House of Eratosthenes

Question of the day: Other than the meaningless, unmentioned and entirely made-up “wall of separation between church and science,” is there ANY reason why something called “Spiritual Starvation” should not be a diagnosable disorder, written up with an actual ICD code, list of symptoms, treatment recommendations, & everything else?

The symptoms are easily recognized: Perception of, and response to, overwhelmingly talentless and mediocre mortals as if they were deities; a longing to be part of a collective or cult; and, most significantly and most often, a compulsion to do “good” by giving away material things to “the poor” — at no actual cost to the afflicted person who is doing the giving. “A democrat is a fellow who is so nice he’ll give you the shirt off someone else’s back.”

Spiritual Starvation. You’ll notice people who are faithful, attend church, and have been working at making peace with God, don’t behave that way; they don’t say “Let’s help the poor by making that other guy do more than he’s doing.”

Ever read Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom? It’s a wonderful primer on the attractions of totalitarianism.

Of course, the really funny thing — you know, if you’re into hipster meta-irony — is that Fromm thought he was writing an anti-Hitler book. But Fromm was a founding member of the Frankfurt School, the mission of which was to psychoanalyze all the horrors of eeeeeevil capitalism in preparation for the Marxist utopia.

So he’s dead on about most of it, actually, but you kinda have to read references to Hitler and the fascists like this.*

*and Lenin, and Stalin, and all those other guys I’m actually a really big fan of, and to whom I’m as eager to submit as I’m claiming Luther and Calvin were to Hitler. Because “Nazi” should really be spelled p-r-o-j-e-c-t-i-o-n.
- Severian | 02/20/2014 @ 07:54
Spiritual Starvation?
Sure, but bear in mind that SOME folks (like me) don’t definitively equate “spiritual” with “church and stuff”.

“Spiritual Starvation”- a diagnosable disorder?
Pffft. With the proper incentive, “graham cracker” can be pronounced a diagnosable disorder by the very next “revised edition” of APA MMD, right next to “affluenza”, and “cultural (fill in the blank)”.
- CaptDMO | 02/20/2014 @ 11:03
Long ago, St. Augustine wrote up this exact condition: “Our hearts are restless, Lord, unless they rest in Thee.”

So in that sense, there is a diagnosis and course of treatment that is centuries old, with a proven track record. Since this is the Internet I should really title this comment “One Wierd Trick Cures These Seven Common Spiritual Problems” or “What Godless Statists and Bureaucrats Don’t Want You to Know!” or “Galilean Carpenter Reveals Secret to Fulfilling Life.”
- nightfly | 02/20/2014 @ 11:30
nf, or also “you are the one millionth visitor…”
- Open other end | 02/22/2014 @ 06:14
[…] hard-wiring within us all. I think this makes people frustrated and hungry. There is the aspect of spiritual starvation, but on top of that, there is a secular way to be starved. I think people, conservatives and […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 03/18/2014 @ 06:09

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Spiritual StarvationThursday, February 20th, 2014

Spiritual Starvation
Thursday, February 20th, 2014