshthefirst: It seems the op has already begun to have temporal lobe epilepsy. Seeing the certainty with which he holds fast to his subjective beliefs that have only made mankind worse and reduced the basis of his morality.

It is pathetic that at this stage you still try to debunk intelligent design because of imperfections in creation sir. Even after repeated explanations..

I wonder how these prophets accurately foretold the future when they were suffering from brain disorders.

Did you just say " Imperfections of creation" ?

Your fellow christians could disown you for that oxymoronic statement.

Please sir, don't get me laughing this evening.
Not yet.
I beg you.

plaetton:

Did you just say " Imperfections of creation" ?

Your fellow christians could disown you for that oxymoronic statement.

Please sir, don't get me laughing this evening.
Not yet.
I beg you.

yes, I said just that. We live in a faulted creation because of sin.

Joshthefirst: It seems the op has already begun to have temporal lobe epilepsy. Seeing the certainty with which he holds fast to his subjective beliefs that have only made mankind worse and reduced the basis of his morality.

It is pathetic that at this stage you still try to debunk intelligent design because of imperfections in creation sir. Even after repeated explanations..

I wonder how these prophets accurately foretold the future when they were suffering from brain disorders.

This is what happens when you go from Genesis to Revelations then answersingenesis. intelligent design/imperfections, you must be kidding.

aManFromMars:

This is what happens when you go from Genesis to Revelations then answersingenesis. intelligent design/imperfections, you must be kidding.

nope. Never got this from answersingenesis.

aManFromMars:

This is what happens when you go from Genesis to Revelations then answersingenesis. intelligent design/imperfections, you must be kidding.

I tire o.

Joshthefirst has a mental illness.

He is a troll that doesnt know that he is a troll. The guy just contradicts himself and then claims that you are not seeing the light of God. The guy is a good evidence for this meme;


[img]http://1.bp..com/-cFzeEGNONso/Uksay_MZp1I/AAAAAAAAAPk/uv5VBnNwkvU/s1600/not-sure-if-stupid-or-just-christian.png[/img]

"If an epileptic seizure is focused in a particular sweet spot in the temporal lobe...the effect is something like a cognitive seizure, marked by changes of personality, hyper-religiosity (an obsession with religion and a feeling of religious certainty), hypergraphia (extensive writing on a subject, usually about religion), the false sense of an external presence, and often, the hearing of voices that are attributed to a god. Some fraction of history's prophets, martyrs, and leaders appear to have temporal lobe epilepsy." - David Eaglman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, pg. 207.

The roll call of historical movers and shakers said to have been, or post-diagnosed as being epileptic is very impressive and jaw-dropping, to say the least.

Let's start with the founders and early movers and shakers of the world's religions.

1. Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, who , just after 5 years on the throne, abdicated his throne and changed his title to Ankhenaten .
It is this historical figure, who I personally, along with quite a few historians, consider to be the biblical Moses that led the Israelites out of Egypt.
Moses was simply a title, an appellation to his name, just like TutMosis or Ahmoses.


"It's significant that two [of the five related pharaohs] had stories of religious visions associated with them," says Ashrafian. People with a form of epilepsy in which seizures begin in the brain's temporal lobe are known to experience hallucinations and religious visions, particularly after exposure to sunlight. It's likely that the family of pharaohs had a heritable form of temporal lobe epilepsy, [Hutan Ashrafian, a surgeon with an interest in medical history at Imperial College Londo] says.

Tuthmosis IV had a religious experience in the middle of a sunny day, recorded in the Dream Stele - an inscription near the Great Sphinx in Giza. But his visions were nothing compared with those experienced by Akhenaten.

They encouraged Akhenaten to raise the status of a minor deity called the "sun-disk", or Aten, into a supreme god - abandoning the ancient Egyptian polytheistic traditions to start what is thought to be the earliest recorded monotheistic religion. If Ashrafian's theory is correct, Akhenaten's religious experiment and Tutankhamun's premature death may both have been a consequence of a medical condition.

"People with temporal lobe epilepsy who are exposed to sunlight get the same sort of stimulation to the mind and religious zeal," says Ashrafian.

"It's a fascinating and plausible explanation," says Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. However, the theory is almost impossible to prove, he adds, given that there is no definitive genetic test for epilepsy.

Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist at the New York University Langone Medical Center, thinks the theory must remain speculative.

"The exact timing of Akhenaten's religious conviction is not so clearly documented, and most cases of sudden religious conversion are not due to epilepsy," he says. "Monotheism could be related to epilepsy, or bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia, or drug intoxication from a fungus - but this paper does not sway me to any of these options."

Markel agrees: "Do we know that a seizure led to monotheism? It's a nice idea, but we don't know," he says. "It's a very interesting hypothesis, but it's just that - there's no definite proof."

Source: New Scientist, September 08, 2012

So if we are correct, that Ankhenaten and Moses were one and the same, then we can see that Ankhenaten/Moses changed the known world by creating the first monotheistic religion, and by so doing, set the world on a completely new trajectory.

Here we see how the characters and traits consistent with TLE epileptic episodes of one eccentric pharaoh set the stage and changed the course of humanity in that region of the world, at that time, and for ages to come.

MyJoe: I see we've turned full circle. I mean, over 200 years ago Benjamin Rush, a professor and "the father of American psychiatry", said not believing in God was a mental disorder.

More seriously, though, a lot of the attributes Wiegraf describe would apply to many, if not most, of the religion pioneers. But I guess their believing in tooth fairies would make theirs "bad madness".

"Madness" is subjective, not objective. For the most part.

Defination doesnt change, application does. It even relies on morality, more or else, which is obviously sunjective. I use their respective cultures, in tandem with the average man's value system, as a yardstick to determine (or at least try to) what is harmful, and I would think that's what most posters here are doing. But of course it remains sibjective

Religions do originate from eccentrics most of the time, albeit not from those bent objective mathematical rigour. We all agree on that I think

2. King Saul, King in the Bible (around 1050 - 1000 B.C.)

"Choli nophel" (falling sickness), was the ancient Hebrew term for epilepsy; "nophel" (present participle of the Hebrew verb "naphal": to fall), 'the falling person', was a popular term in ancient Hebrew for someone with epilepsy.

The first book of Samuel mentions Saul's uncontrolled violent behaviour several times. In Chapter 10, it is written: "And the spirit of God came mightily upon him, and he prophesied among them." (1 Samuel, 10:10). Elsewhere in Samuel, an evil spirit from God is talked about which takes possession of Saul from time to time: "Behold now, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you." (1 Samuel 16:15) and two chapters later: "And on the morrow an evil spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house." (1 Samuel 18: 10).

From a post-diagnostic point of view, it is safe to say that King Saul displayed classic symptoms of Epileptic seizures.

3. King David.

Though purely speculative, It is possible that King David had epileptic seizures, or at the most, faked them.

David faked an epileptic seizure in order to make his enemies think that he was mad:

"So he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and made marks on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle run down his beard."

This is probably the first time the symptoms of a simulated seizure were ever written down - and King Saul's epileptic seizures were possibly the 'model' for this hysterical seizure.

wiegraf:

Defination doesnt change, application does. It even relies on morality, more or else, which is obviously sunjective. I use their respective cultures, in tandem with the average man's value system, as a yardstick to determine (or at least try to) what is harmful, and I would think that's what most posters here are doing. But of course it remains sibjective

Religions do originate from eccentrics most of the time, albeit not from those bent objective mathematical rigour. We all agree on that I think

I can agree that religious rituals,symbolism, ceremony and doctrines are originated by eccentrics, most likely people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorders(OCD), but I am trying to show on this thread that religions originate from people who were very much beyond eccentric: People, as we shall see, who experienced sudden profound changes in their worldview and lives as a result of what we are beginning to understand as sudden or occasional short circuits in brain chemistry called Temporal Lobe Epilepsy(TLE).

Deep Sight:

Lol. Indeed that's true.

I prefer, and refer to, good madness, the madness of Einstein, Freud, Darwin, Jackson, Mandela, Fela, Marley, Fawehinmi, Galileo, Copernicus, An Sun Su Kyi, Mahatma, Churchill, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Sankara, Che Guevara, Achebe, Soyinka, Luther, Martin Luther King, Columbus. . . . . a zillion others - and then the greatest of all men, of all time - Leonardo Da Vinci.

If Leonardo Davinci were alive today, i think he would have been the worst atheist. So i dont really think you want him on your list here. His views were just dampened by the religious fanatics of that time. Leonardo was someone that would have questioned every religious doctrine, if he would have not been persecuted. He even made some slight mockery of it in his paintings. Though that does not take away his awesome talent.

Continuing...

Next on our list of famous religious epileptics is the prophet Ezekiel .

Epilepsy 'found in biblical prophet'

The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel could have had the oldest recorded case of a form of epilepsy, an American scientist has concluded.
Dr Eric Altschuler, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, told a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in the city that the biblical figure had all the classic signs of temporal lobe epilepsy.

He said his finding of a case so many years ago provided further evidence that epilepsy had genetic rather than environmental causes.

Earlier this year, Dr Altschuler claimed biblical strongman Samson could have been the first known sufferer of antisocial personality disorder.


We can only guess if Ezekiel actually had temporal lobe epilepsy-British Epilepsy Association spokesman .

Epilepsy causes temporary changes in the electrical function of the brain, causing seizures which affect awareness, movement, or sensation.

The British Epilepsy Association estimates one in 130 people in the UK have epilepsy.

'Helps understanding'

Dr Altschuler says Ezekiel, who chronicled the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, displayed some of the common signs of epilepsy such as frequent fainting spells and periods where he was unable to speak.

The fact that the Book of Ezekiel is the fourth longest in the Bible, and only a little shorter than Genesis is, says Dr Altschuler, evidence the prophet suffered from another symptom of epilepsy: hypergraphia, or writing compulsively.

He said: "It's impenetrable. He goes on and on."

Ezekiel was also extremely religious - even more so than other biblical figures, which is another characteristic associated with this form of epilepsy.

Symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy can include partial seizures, often accompanied by a dreamy feeling things are not quite as they should be, aggression, delusions and pedantic speech.

Epilepsy is caused by temporary electrical changes in the brain


Dr Altschuler, whose theory is featured in the New Scientist magazine, said understanding that the prophet may have suffered from epilepsy helped put his writings into perspective.

"Once you appreciate that, you can see where he's coming from," he said.

Accurate diagnosis 'difficult'

A spokesman for the British Epilepsy Association (BEA) said: "There are many different types of epileptic seizure and temporal lobe epilepsy can affect the functions of speech, memory and levels of awareness.

"Epilepsy is a condition that is difficult to accurately diagnose, even with the most up to date technology.

"We can only guess if Ezekiel actually had temporal lobe epilepsy, but we are aware that in very rare cases people with the condition can develop symptoms such as hyper religiosity and hypergraphia."

He added: "Epilepsy is not necessarily a genetic condition, and research is on going into its causes.

"Although some research suggests that certain types of epilepsy, such juvenile myclonic epilepsy, can be inherited, there is no evidence all types of epilepsy are inherited."

Next on our list:
The Buddha.

The Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama), the great Indian philosopher and founder of Buddhism is said have been epileptic ,although I have not read any details of his epileptic episodes. But his enlightenment through vigorous meditation in solitude may have been, as we have seen in with previous religious figures, as a result of TLE episode provoked by heat, hunger and sensory deprivation.

I will update as more information becomes available on the Buddha.

And now John The Baptist and Jesus:

There is no evidence whatsoever that Jesus suffered from Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, and no one has ever speculated that he did.

But there is no doubt that the John The Baptist Character would today have been classified as a schizotypal personality.

He stood out in his society and live outside the norms of society.
He dressed in rags and fed on locusts.
He had an obsessive ritualistic practice(water baptism), a form of OCD, which he succeeded in sharing with members of his community.

In modern secular societies, much of religious delusions are diagnosable disorders.
But in primitive societies, under the right context, schizotypal and other schizoid personalities can , and have numerously set primitive societies on an altered course in history.

The American neuroendocrinologist Dr. Robert Sapolsky has theorized that a schizotypal gene exists and has been passed down over the generations from the ancients to the present. Interestingly, Dr. Sapolsky theorizes that the vast majority, if not all, of the saints and sages throughout history probably carried the gene, which leads to the question of whether or not[b] the trait carries the genetic advantage of providing society with shamans and seers to provide spiritual comfort to society.[/b]

He goes on to cite tribes that always seem to have one erratic or bizarre member who serves as the shaman or medicine man or prophet to help guide the tribe and provide some measure of solace when confronting the inexplicable. Since so many tribes and societies across the world all tolerate, even celebrate, one otherwise non-productive individual in their midst, there must be a functional purpose for both that individual and for the gene that influences that individual's behavior.

Seen in this light, then, the schizotypal symptoms are not seen as an illness or a sign of delusion, but an indication that the individual has the same shaman gene as the seers and prophets throughout history, a gene that may allow the individual to see beyond the mundane world of the relative and into the absolute. I wouldn't go so far as to say that every schizophrenic is a seer or that every seer is a schizophrenic, but I'm saying that there may be a behavioral, and possibly a genetic, link between the two.

The import of Dr Sapolski's assertion is that, somehow, the trial and error mechanisms of biological evolution clears the path for social evolution by means of genetic errors that create one of a kind personalities, who, though irrational, in turn, at the right moment, lead closed primitive societies to unexpected and uncharted trajectories in history.

Now back to Jesus.

As stated before, there is no evidence of TLE associated with Jesus.

But in light of our modern understanding of personality disorders, a personality profile and post-diagnosis might shed some light on the Character of Jesus.

Without the religious lens, one can surmise that Jesus , no doubt displayed many aspects of schizotypal personality disorder.

Individuals with schizoid personalities are said to have little capacity for close relationships and are also eccentric in their behaviors, perceptions, and thinking. According to the DSM-IV manual, the following symptoms are considered schizotypal:

A. Ideas of reference (excluding delusions of reference)
B. Odd beliefs or magical thinking that influences behavior and is inconsistent with subcultural norms (e.g., superstitiousness, belief in clairvoyance, telepathy, or “sixth sense”; in children and adolescents, bizarre fantasies or preoccupations)
C. Unusual perceptual experiences, including bodily illusions
D. Odd thinking and speech (e.g., vague, circumstantial, metaphorical, overelaborate, or stereotyped)
E. Suspiciousness or paranoid ideation
F. Inappropriate or constricted affect
G. Behavior or appearance that is odd, eccentric, or peculiar
H. Lack of close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives
I. Excessive social anxiety that does not diminish with familiarity and tends to be associated with paranoid fears rather than negative judgments about self.

Jesus certainly displayed symptoms B though D, and although many now believe his claims of divinity to be true does not mean that they weren't "odd" or "unusual" at the time. They certainly garnered him a lot of attention. He prophesied that he would be betrayed and martyred, which fits symptom E (even though he eventually was in fact betrayed and martyred, even paranoids, as they say, have enemies). His outburst at the Temple, turning over tables and chasing out the merchants, qualifies for G. The fact that his closest associates, the 13 Disciples (later 12) reportedly included thieves, tax collectors, and other social outcasts suggests that he had somehow alienated the friends and colleagues he must have developed during the largely undocumented, early part of his life .

Now, saying that Jesus may have exhibited schizotypal symptoms does not in any way take away - or support - any faith-based claims about him. I'm not saying that he was delusional or insane, just that his neural wiring was apparently different from the norm: which is exactly what one would expect of a messiah in human form. I'm not attaching any stigma to schizotypal symptoms, I'm just calling them what they appear to be.

And now to the really juicy part.

Apostle Paul, founder of Christianity.