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[-] protist@retrofed.com 67 points 4 days ago

I worked inpatient psych for many years and have seen hundreds of cases of acute mania, one common symptom of which is hyperreligiosity. I've absolutely seen people give away all their money to what we would perceive as good causes. On many occasions, I've seen people let strangers who are homeless move into their homes because they wanted to help them. I've seen people give away all their belongings to people less fortunate. I've also seen the gradual horror dawn on their faces after they start stabilizing and realize what they've done

[-] morto@piefed.social 23 points 4 days ago

your comment makes me think about the many things we probably have a very biased perception of, because we only know about what the media reports

[-] protist@retrofed.com 18 points 4 days ago

Oh yeah, the general public has no fucking clue what actual psychiatric disorders look like, and that includes the media

Yes, and when religious people have a psychotic episode, the whole mess usually revolves around religion. Including burning or cutting a religious symbol on your skin.

[-] protist@retrofed.com 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It's much more complex than that. Religious delusions are culturally bound. I've seen hyperreligiosity in Hindus, New Age Crystal practitioners, and even atheists. Atheists may have a supreme feeling of being one with the earth. All of this is often paired with increased goal directed activity, lack of sleep, and some truly bizarre plans.

I've personally never seen anyone burn or cut a religious symbol on themselves based in psychosis though. Self injury like that is more often a sign of borderline personality traits rather than an axis I psychiatric disorder.

[-] Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml 32 points 4 days ago

They do occasionally, it just doesn't make for quite as exciting a headline. My dad had a childhood friend whose father bankrupted their family with his idea for a restaurant where there's no fixed prices and you just pay what you can because he thought it was what God wanted. Definitely better than violent bigotry, still a terrible idea.

[-] teslekova@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 days ago

Damn shame. The first time someone did that, in LA in the 50s, it worked great.

[-] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Well yeah, that was in the "godless" LA. Anyone who's worked waitstaff could tell you that the surge of customers after church lets out tend to be the most demanding while also being the least generous, even leaving fake cash with scripture quotes on it in lieu of tips.

[-] Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 days ago

Lol fair, did not work out nearly as well in Pensacola FL during the 60's

[-] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 4 days ago

Oh they do

They have a revelation that they should give all their worldly possessions away and it just so happens that the local megachurch can help them distribute the money.

[-] BillyClark@piefed.social 5 points 4 days ago

Good argument for something like UBI and public funded healthcare. Some people will lose all of their money, one way or another, and so we need to make sure they can at least live following the incident.

We should also figure out a way to rein in the amount of money that a church can take in, but I don't know a good mechanism for that at the moment.

[-] Trampampoline@sh.itjust.works 10 points 4 days ago

As a Christian, something horrible and unrepeatable

[-] Etterra@discuss.online 4 points 3 days ago

Sometimes they give all their money to their church though. Funnily enough, that money doesn't help the starving or homeless either.

[-] IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf -1 points 3 days ago
[-] Impractical_Island@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Yea we do; we're the ones that get sucked up and abused by cults. After an acid trip put me in a cognitive state where I was receiving synchronicities all the time that felt like God communicating to me, I was quickly identified and manipulated by a new age group that secured my trust of being with God before further drugging me and conditioning me to be a functional slave. This tweet is fundamentally wrong and ignorant because the people they are saying don't exist are vulnerable populations that are taken advantage of.

[-] desmosthenes@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

religion breeds hatred, segregation by hats worn, excuses to kill and pillage “others”

[-] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 4 points 4 days ago

As Jesus said, hate thy neighbour because he is the wrong skin colour, beat the fucker!

[-] subverted_per@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 4 days ago

One of my favorite stories of Jesus is when all the elders gathered and demanded Jesus pass judgement on a prostitute. Instead he starts writing in the sand, and one by one the elders were shamed and left. Now we dont know what he wrote in the sand, but we can speculate that it was slurs against non-white non-christians which is why they were all shamed. Furthermore it is certain that afterward anyone left got sand thrown in their face as he shouted "you're next fucker!" Before banging the prostitute.

[-] Schmoo@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago

The People's Temple (led by Jim Jones, had a settlement called Jonestown where they committed mass murder-suicide, and is the origin of the term "drinking the kool-aid") was a progressive religious cult that combined Christianity with communist and socialist ideology, with an emphasis on racial equality. Before the whole murder-suicide thing they provided a bunch of social services including soup kitchens, rent assistance, job placement services, free canned goods, clothing, and coal for winter heating. It's pretty wild reading about Jim Jones himself and seeing parallels to some modern online tankies (there's a quote of Jim Jones suggesting they should all kill themselves because the world isn't ready for socialism and then referring to a group of defectors as "Trotskyite defectors" and "Coca-Cola revolutionaries").

Positive might not be the appropriate adjective, but this made me think of the last portion of the life of George R. Price.

this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
387 points (97.1% liked)

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