The following discussion on the Rapture Ready message boards really makes me wonder if there is some sort of correlation between fundamentalism and depression. Their view of life is just so . . . sad. Life has become for them (or perhaps has always been) this arduous journey through a hostile land, filled with hardship and despair, best over soon. It seems that the wonder and joy that I find in life is entirely absent theirs. Reading their posts is very much like talking to someone suffering from depression.
Aby777: please!!!! Lord come in 2009 !!!!!
im so tired of this nasty world!! what else JESUS just RAPTURE US!!!!!
do bad things happen in this world? yes. is there no beauty and wonder and joy? apparently not for Aby777.
kgreen20: Yes, God, please!!!!!!!!!!!Amen.
can I make fun of the mentally ill for overuse of exclamation points?
JABowman: Yeah, this world is getting worse by the nano second, I'm ready to spend eternity with my Savior!
imagine feeling that with every passing fraction of a second, the world is getting worse. that's . . . bleak.
chadishere07: I'm with ya'll Im tired of sinning and screwing up I just wanna praise Jesus being perfect
i'm honestly unsure if he means he wants to praise jesus for being perfect, or if he want to be perfect by praising jesus. either way, that seems like a seriously boring way to spend ETERNITY.
Jesuslover 2002: dont worry it wont be longer.. Scripture He who is coming will come and will not tarry. it wont be much longer... so hang in there its almost over "so hang in there, it's almost over" is what i tell myself during dental work. these people regard life the way i do dental work. i've had a tooth pulled instead of getting a root canal done, that's how much i hate dental work.
Waiting4Jesus regards life the way I regarded high school (somewhat more positively than dental work): My soul is so weary and I'm so sick of this place. I pray every single day to the Lord to come quickly.
InHis Service: I used to pray "Lord call us home soon" but now I pray "Lord call us home today and at night it's Lord call us home tonight.... soon is too long now!! what is going on in these peoples' lives? seriously.
Not Perfect, But Forgiven sums it all up: second that. This world loses its flavor everyday. If Heaven is a lush jungle teeming with activity, then earth is a barren field with weeds and pot-holes scattered throughout. There's just nothing here. Our minds are so focused on home, no material wealth is desirable at this point. We are too close to our blessed hope. It's all about listening to the Holy Spirit and moving forward to that day.
life is a "barren field with weeds and pot-holes scattered throughout"? no beauty, no wonder, no pleasure, no love, no laughter, nothing worthwhile at all? i'm not even talking about "material wealth", i'm talking about the basic joy of being alive. how can anyone celebrate losing that?
It would be entirely unethical, I'm sure, but I would love to dose each and every one of these people with Prozac, lots of it, and see if they remained rapture obsessed fundamentalists. I think some of them would not.
Rapture Ready is extreme even by fundamentalist standards so I'm not sure they are a representative sample.
ReplyDeleteThere are differing results about religion and mental illness in general. There is, for example, some evidence that suggests that attending religious services is correlated with lower likelyhood depression but being a strong believer negates this effect. Extremely strong believers are more likely to experience depression. A relevant link (since I can't find the original study right now) is http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2008/11/11/CampusNews/Professor.Asks.If.Religion.Correlates.With.Depression-3536289.shtml which discusses a study done by a professor at Brown on just this subject.
Also, a related study:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-29867906_ITM
This is one of the reasons why I haven't gone back to the RR boards in a while. Because I feel so badly for these people. There is so much despair there that I can't stand it. If I was confronted in person with that much sadness and anger I would probably cry.
ReplyDeleteI think that every religion has it's share of people who are mentally ill, and have come to religion as a way of lessening those feelings of despair and sadness. However, for whatever reason, Fundamentalists/reclaimationists of any religion have a higher percentage. I always wonder if it's because the rules there are more strict and the concept of a punishment is more real, thus appealing to people with a bleak outlook on life to begin with.
But who knows?
ask and i shall receive, at least if joshua is around. thanks!
ReplyDeleteleigh: it is disheartening, and i suspect that people with that worldview are attracted to that sort of fundyism, as opposed to fundyism making an otherwise content, happy person into a depressed, bleak one.
That's just terrible. Imagine the inability to find beauty in this world, when there's so much around if you're prepared to look for it. It's also incredibly selfish desiring that the world should come to an end for everyone so that you can be gratified with personal bliss.
ReplyDelete