(Part 2) Best books about bipolar disorder according to redditors

Hmm, I see what you're getting at but there's a lot of work about the neurological basis of mental illness. For example, here's an article on the neurology of bipolar disorder, here's a book on the neurobiology of brain disorders that even lists schiphrenia as a neurological disorder, here's a major text on the neurobiology and neurology or mental illness, and there are many more publications on the topic. How might you amend your thinking in light of the fact that a lot of research makes a connection between mental illness and neurology?

It may well be the case people are predisposed towards certain ends through strictly biological determinations. But it doesn't then follow by necessity that we have to slavishly act them out to their ultimate conclusions.

We are not mindless preprogrammed machines, you know? Sure Dawkins might like you to believe that. But he's a fool. So...

You know the mind originally referred to the soul and the soul had a causal structure that had to be followed through in order for it to function, kind of like an instruction manual?

Well with modern science that was junked so man could work out the workings of nature. That's where the idea material things work like a machine come from -- unlike us humans all nature is dumb, including animals, including our biology even, because matter doesn't have intelligence - souls/minds. So we gave up the inner wisdoms found in the creation of soul and picked up knowledge through observational enquiry of outer space instead. No need to meditate because the state will look after the public and common Good from now on.

So that's how I'd explain the problem with material reduction -- via the stupidity of man. In fact the whole universe is alive and conscious. But don't tell western man about it because he'll think you're crazy.

I'd add there's only one certainty in life and it's this -- nature has a 100% winning record. Go with nature, go against nature, and guess what? nature wins both ways. But the easy way is to go with nature.

So we can pretend that nature is stupid, we are clever and reality works like a machine and scientific theory born of material causes is really significant. But don't expect nature to fall for it.

> No matter which qigong method we discuss, "naturalness" is always conditional. Letting things take their own course means letting things take their own course in a subconscious state. If we can do this, it means that our internal signals are coming out.

Have you read any books on modern psychiatry or the pharmaceutical industry?

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Fixers-Psychiatrys-Troubled-Biology/dp/0393071227/

Here's her 2006 book:

https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Brain-Science-Genius/dp/0452287812

Quick skim: hard to tell if she discerned any thing of note?

> even Bart Ehrman

Bart Ehrman is not the only scholar out there. Also, accepting that the early church taught literal bodily resurrection as doctrine is not the same thing as accepting that it happened. Also, that is not the same as accepting that everyone believed that. Also, as I mentioned before, in that time period, bodies made out of wind or light were within the realm of possibilities.

I recently read a book by the scientist Michio Kaku - "The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind". Towards the end of the book, Kaku talked about the idea that one day we'd find a way to transform our consciousness into body-less energy. We'd be, in other words, bodies of energy rather than bodies of "matter" (I put "matter" in quotes with the understanding that in reality, energy is matter and matter is energy, but we're used to thinking of "matter" as solid and energy as not). So the idea that bodies made out of light or wind were within the realm of possibility for people in that time period isn't so problematic with that consideration.

But I really think you're missing the point. The point is that all the resurrection stories in the gospels were told decades after Jesus, and they contradict each other. The earliest of the resurrection stories we have - in Mark - stops at an empty tomb. The tomb was empty - boom, that's it. But when scholars take into consideration the facts about crucifixion, even the tomb becomes a problem. Crucifixion was only used for insurrectionists - it was a form of government terrorism, basically. And when crucifixion was used this way, the bodies would be left to rot. Often wild dogs and vultures would eat the bodies before they were eventually put into a mass grave. The idea that Rome gave special treatment to a man named Jesus makes no sense with what we know about crucifixion - there is no reason to believe that this was not a later elaboration by authors writing decades later who were speculating. However, believing that the disciples saw visions of Jesus and at the same time believing that Jesus' body was treated this way is not contradictory.