Journal Entry # 308
January 5th, 2011
Yesterday I put this comment up on face book, today I started thinking about what this truly means.
“When I look at the world I sometimes feel I am living inside one giant insane asylum and there is no door to get out”.
How do we decide who is sane and who is not?
What exactly do we mean by sane and insane?
Can you be both sane and insane at the same time?
Can you have moments of sanity and insanity and if so what does this classify you as?
What happens if the people running the asylum are insane?
Is being insane a bad thing or a good thing?
Is it up to me to determine my own sanity?
Can I really confidently determine if I am sane? Can anyone?
What is sanity? I suppose the opposite will determine insanity.
san·i·ty.
1. The quality or condition of being sane; soundness of mind.
2. Soundness of judgment or reason.
in·san·i·ty
1. the condition of being insane; a derangement of the mind.
2. Law . such unsoundness of mind as affects legal responsibility or capacity.
3. Psychiatry . (formerly) psychosis.
4. extreme folly; senselessness; foolhardiness.
I would say the optimal word here is reason.
rea·son
1. a basis or cause, as for some belief, action, fact, event, etc.: the reason for declaring war.
2. a statement presented in justification or explanation of a belief or action.
3. the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences.
4. sound judgment; good sense.
5. normal or sound powers of mind; sanity.
6. Logic . a premise of an argument.
7. Philosophy .
a. the faculty or power of acquiring intellectual knowledge, either by direct understanding of first principles or by argument.
b. the power of intelligent and dispassionate thought, or of conduct influenced by such thought.
c. Kantianism . the faculty by which the ideas of pure reason are created.
If all the people are insane and suffering from the same delusion how will we know that it is not reasonable? When a group of people engage in the same delusion are they all insane?
When something defies reason and I am referring to the religions of this world even though millions of people are supposedly experiencing the same or similar delusion I will say that they feel they are sane and those not part of their delusion are insane. Now when they use reason in other areas of their life’s we can plainly see based on our definitions that sanity and insanity are not the same. Although it appears that someone can be sane in some areas and insane in others.
I will venture to say that all those who partake of ideologies that are not grounded in reason are engaging in the act of insanity. Now the vast majority of time this is probably self-induced and not caused by chemical imbalances. Usually the people we have committed into the institutions are suffering from a delusion that is a medical problem in nature. Should we commit all those who are willing to delude themselves and enter the realm of insanity? Really we do not have enough institutions or people to staff them if this were to happen.
What right do I have to call someone who willingly believes something to be true despite reason insane or delusional? None or every right. Based on the definitions if the belief is not grounded in reason even though you think it might be as you will attempt this to justify your beliefs then you are engaging in the act of insanity.
I encourage all humans to use reason and critical thinking because I certainly would like to live in a sane world and I hope everyone else does.
Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people.
Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney
We must conduct research and then accept the results. If they don’t stand up to experimentation, Buddha’s own words must be rejected.
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, 1988
Seek the truth always
Gary David Currie
Tags: atheist, Gary David Currie, insane asylum, insanity, Reality, Reason, religion, sanity, The freeman, truth, Who Hijacked Reality