Good point about the testing. Unfortunately as we both know there are enough variences in ‘normal’ across the spectrum that people would have to be tested as part of their normal checkup several times to establish a baseline.

The fundamentalist groups I know of…including the dominionists…are not talking about forcible takeovers as far as I have ever read. “Take back the culture” and “restoration” and even the establishment of a “theocracy” all take place through a combination of political activism which is open to any group in the US and through “changing the American conscience” or essentially through a sort of evangelism.

There is nothing violent in it.

I shudder to think what life would be like in America if a church gained control, but that is not likely. There are dangers in these groups, but more to Christianity than to society.

I don’t accept any of this as “evangelical” Christianity. You will find a number of evangelicals (myself included) criticizing these groups and separating themselves from them and their activities. Evangelicals have historically connected themselves with the abolition movement, the women’s suffrage movement and other activities for the betterment of society. Fundamentalists seem more bent on isolating members, sheltering them from culture and have some odd views on the relationship between the church and state.

There are different groups, but most of them tend toward libertarianism, not a church-run totalitarianism.

But how far off are kids raised by some Evangelicals? How far off are the kids in “Jesus Camp”? If the right preacher came along and told them to do it — how many of their flock would?

Be any interesting question for a reporter.

Some drugs used for depression were found because they made people “feel better” when used for other purposes.

Depression can be shown to be an outcome of Subliminal Distraction exposure.

SD was discovered when it caused mental breaks for office workers. The cubicle was designed to deal with normal features of the physiology of sight, and the mental breaks stopped.

VisionAndPsychosis.Net is a five-year project to investigate SD.

Culture Bound Syndromes, small mental events named by local cultures around the world, happen where the conditions for SD exposure exist.

As an unknown and unevaluated stressor for psychiatric problems decreases in SD exposure may be the reason that drugs seem to work.

Perform the psychology demonstration of subliminal sight and habituation in peripheral vision to understand how exposure begins.
http://VisionAndPsychosis.Net

Over at the “All Spin Zone,” in the post “Matthew Murray -nghtmrchld26 in his own words” by Daniel DiRito a guy in the comments section there, ErnestR, also tried to blame it on antidepressants. It seems that all killers did use them. I don’t think they’re the cause though — my reasons here:

http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/12/matthew-murray-and-blame-game.html

I’m going to link your post here from mine, you hit on several points I didn’t.

But they haven’t actually seen it. They haven’t seen its debilitating effects, and the lack of control the person has.

I’m not qualified to state that schizophrenia is or isn’t “just a spiritual problem,” but it sure doesn’t seem that way to me. If there’s just one mental illness that isn’t just spiritual, the whole “all mental illnesses are just spiritual problems” position is appears discredited.

Bi-polar is particularly difficult and the medication “yo-yo” is unfortunately very common. When the medication is working, they seem to feel they do not need it and even feel it is in the way. I believe it is irresponsible of any pastor to counsel an individual to go off medication. It is almost impossible to discuss, however, because people in these churches tend to see “God’s reason” as superior to “man’s reason” and equate all dissenters as lacking faith or even apostates.

I may agree with the premise that God knows more than man, but disagree with the illogical conclusion that we therefore should leave mental illness untreated, and try to deal with it purely through prayer.

I have a friend who has a son who is bi-polar. He is able to function normally as long as he stays on his medication. Unfortunately the medication has some nasty side affects and he often goes off his medication mistakenly believing he no longer needs it(legally he can’t be forced to take his medication). When he goes off the medication he becomes a different person, and exhibits violent tendencies. Of course once he becomes violent she can call for help, he is taken by force to a mental hospital and put back on his medication. It’s a vicious cycle. Thankfully he hasn’t seriously harmed anyone when he is off his medication, but it is something she is very concerned about.

To add to her troubles her family belongs to a fundamentalist church that believes that the medication is unnecessary, that if her son would just ‘get right with the Lord’ all his problems would be solved. She has often heard her pastor counsel her son to go off the medication; even though she has attempted to explain how harmful going off the medication is numerous times. So she gets no support from her Church family and many in the church shun them because of her sons mental illness/or what they consider sinful nature.