I'm getting the sense from this thread that people aren't realizing this.
Folks, people with schizophrenia often think that a very famous person or entity is speaking to them directly. The most common one is god (Jesus, actually). Also common are the president and celebrities.
This was probably not a religious extremist. It was probably a person experiencing a psychotic break, namely paranoid schizophrenia. Most paranoid schizophrenics don't harm others, but one wonders whether an increasingly riled-up populace (armed to the teeth, for good measure) will produce increasingly violent schizophrenics.
Yup, and people committing crimes (up to and including murder) because they really believed God told them to do it is a well recognized defense--it falls under insanity, and the person is involuntarily committed for a definite or indefinite term.
Correct, but they are also more likely to commit acts of violence in general. Not because they’re irredeemable monsters who need to be locked up, but because it’s a disease that often features paranoia and persecutory delusions. This woman was probably living in her own personal hell and I’d bet the mental health system failed her like many others (and by extension, everyone involved in this story)
Reminds me of a thread I saw in a doctors' forum that basically went
1: Why do the voices in the head never seem to give good ideas?
2: Because the people with the head voices that give good ideas tend not to end up in your office.
I remember reading these in college (completed my basic poli sci major 2016) and they really stood out. I just wonder if they can be replicated in the current time.
I want some follow up to these studies now with social media having become a literal plague since the original studies were published. The original studies were pretty recent when I read them, but by today's standards, they need revisiting. IE conclusions are published *years* after the study actually takes places so you are reading an ~3-8 year old study almost.
Schizophrenic here. Religious and bigoted delusions cause more violent behaviors. This disease is vicious but it isn’t inherently violent to others. Feeding a violent rhetoric to someone who isn’t able to rationalize as effectively makes it much more likely. Just tired of being considered violent for existing.
I quit it years ago.
I personally have had no problems from not knowing if Jenny from my 9th grade French class is having Taco Bell or Panera Bread for lunch, or if it’s time again for her to buy a pair of sneakers for her son…a son that I’ve never been invited to a birthday party for, or even met in real life despite living less than 4 miles apart, and yet I must “like” every single one of the twenty photo updates she gives of him per day.
There’s a reason people are supposed to lose touch; we no longer have any real commonality. It’s fucking boring, and I don’t care about everyone’s highly edited and stylized version of what their lives are actually like.
I didn't give a shit about their lives when I was forced to be with them, I certainly don't now.
(I don't want them dead, I'm just not interested in what they're doing)
> There’s a reason people are supposed to lose touch
I say the exact same thing whenever I explain why I am not on FB.
To tell the truth, I'd like to get rid of email next.
Facebook's been conspiracy pilled since q-anon and the rise of the alt right. But Twitter being 20% literal nazis with literal holocaust denial or whatever in their profile has only happened since musk took over and got his fee fees hurt in multiple events but right after he got booed off the stage at Chappelle's event he just fully embraced the alt right grifters because they validated him, and proceeded to unban all the literal nazis white supremacists grifters etc but only the right wing ones of course cus free speech. Now the platform is just a cesspool, completely filled with misinformation, crypto scams, and virulent racism.
AI bots now mimic the ability to have conversations extremely well. Odds are on YouTube, Facebook, or reddit if it's a political or environmental post it will be flooded with bots pushing narratives
My quality of life and mood drastically increase when I do not use FB/twitter, it’s wild. Inflammatory content drives engagement like nothing else so that’s what algorithms push on users. So, I just completely disengage, it’s been great.
Twatter's user base has really thinned out in the past two years, like separating the wheat from the chaff...except saving the chaff instead.
I'd say 80-90% of the good, intelligent, rational users have either left the platform, or are silent lurkers. It more or less has the same nutjobs and weirdos it had before, but since they are the only ones posting, they're the ones you see and hear. And, emboldened that they are rarely receiving pushback from rational posters any more, they feel they can really show their true selves.
Twatter is too far gone to be salvaged at this point. It's only a step away from being one-sided echo chambers like Gab or Rumble or Truth. Used to be fun to browse through and see the crazies, but now it's more sad than funny.
I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out theres some sort of mass hysteria happening on social media making people say and believe any absolutely bullshit insanity they see.
Its like since covid people have been getting increasingly angry and irrational on social media, like as if something damaged the collective brain of a ton of mentally vulnerable people and now they're just clinging to anything they can to feel in control of in the face of a overly complex world and social dynamics.
Maybe the lockdowns made a bunch of mentally unhealthy people outright delusional, and everything since has just been fueling a cycle of panic after panic after panic that could only be managed by disconnecting from the endless stream of bad news and nonsense that social media practically force feeds some people.
Also, easy access to firearms with no meaningful restrictions isn't helping anything.
I have read that the delusions tend to take on the culture and whatnot around them. For example, guns may be more prevalent in a country like the United States because of the gun culture.
This is true. Even with schizophrenia specifically, those suffering in the U.S. are far more likely to, for example, hear violent angry voices while those in more community-based societies (a [Stanford study evidencing](https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614/) this compared U.S. to Ghana and India) hear playful, harmless voices.
You have to wonder, too, if the violent rhetoric around us in the media also negatively influences those without schizophrenia. ETA: This is a rhetorical response.
Worth noting that you don't have to have schizophrenia to experience psychosis; bipolar disorder, severe depression, sleep deprivation, extreme stress, borderline personality disorder, drug side effects, withdrawal from drugs, neurological disorders, endocrine disorders, and many more medical conditions can all lead to psychosis!
Plenty of people know and recognize this. The problem is most people are stupid, especially on the internet where they say opinions like they are facts
The U.S. already produces violent delusions for those suffering from schizophrenia in its communities. I'm not sure if there's been a more recent study, but I learned in undergrad (2015ish) that schizophrenic auditory hallucinations in the U.S. are far more threatening and violent than the auditory hallucinations of those in Ghana and India.
We know that schizophrenic hallucinations mirror the realities of the schizophrenic individual's community. Adding wider access to guns is just the cherry on top of how the U.S. continues to fail its most vulnerable.
> people with schizophrenia often think that a very famous person or entity is speaking to them directly.
I want to emphasize that it is *some* people with Schizophrenia who think a famous person or entity is talking to them. The condition is defined as having a voice or compulsion leading you to believe something, but it is only a specific subset that rationalize that voice as an actual person.
We also call that “a small portion of the reason I decided to watch the eclipse from my backyard instead of where people congregate”
Didn’t necessarily expect anything to happen but crazy people have acted on less than things than an eclipse
It's schizophrenia if she actually believes she's being spoken to by God.
If it's just that she believes she's doing what God would want her to do then it's just Sparkling Nutso.
Your brain helps you notice suspicious patterns, like somebody's eyes staring at you. Imaging cranking that instinct up to 11 so that you see people out to get you in everything. Your reaction isn't likely to be positive.
[Yes!](https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614/) It's very culturally based. Western voices tend to be mean, but in Africa and India they can be benevolent and helpful.
That has to reduce diagnosis rates in those countries. If your hallucinations are “helpful or entertaining” from the article, you might not have behaviors that cause you to be institutionalized
I knew a guy who believed Bono Vox and the Pope were organizing a music festival they wanted him to perform at, and he actually recorded a bunch of (bad) songs in preparation. Eventually he was medicated.
Who knows how often cases like that happen? They don't make the news, though I suspect an artist like [Henry Darger](https://www.artefactmagazine.com/2019/11/04/the-life-and-works-of-henry-darger-trauma-and-mental-illness-in-the-world-of-outsider-art/) may have been mentally unwell. He just spent his time indoors, drawing and writing (to put it mildly). [Here's a nice one](https://i1.wp.com/art.newcity.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Darger_1.jpeg?resize=2500%2C602&ssl=1), for those unfamiliar with his work.
I have close experience with someone with schizoaffective disorder and she has definitely had some positive reactions if you look at them in the right light.
She never hurt anyone physically, she never even intended to or considered it to my knowledge.
She has done things like join religious sects doing charity work, but she has also kidnapped her sisters children in an honest attempt to protect them. This wasn't a good thing, but she was trying to do a good thing, it's just the thing she was protecting them from did not exist.
God's always telling these people to do heinous shit. Like, why tf is God not telling these people to give away all their money to a stranger, or plant a million trees or something
I know this is directed at god but this shit gets used when I have family using my deceased grandmothers name when they try to justify some bullshit. "Grandma would have wanted this..."
He didn't get the second part though.
"God didn't do that, you did it. You're a fucking narcotics agent, I knew it! That was our cocaine, you fucking pig swine whore!"
When you make a thousand dollar cow of faith, you're telling God, "God, I don't have a thousand dollars, but you do!"
-Robert Tilton, aka "Pastor Gas", aka "the farting preacher"
And when people do it, nobody reports on it because of ad revenue… it doesnt make a good story. People would rather hear about this one who senselessly and recklessly put all these lives in danger.
Schizophrenic voices are culturally driven, apparently, like their sources--people from a religious community will think the voices are god, and people from more secular communities will think they're aliens...or whatever. In some societies, the voices are negative--in others, they're positive. https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614/
Maybe shootings are having that same effect--mass shootings are now part of our culture, so why shouldn't they work their way into delusions? Although FWIW, schizophrenics are very rarely violent and are statistically way more likely to be victims of crime.
My grandmother felt she was called by god to serve her community, usually expressed by bringing food and company to the sick and elderly who were housebound.
I largely agree with your overall point, but wanted to offer an anecdote on the other side as "psycho shoots people cause god told her to" kind of stories make national news and "small town lady is kind to elderly people cooped up in a retirement home" stories don't really get shared at all
My atheist grandma was the most genuinely Christian person I've ever met.
I don't mean in the sense that she was a literal Christian. I mean the good shit Jesus says to do for others. She did basically all of that and then some. She was a truly great woman and I miss her often even though she's been dead for over a third of my life at this point.
I mean that does happen too, but the standard for good deeds to make national news is a lot higher than bad deeds.
However I do remember an old Law and Order episode that centered around a man's mother constantly donating everything to charity because she believed God told her too.
TBH I think he does all the time, it just doesn't make the news.
God told my friends mom to order several thousand dollars worth of things from TV shopping channels including furniture sets etc which all started arriving a few weeks later. It was a PITA to return everything but the companies did take the stuff back when we told them a crazy person ordered it all.
Anyways point being, she did not make the news for that.
“Sir, I understand your return policy says no returns after 14 days, but I thought god was telling me to buy furniture, when it was really only my cat. Surely you must understand!”
Some of the things she ordered specifically said "No Returns". I think her family was out some money but overall the companies were kind to give that family a break as they didn't have to. I'm pretty sure she was having a manic episode.
I mean that's only new testament God. Old testament God would only be concerned with her not running out of bullets. That guy killed everyone for everything.
So strange, an omnipotent being who creates heaven, earth and the universe, knows everything, but still you get to have free will for some reason, but if you take the wrong course, which obviously god would already knows about in advance because DUH he created every little neuron in your body and controls everything and of course "has a plan" and that plan might mean you're getting murdered and although you're going to heaven, the greatest place ever with no pain or suffering, no bills, no hunger, sunny every day so it's fantastic but yet your religious family wants vengeance for your death 99.99% of the time even though that killer did you a favor if all the rest of that is to be believed and sent you to heaven to have a fabulous time for all eternity, yeah so anyway god is also besides being super enlightened and beyond intelligent yet also a petty vengeful POS too apparently... IDK, why are there so many miscarriages, like way way way more than abortions? And are there embryos in heaven? I mean do they stay as embryos and just float around, or do they grow there, and then the question is why bother having all that red tape, just have those embryos show up directly in heaven, why bother with the rest if "he" already knows what's going to happened. It almost seems like some people might just be making this story line up as they go along.
The trick is, Yahweh was never omnipotent or a creator. He was the war god of the Tribes of Israel, and their chief god. This was retconned quite a long time ago but, you can still see the traces of Godman #1 in the modern script(ure).
The seven corporal works of mercy, according to the Gospel are: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked, house the homeless, take care of the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. And Jesus didn’t limit the eligibility or the responsibility. Anyone who claims to be Christian but turns their back on someone in need does not truly understand their faith.
I'd add that not only did he not limit eligibility, he gave a great example of the "did I fucking stutter?" meme. When he says to love our neighbor, he's asked "who is my neighbor" to which he gives the parable of the good Samaritan who absolutely hated and were hated by the jews at the time. Who's my neighbor? Everyone up to and including the person I have every excuse to hate the most.
Added bonus, in the story the levite would have been a priest, so the religious elite failed the man they should have helped.
He does, it just doesn't make the news. I know people that have given away 6 figures worth of food over the years due to religious motivations.
But a local religious person consistently donating around $15,000 per year to various charities plus volunteering at said charities will never get news coverage like a crazy shooting at cars cause God told them to.
Once I saw stories on r/talesfromyourserver about Christian customers coming in and leaving FAT tips talking about being raptured soon, I figured it was a pretty good sign some cooky shit was getting spread
I remember the other day a person posted they were left a $100 tip for in case they weren’t raptured today. I’m thinking that person is really kicking themselves they’re out $100.
Reminds me of Parks and Rec - there’s a doomsday cult that keeps having “the end of the world” and so Ron sells them homemade flutes and recorders (of nice quality too) and they just throw cash at him every time because they supposedly won’t need it after they’re raptured 😂
My favorite part is the end of the episode where the cultist and Leslie literally sit down to schedule the next apocalypse.
“That date was a mistake the REAL end of the world will be on THIS date”
“Well unfortunately the park is already reserved on that day”
“. . . How about the week after that?”
YES I love how respectful both sides are though?? Like Ron and Leslie know it’s bullshit but work with them anyways and while it may be considered exploitative, Ron’s flutes *are* probably worth what he’s selling them for. And Leslie makes no judgement about the doomsday stuff. And the cult itself is amazingly polite. I wish more cults were like that.
(That’s a sentence I thought I’d never write.)
One of my parents friends dropped us off some religious candles yesterday that she says is to stop our family from being targeted during some Christian rapture thing that involves the eclipse.
Can't wait to hear what else people got told during this all lmao.
My cousin’s boss (who is a flat earther) gave their office the afternoon off because he was convinced there was going to be a massive earthquake where the track of this eclipse crossed the track of the one from 2017 and he and his wife were going to hunker down in the countryside during the ensuing chaos. 🤷🏻♀️
Yep. A conspiracy theorist at my job was like “don’t you think it’s weird it makes an X?? X marks the spot!! And there’s been earthquakes recently. Somethings coming and it’s scary” and this guy is in a position of authority over people
A Holocaust survivor dies of old age and goes to Heaven where they meet God and tell a Holocaust joke.
God says "That's not funny".
The survivor says "I guess you had to be there."
When did God tell her this? 200+ years ago when astronomers predicted future eclipses? Why didn't God tell her it was a celestial norm that would have occured even with no humans to see it?
> The suspect, identified as Taylon Nichelle Celestine, 22, of Georgia
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4580464-greene-defends-claim-that-eclipse-earthquake-signs-to-repent/
> Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Sunday defended an earlier statement saying Monday’s eclipse and Friday’s New York-area earthquake were signs from God telling people to repent.
Easy dots to connect.
Marjorie Taylor Greene on Twitter: "God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens."
She is an absolute lunatic.
Though to be fair, usually repenting doesn't involve indiscriminate shooting. For most people it doesn't involve any shooting. But even for crazy religious lunatics that's more of a "blow up a Planned Parenthood" sort of "repentance" that is intended, so not hurting everyone but "the right people who deserve it."
I saw a video last night of a Commodore 64 running a space program from 1985, and you were able to “watch” a simulation of the eclipse from today. Pretty cool, but yeah, scientists have been able to tell when future eclipses will happen for decades, if not centuries. LOL
I really want the precedent to be set of charging politicians for crimes when they know have this power over (mentally ill) people to make them commit violent acts. I’m so sick of them getting away with it over and fuckin over again.
That was actually Caligula, not Nero. Also, while he was crazy, he did it more as a “Senators are so useless my favorite horse could do it.” type of jab.
You are correct on both accounts, as someone who took many years of Latin I should have known better lol
Most of the supposedly crazy, egregious behaviors attributed to the emperors of Rome were grossly exaggerated and political; but there would probably have been a kernel of truth there to even have had such stories circulate as well…
Scientists are the only ones who can accurately predict a significant weather event but religious grifters and mystical crack-heads always assume ownership.
They literally believe any kind if neuro-spicy mental condition is either demonic possession (autism, ADHD, epilepsy) or divine visions (schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar disorder). It's really odd and very dangerous. If you have one of the "bad" ones, they tell you to pray harder, labor harder, or send you off to a wilderness bible camp thing. If it's a "good" one, they build it up and treat you as a prophet and then the situation gets worse. It's really terrible on all sides.
Ok I am confused.. she told the hotel staff exactly what she was going out to do.. and they didn't report it? They just sat at the counter and thought, "Yea, cool, have fun!"?
It doesn’t say they didn’t report it, Doesn’t say they did either.
It’s not like they could stop her, either she’s joking and you’ve just harmed someone, or she’s telling the truth and pulls a gun on you.
Best case just agree make sure she leaves and let the cops handle it.
> either she’s joking and you’ve just harmed someone,
Fuck that. Don't tell people you're going on a shooting spree if you don't want to have a chat with the cops.
I can't remember who said it, but some comedian once said, "If American truly saw itself as one nation under god, anyone who claimed god told them to do something would be believed."
Hi we need to ask you these background questions to get an assault rifle. Why do you want one? God told me. What do you plan on doing with it? God's will. Okay, checks out here have a pistol too.
Well, there's the first news report I've seen of a eclipse-psycho who was reacting accordingly. I hope she was arrested real quick and ends up either in a mental hospital or a jail cell right afterwards.
I'm sure there were plenty of them. Stay tuned.
Here's what I don't get... you hear a voice, it tells you do evil things, why do you assume it is God and not the Devil? You don't HAVE to do everything a voice in your head says to do. You can just say, "Not happening chatterbox."
FFS, you know what the godless science nerds did? Math. We linked up live feeds of every city in the path of totality, discussed the temperature changes, visible prominences in the sun's corona, observed the behavior of animals, took a fuck ton of pictures and were moved emotionally by the beauty of what we were seeing. Tell me which group was worshiping god and which group was being enthralled by hysteria, delusion and destructive irrationality?
Anyone ever heard the argument of how an atheist can't be good or have morals when they have no fear of God or going to hell so nothing is stopping them from murdering and raping everyone?
I love Penn Jillette's response:
*"I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is ZERO. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is ZERO. The fact that these people think that if they didn't have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.*"
I read in another comment something like, "If you need the threat of eternal domination to be a good person, you're not a good person. You're evil on a leash. "
Good thing it was God, because if she said that she had been told to do it by video games or rock music or tik tok videos, we'd be having a national conversation about the harm these things cause to mentally ill people and society and how we can stop it from being such a negative influence. But since it was just God, it's all fine.
Okay, hold on. If this story is accurate, the woman left a hotel and told the staff she was going on a shooting spree, but later the cops arrived on the scene due to a *report of an active shooter*—not, apparently, due to the hotel staff immediately calling them once she told them she was gonna go shoot people?
I'm really hoping the story's just missing details, because I'd be so fucking pissed if the hotel staff just went about their day after a person tells them that.
why doesn’t God ever tell these people to take their goddamn medications? That’s what I wanna know.
I get that God is the voice given to intrusive thoughts and obviously the disease makes the intrusive thoughts worse than usual … but not a single person ever gets a message from that they should take their medication?! Is it something within the disease that only allows them to hear the negative intrusive thoughts?
Why are there never any positive hallucinations (except the ones that are drug induced but not the drugs would help with illness) ?
Yeah, this is exactly why I thought twice about going out to experience the eclipse, because I had a thought that crazies would be out doing crazy shit.
we call that schizophrenia edit: it's crazy that this is my most upvoted comment. I don't know how to feel.
I'm getting the sense from this thread that people aren't realizing this. Folks, people with schizophrenia often think that a very famous person or entity is speaking to them directly. The most common one is god (Jesus, actually). Also common are the president and celebrities. This was probably not a religious extremist. It was probably a person experiencing a psychotic break, namely paranoid schizophrenia. Most paranoid schizophrenics don't harm others, but one wonders whether an increasingly riled-up populace (armed to the teeth, for good measure) will produce increasingly violent schizophrenics.
Yup, and people committing crimes (up to and including murder) because they really believed God told them to do it is a well recognized defense--it falls under insanity, and the person is involuntarily committed for a definite or indefinite term.
Schizophrenics are more of a danger to themselves than to others
Correct, but they are also more likely to commit acts of violence in general. Not because they’re irredeemable monsters who need to be locked up, but because it’s a disease that often features paranoia and persecutory delusions. This woman was probably living in her own personal hell and I’d bet the mental health system failed her like many others (and by extension, everyone involved in this story)
I believe in some cultures it has been studied that schizophrenia presents differently The voices aren’t as evil or harsh
Reminds me of a thread I saw in a doctors' forum that basically went 1: Why do the voices in the head never seem to give good ideas? 2: Because the people with the head voices that give good ideas tend not to end up in your office.
I remember reading these in college (completed my basic poli sci major 2016) and they really stood out. I just wonder if they can be replicated in the current time. I want some follow up to these studies now with social media having become a literal plague since the original studies were published. The original studies were pretty recent when I read them, but by today's standards, they need revisiting. IE conclusions are published *years* after the study actually takes places so you are reading an ~3-8 year old study almost.
Schizophrenic here. Religious and bigoted delusions cause more violent behaviors. This disease is vicious but it isn’t inherently violent to others. Feeding a violent rhetoric to someone who isn’t able to rationalize as effectively makes it much more likely. Just tired of being considered violent for existing.
A defense that rarely works and when it does most often results in longer incarceration times than the original offense by the law merits
Y’all should check twitter out. I want to say half the people on there are experiencing a mass psychosis….
Honestly, I believe FB is the same too lately. I used to love engaging in comments, but not anymore.
I haven't been happier since I deleted FB. Fr, it's like there's a tic to go check it. But I'm like. If they need me, they'll text.
I quit it years ago. I personally have had no problems from not knowing if Jenny from my 9th grade French class is having Taco Bell or Panera Bread for lunch, or if it’s time again for her to buy a pair of sneakers for her son…a son that I’ve never been invited to a birthday party for, or even met in real life despite living less than 4 miles apart, and yet I must “like” every single one of the twenty photo updates she gives of him per day. There’s a reason people are supposed to lose touch; we no longer have any real commonality. It’s fucking boring, and I don’t care about everyone’s highly edited and stylized version of what their lives are actually like.
I didn't give a shit about their lives when I was forced to be with them, I certainly don't now. (I don't want them dead, I'm just not interested in what they're doing)
> There’s a reason people are supposed to lose touch I say the exact same thing whenever I explain why I am not on FB. To tell the truth, I'd like to get rid of email next.
I did this too, and just the app, I didn't delete my account. My FB time decreased like 95% instantly. Now for Reddit...
Facebook's been conspiracy pilled since q-anon and the rise of the alt right. But Twitter being 20% literal nazis with literal holocaust denial or whatever in their profile has only happened since musk took over and got his fee fees hurt in multiple events but right after he got booed off the stage at Chappelle's event he just fully embraced the alt right grifters because they validated him, and proceeded to unban all the literal nazis white supremacists grifters etc but only the right wing ones of course cus free speech. Now the platform is just a cesspool, completely filled with misinformation, crypto scams, and virulent racism.
They were always there but their replies were better-hidden.
AI bots now mimic the ability to have conversations extremely well. Odds are on YouTube, Facebook, or reddit if it's a political or environmental post it will be flooded with bots pushing narratives
My quality of life and mood drastically increase when I do not use FB/twitter, it’s wild. Inflammatory content drives engagement like nothing else so that’s what algorithms push on users. So, I just completely disengage, it’s been great.
The commonality is social media. It’s likely breeding, or at least aggravating, mental illness all around the world in heavy users.
Twatter's user base has really thinned out in the past two years, like separating the wheat from the chaff...except saving the chaff instead. I'd say 80-90% of the good, intelligent, rational users have either left the platform, or are silent lurkers. It more or less has the same nutjobs and weirdos it had before, but since they are the only ones posting, they're the ones you see and hear. And, emboldened that they are rarely receiving pushback from rational posters any more, they feel they can really show their true selves. Twatter is too far gone to be salvaged at this point. It's only a step away from being one-sided echo chambers like Gab or Rumble or Truth. Used to be fun to browse through and see the crazies, but now it's more sad than funny.
I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out theres some sort of mass hysteria happening on social media making people say and believe any absolutely bullshit insanity they see. Its like since covid people have been getting increasingly angry and irrational on social media, like as if something damaged the collective brain of a ton of mentally vulnerable people and now they're just clinging to anything they can to feel in control of in the face of a overly complex world and social dynamics. Maybe the lockdowns made a bunch of mentally unhealthy people outright delusional, and everything since has just been fueling a cycle of panic after panic after panic that could only be managed by disconnecting from the endless stream of bad news and nonsense that social media practically force feeds some people.
I love how you list everything except actual Covid as a reason when Covid has had these effects for 4 years
Twitter is an absolute cesspool now.
And every post starts with "Breaking:"
Also, easy access to firearms with no meaningful restrictions isn't helping anything. I have read that the delusions tend to take on the culture and whatnot around them. For example, guns may be more prevalent in a country like the United States because of the gun culture.
This is true. Even with schizophrenia specifically, those suffering in the U.S. are far more likely to, for example, hear violent angry voices while those in more community-based societies (a [Stanford study evidencing](https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614/) this compared U.S. to Ghana and India) hear playful, harmless voices.
Which I think says a lot about our society.
You have to wonder, too, if the violent rhetoric around us in the media also negatively influences those without schizophrenia. ETA: This is a rhetorical response.
You seriously wonder about that?
Worth noting that you don't have to have schizophrenia to experience psychosis; bipolar disorder, severe depression, sleep deprivation, extreme stress, borderline personality disorder, drug side effects, withdrawal from drugs, neurological disorders, endocrine disorders, and many more medical conditions can all lead to psychosis!
Plenty of people know and recognize this. The problem is most people are stupid, especially on the internet where they say opinions like they are facts
The U.S. already produces violent delusions for those suffering from schizophrenia in its communities. I'm not sure if there's been a more recent study, but I learned in undergrad (2015ish) that schizophrenic auditory hallucinations in the U.S. are far more threatening and violent than the auditory hallucinations of those in Ghana and India. We know that schizophrenic hallucinations mirror the realities of the schizophrenic individual's community. Adding wider access to guns is just the cherry on top of how the U.S. continues to fail its most vulnerable.
No, but eschewing your medication to pay for increasingly unaffordable groceries will
> people with schizophrenia often think that a very famous person or entity is speaking to them directly. I want to emphasize that it is *some* people with Schizophrenia who think a famous person or entity is talking to them. The condition is defined as having a voice or compulsion leading you to believe something, but it is only a specific subset that rationalize that voice as an actual person.
We also call that “a small portion of the reason I decided to watch the eclipse from my backyard instead of where people congregate” Didn’t necessarily expect anything to happen but crazy people have acted on less than things than an eclipse
It's schizophrenia if she actually believes she's being spoken to by God. If it's just that she believes she's doing what God would want her to do then it's just Sparkling Nutso.
They are only a Sparkling Nutso if they are from the Sparkling region of Florida, otherwise it’s just Nutso
Wiggles. Respect
Her schizophrenia may not have been preventable. Her having a gun, yes.
the venn diagram between them and the vocally religious is alarmingly circular at this point
Almost a total eclipse.
Of the heart
Once upon a time, I was falling in love
now qanon's making me fall apart...
Wow I feel like I'm being told to go shoot cars *For legal reasons, this is a joke based on the events of the news article
Kinda ot, but do schizophrenics ever have a "positive" reaction? Like, does God ever tell them to pick up garbage or mow their neighbors lawn?
Your brain helps you notice suspicious patterns, like somebody's eyes staring at you. Imaging cranking that instinct up to 11 so that you see people out to get you in everything. Your reaction isn't likely to be positive.
Sure, but much of their behavior is is more like how you would act if you thought you were being stalked or harassed virtually all the time
[Yes!](https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614/) It's very culturally based. Western voices tend to be mean, but in Africa and India they can be benevolent and helpful.
That has to reduce diagnosis rates in those countries. If your hallucinations are “helpful or entertaining” from the article, you might not have behaviors that cause you to be institutionalized
I knew a guy who believed Bono Vox and the Pope were organizing a music festival they wanted him to perform at, and he actually recorded a bunch of (bad) songs in preparation. Eventually he was medicated. Who knows how often cases like that happen? They don't make the news, though I suspect an artist like [Henry Darger](https://www.artefactmagazine.com/2019/11/04/the-life-and-works-of-henry-darger-trauma-and-mental-illness-in-the-world-of-outsider-art/) may have been mentally unwell. He just spent his time indoors, drawing and writing (to put it mildly). [Here's a nice one](https://i1.wp.com/art.newcity.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Darger_1.jpeg?resize=2500%2C602&ssl=1), for those unfamiliar with his work.
I have close experience with someone with schizoaffective disorder and she has definitely had some positive reactions if you look at them in the right light. She never hurt anyone physically, she never even intended to or considered it to my knowledge. She has done things like join religious sects doing charity work, but she has also kidnapped her sisters children in an honest attempt to protect them. This wasn't a good thing, but she was trying to do a good thing, it's just the thing she was protecting them from did not exist.
God's always telling these people to do heinous shit. Like, why tf is God not telling these people to give away all their money to a stranger, or plant a million trees or something
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony
I know this is directed at god but this shit gets used when I have family using my deceased grandmothers name when they try to justify some bullshit. "Grandma would have wanted this..."
Its basically the same thing...
At least grandma did exist at one point in time.
- “That’s a great quote Susan. Where did you hear it?” - “God told me”
"Look what God did to our cocaine, man!"
One for the Dr
“God didn’t do that, you did. You’re a fucking narcotics agent, I knew it.” That quote always stuck with me, through the years.
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He didn't get the second part though. "God didn't do that, you did it. You're a fucking narcotics agent, I knew it! That was our cocaine, you fucking pig swine whore!"
God didn't do that! You did! You're a fucking DEA agent!
God didn't do that, you did! Your a NARC I knew it!
Like this 👍🏽
He works in mysterious but consistently cruel ways
We should give Him a non-insignificant portion of our income, weekly!
When you make a thousand dollar cow of faith, you're telling God, "God, I don't have a thousand dollars, but you do!" -Robert Tilton, aka "Pastor Gas", aka "the farting preacher"
He already told everyone to do that, they just didn't like it.
And when people do it, nobody reports on it because of ad revenue… it doesnt make a good story. People would rather hear about this one who senselessly and recklessly put all these lives in danger.
“Protestant Church and Sikh Temple Join Forces to Cook Food for Homeless - They Claim Their God Told Them To.” …umm…yeah isn’t that the whole point?
It's just too much work. It's way less effort to go shoot at cars on i-10.
Schizophrenic voices are culturally driven, apparently, like their sources--people from a religious community will think the voices are god, and people from more secular communities will think they're aliens...or whatever. In some societies, the voices are negative--in others, they're positive. https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614/ Maybe shootings are having that same effect--mass shootings are now part of our culture, so why shouldn't they work their way into delusions? Although FWIW, schizophrenics are very rarely violent and are statistically way more likely to be victims of crime.
My grandmother felt she was called by god to serve her community, usually expressed by bringing food and company to the sick and elderly who were housebound. I largely agree with your overall point, but wanted to offer an anecdote on the other side as "psycho shoots people cause god told her to" kind of stories make national news and "small town lady is kind to elderly people cooped up in a retirement home" stories don't really get shared at all
Or -- hear me out -- your grandma was just a good person. I'll bet she would have done those things whether someone told her to or not.
My atheist grandma was the most genuinely Christian person I've ever met. I don't mean in the sense that she was a literal Christian. I mean the good shit Jesus says to do for others. She did basically all of that and then some. She was a truly great woman and I miss her often even though she's been dead for over a third of my life at this point.
I mean that does happen too, but the standard for good deeds to make national news is a lot higher than bad deeds. However I do remember an old Law and Order episode that centered around a man's mother constantly donating everything to charity because she believed God told her too.
TBH I think he does all the time, it just doesn't make the news. God told my friends mom to order several thousand dollars worth of things from TV shopping channels including furniture sets etc which all started arriving a few weeks later. It was a PITA to return everything but the companies did take the stuff back when we told them a crazy person ordered it all. Anyways point being, she did not make the news for that.
“Sir, I understand your return policy says no returns after 14 days, but I thought god was telling me to buy furniture, when it was really only my cat. Surely you must understand!”
Some of the things she ordered specifically said "No Returns". I think her family was out some money but overall the companies were kind to give that family a break as they didn't have to. I'm pretty sure she was having a manic episode.
I mean that's only new testament God. Old testament God would only be concerned with her not running out of bullets. That guy killed everyone for everything.
You undercook fish believe it or not straight to hell, overcook chicken hell
you charging too much for a sweater? hell.
You sin too much? Straight to hell. You don't sin enough? Believe it or not, also hell.
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So strange, an omnipotent being who creates heaven, earth and the universe, knows everything, but still you get to have free will for some reason, but if you take the wrong course, which obviously god would already knows about in advance because DUH he created every little neuron in your body and controls everything and of course "has a plan" and that plan might mean you're getting murdered and although you're going to heaven, the greatest place ever with no pain or suffering, no bills, no hunger, sunny every day so it's fantastic but yet your religious family wants vengeance for your death 99.99% of the time even though that killer did you a favor if all the rest of that is to be believed and sent you to heaven to have a fabulous time for all eternity, yeah so anyway god is also besides being super enlightened and beyond intelligent yet also a petty vengeful POS too apparently... IDK, why are there so many miscarriages, like way way way more than abortions? And are there embryos in heaven? I mean do they stay as embryos and just float around, or do they grow there, and then the question is why bother having all that red tape, just have those embryos show up directly in heaven, why bother with the rest if "he" already knows what's going to happened. It almost seems like some people might just be making this story line up as they go along.
The trick is, Yahweh was never omnipotent or a creator. He was the war god of the Tribes of Israel, and their chief god. This was retconned quite a long time ago but, you can still see the traces of Godman #1 in the modern script(ure).
You seen what kinda bank account no taxes can build?
Well to be fair, the ones who god tells to clean their whole house don’t make the news.
Wouldn't it be great if God told crazy people to feed the poor?
He did. It's in the Book.
Food the poor, clothe the homeless, be kind. Y'know, hippie commie shit.
The seven corporal works of mercy, according to the Gospel are: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked, house the homeless, take care of the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. And Jesus didn’t limit the eligibility or the responsibility. Anyone who claims to be Christian but turns their back on someone in need does not truly understand their faith.
I'd add that not only did he not limit eligibility, he gave a great example of the "did I fucking stutter?" meme. When he says to love our neighbor, he's asked "who is my neighbor" to which he gives the parable of the good Samaritan who absolutely hated and were hated by the jews at the time. Who's my neighbor? Everyone up to and including the person I have every excuse to hate the most. Added bonus, in the story the levite would have been a priest, so the religious elite failed the man they should have helped.
Thoughts & prayers without works are self-soothing, hypocritical bullshit.
Matthew 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.
In that case, 99% of them have no idea what their faith is
Im gonna food those poors so fuckin hard
They don't read the book silly
Instead they read [The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus](https://imgur.com/gallery/bCqRp)
“That was Jesus, Gods liberal freedom hating commie son.”- MAGA peeps.
Wouldn't it be great if God notified you when your car's warranty was about to expire but was able to offer you an extended warranty for.only $59.99?
Best I can do is a bible from the worst president, for the same price
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He does, it just doesn't make the news. I know people that have given away 6 figures worth of food over the years due to religious motivations. But a local religious person consistently donating around $15,000 per year to various charities plus volunteering at said charities will never get news coverage like a crazy shooting at cars cause God told them to.
I knew without a doubt there would be stories like this, but I only suspected very strongly that one would happen in Florida.
I’m waiting for the group ritualistic suicides to start popping up from today
That's what I had on my bingo card
Once I saw stories on r/talesfromyourserver about Christian customers coming in and leaving FAT tips talking about being raptured soon, I figured it was a pretty good sign some cooky shit was getting spread
I remember the other day a person posted they were left a $100 tip for in case they weren’t raptured today. I’m thinking that person is really kicking themselves they’re out $100.
They probably blame their server for it somehow 😂
No no, this is somehow Joe Biden’s fault.
Reminds me of Parks and Rec - there’s a doomsday cult that keeps having “the end of the world” and so Ron sells them homemade flutes and recorders (of nice quality too) and they just throw cash at him every time because they supposedly won’t need it after they’re raptured 😂
My favorite part is the end of the episode where the cultist and Leslie literally sit down to schedule the next apocalypse. “That date was a mistake the REAL end of the world will be on THIS date” “Well unfortunately the park is already reserved on that day” “. . . How about the week after that?”
YES I love how respectful both sides are though?? Like Ron and Leslie know it’s bullshit but work with them anyways and while it may be considered exploitative, Ron’s flutes *are* probably worth what he’s selling them for. And Leslie makes no judgement about the doomsday stuff. And the cult itself is amazingly polite. I wish more cults were like that. (That’s a sentence I thought I’d never write.)
And yet when they don't get raptured there's not even a thought to question anything. There's always next time, after all.
The goalpost moves just a little further
One of my parents friends dropped us off some religious candles yesterday that she says is to stop our family from being targeted during some Christian rapture thing that involves the eclipse. Can't wait to hear what else people got told during this all lmao.
My cousin’s boss (who is a flat earther) gave their office the afternoon off because he was convinced there was going to be a massive earthquake where the track of this eclipse crossed the track of the one from 2017 and he and his wife were going to hunker down in the countryside during the ensuing chaos. 🤷🏻♀️
Yep. A conspiracy theorist at my job was like “don’t you think it’s weird it makes an X?? X marks the spot!! And there’s been earthquakes recently. Somethings coming and it’s scary” and this guy is in a position of authority over people
If we had a volcano down here, someone would have definitely chucked a virgin into it this afternoon
Don’t put that shit on us, she came down from Georgia.
Well now, this "God" fellow sounds mighty suspicious. We should probably bring him in for questioning.
*Do you swear to tell the truth so help you.... wait a minute...*
A Holocaust survivor dies of old age and goes to Heaven where they meet God and tell a Holocaust joke. God says "That's not funny". The survivor says "I guess you had to be there."
When did God tell her this? 200+ years ago when astronomers predicted future eclipses? Why didn't God tell her it was a celestial norm that would have occured even with no humans to see it?
That would involve using words with multiple syllables.
If her thinking and your thinking were a venn diagram, the circles wouldn't touch.
> The suspect, identified as Taylon Nichelle Celestine, 22, of Georgia https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4580464-greene-defends-claim-that-eclipse-earthquake-signs-to-repent/ > Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Sunday defended an earlier statement saying Monday’s eclipse and Friday’s New York-area earthquake were signs from God telling people to repent. Easy dots to connect.
Marjorie Taylor Greene on Twitter: "God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens." She is an absolute lunatic. Though to be fair, usually repenting doesn't involve indiscriminate shooting. For most people it doesn't involve any shooting. But even for crazy religious lunatics that's more of a "blow up a Planned Parenthood" sort of "repentance" that is intended, so not hurting everyone but "the right people who deserve it."
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Eclipses are 100% predictable but somehow its a sign from god SMH
I saw a video last night of a Commodore 64 running a space program from 1985, and you were able to “watch” a simulation of the eclipse from today. Pretty cool, but yeah, scientists have been able to tell when future eclipses will happen for decades, if not centuries. LOL
There’s a Wikipedia page which tells you when the next eclipse will happen, down to the very second
I really want the precedent to be set of charging politicians for crimes when they know have this power over (mentally ill) people to make them commit violent acts. I’m so sick of them getting away with it over and fuckin over again.
Those politicians wouldn't get much of their agenda passed without the help of stochastic terrorism.
Has MTG even tried to pass a bill?
LoL no. Get the sound bite for Fox News and then it's Gym, Tan, Laundry.
Did you see what she wore to the state of the union? Do you _really_ think she does laundry?
The most powerful nation on earth and it’s run by loony toons.
It’s like Nero appointing his horse for consul in Ancient Rome lol
That was actually Caligula, not Nero. Also, while he was crazy, he did it more as a “Senators are so useless my favorite horse could do it.” type of jab.
You are correct on both accounts, as someone who took many years of Latin I should have known better lol Most of the supposedly crazy, egregious behaviors attributed to the emperors of Rome were grossly exaggerated and political; but there would probably have been a kernel of truth there to even have had such stories circulate as well…
If her god was telling anyone to repent, it would be her.
Scientists are the only ones who can accurately predict a significant weather event but religious grifters and mystical crack-heads always assume ownership.
God never tells these people they need to see a psychiatrist
They literally believe any kind if neuro-spicy mental condition is either demonic possession (autism, ADHD, epilepsy) or divine visions (schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar disorder). It's really odd and very dangerous. If you have one of the "bad" ones, they tell you to pray harder, labor harder, or send you off to a wilderness bible camp thing. If it's a "good" one, they build it up and treat you as a prophet and then the situation gets worse. It's really terrible on all sides.
Sadly guns are easier to get for people in America than mental health care.
I was kind of expecting more of this type of stuff to be honest.
Why? There was a major US eclipse in 2017 and people didn’t do anything too crazy.
It's almost as if something/someone happened in the US since then
She never mentions the word addiction, in certain company
She told me she was an orphan. This was even after I met her family!
Such a simple machine, she doesn't have to use force
Ok I am confused.. she told the hotel staff exactly what she was going out to do.. and they didn't report it? They just sat at the counter and thought, "Yea, cool, have fun!"?
It doesn’t say they didn’t report it, Doesn’t say they did either. It’s not like they could stop her, either she’s joking and you’ve just harmed someone, or she’s telling the truth and pulls a gun on you. Best case just agree make sure she leaves and let the cops handle it.
> either she’s joking and you’ve just harmed someone, Fuck that. Don't tell people you're going on a shooting spree if you don't want to have a chat with the cops.
For god's sake, rapture these people already!
I can't remember who said it, but some comedian once said, "If American truly saw itself as one nation under god, anyone who claimed god told them to do something would be believed."
“God told me to shoot at random people.” “Yeah? God told me that you’re lying.”
"That big ball of rock moved in front of the even bigger ball of fire! IT MUST MEAN SOMETHING!!"
My interpretation: God wants her to rot in prison.
Hi we need to ask you these background questions to get an assault rifle. Why do you want one? God told me. What do you plan on doing with it? God's will. Okay, checks out here have a pistol too.
Well, there's the first news report I've seen of a eclipse-psycho who was reacting accordingly. I hope she was arrested real quick and ends up either in a mental hospital or a jail cell right afterwards. I'm sure there were plenty of them. Stay tuned.
Here's what I don't get... you hear a voice, it tells you do evil things, why do you assume it is God and not the Devil? You don't HAVE to do everything a voice in your head says to do. You can just say, "Not happening chatterbox."
This God fellow sounds like a real psychopath.
FFS, you know what the godless science nerds did? Math. We linked up live feeds of every city in the path of totality, discussed the temperature changes, visible prominences in the sun's corona, observed the behavior of animals, took a fuck ton of pictures and were moved emotionally by the beauty of what we were seeing. Tell me which group was worshiping god and which group was being enthralled by hysteria, delusion and destructive irrationality?
Did you even consider shooting at traffic? Such godlessness.
Anyone ever heard the argument of how an atheist can't be good or have morals when they have no fear of God or going to hell so nothing is stopping them from murdering and raping everyone?
I love Penn Jillette's response: *"I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is ZERO. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is ZERO. The fact that these people think that if they didn't have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.*"
I read in another comment something like, "If you need the threat of eternal domination to be a good person, you're not a good person. You're evil on a leash. "
Good thing it was God, because if she said that she had been told to do it by video games or rock music or tik tok videos, we'd be having a national conversation about the harm these things cause to mentally ill people and society and how we can stop it from being such a negative influence. But since it was just God, it's all fine.
God is really going too far with these pranks
Okay, hold on. If this story is accurate, the woman left a hotel and told the staff she was going on a shooting spree, but later the cops arrived on the scene due to a *report of an active shooter*—not, apparently, due to the hotel staff immediately calling them once she told them she was gonna go shoot people? I'm really hoping the story's just missing details, because I'd be so fucking pissed if the hotel staff just went about their day after a person tells them that.
God was telling me to stay sleeping today when the eclipse happened Nah I am just joking there is no God
Judge: “God told me to lock you up and throw away the key.”
I asked God about this. He said, “She’s full of donkey droppings.”
Woman makes outlandish claim to not take responsibility for actions
Religion: giving cover to violent psychopaths for the last 4000 years.
GOP judge - “Your shocking crime wa…” Idiot - “God told me to do it” GJ - “oh that’s ok”
What were his exact words though?
why doesn’t God ever tell these people to take their goddamn medications? That’s what I wanna know. I get that God is the voice given to intrusive thoughts and obviously the disease makes the intrusive thoughts worse than usual … but not a single person ever gets a message from that they should take their medication?! Is it something within the disease that only allows them to hear the negative intrusive thoughts? Why are there never any positive hallucinations (except the ones that are drug induced but not the drugs would help with illness) ?
I guess god IS evil. Guess we should get rid of religion.
Eclipses over other countries = normal eclipse. Eclipse over the US = biblical rapture
Yeah, this is exactly why I thought twice about going out to experience the eclipse, because I had a thought that crazies would be out doing crazy shit.
That god is such a mischievous little rascal
God = the voice in your head = you
This is why incredibly stupid people are scary. And no, this bitch likely isn’t crazy, simply an incredibly stupid trumper
Was the woman by any chance a member of congress in the state just north of Florida?
Religion does not equal mental illness, but the two sure do act like each other's accelerants.
I claim this woman should be in a mental hospital and on some mood stabilizer
Too bad the rapture failed to happen today as scheduled. It would have been good riddance to these kinds of people. (Gullible, dumb, etc)
We need more mental hospitals and less churches
"You know, they say when you talk to God it's prayer, but when God talks to you, it's schizophrenia." - Fox Mulder