Okay, true, in the specific context of psychiatry. Felt like we were getting off base, though, and discussing how to treat mental illness overall O:)

So, what I mean to say is that the epistemological quantifier of mental illnesses is derived from the results one obtains from the drug treatment for the condition. It's not an exact science; but, if someone complains about being sad all the time, then putting them on SSRI's or other drugs that treat depression is what one has to do to become less depressed. If the drug works, then we have knowledge that either the drug was effective for the condition described or the placebo effect had an equal but not greater effect. — Question

Well, it's not always that simple. For some a drug to rebalance the brain is all one needs. For others, like me, it's just one factor that goes into keeping me upright. I don't think the ones prescribing drugs think that if the drugs don't "work" that its entirely the drug's fault.

In regards to the topic, I think everyone would agree that having a bipolar or schizophrenic or depressed, on medication for those conditions rather than not.

That would be their purpose, to treat those conditions*.

*I purposely refuse to use the term disorder. — Question

Can you clarify what you mean, here?

If one would go to church, appreciate much of a sermon, the Church, its writings and traditions, and believes in God - we'd call them religious. But if they don't believe in God, but do/appreciate all the rest, they're not religious? Hmm, sounds like I fit the "spiritual but not religious" category ;)

Depending on the issue, I'm usually either hard right or hard left, which combined makes me centrist, I suppose.

For what it's worth, I label myself as being Christian, but not a Christian. I don't believe in the Christian God, but I do still identify with much of the Christian tradition, which I suppose makes me a religious person.

If Hanover doesn't moderate posts, why is he a moderator??? I smell cronyism >:o

I wouldn't worry. Up until today he didn't even know how to delete a post. — Baden

I'm not worrying, just curious. Unsurprised that you ignored my question, >:O

Why do we even have so many moderators in the first place? Apart from the two administrators, I see zero point in the other six moderators having their positions. Is there some kind of friend club y'all're in? Do I need to subscribe for a certain period of time? Do I need to be European? ..?

Why was Hanover given moderator powers? Has he even used them?

Who needs porn when I can just as easily think of Sappy in his spiffy plaid?

Love is the first among equal virtues.

So, you are doing this intentionally. You are bitter about a post being deleted by Baden and now you are taking it out on me. Get your thumb out of your mouth. — TimeLine

Only if you get the 2x4 out your ass.

No arguments where made at all. — TimeLine

What do arguments matter when you treat people the same with or without them?

You are merely projecting what you are doing, which is berating me. That is called trolling. — TimeLine

No, not quite. I'm not trolling until I post a star trek image, which subconsciously stirs Baden from his primordial sleep so that he can then delete it immediately >:O

Efforts to be rational with you just end up with you berating the other person, lol. This is why Agustino was laughing at you.

I presumed your angst toward me derived from my disagreeing with you in some thread a week or two back. Am I wrong? Or do you give everyone a razor's edge for no reason?

Is everyone who disagrees with you a troll?

Foucault? Urg, if you don't have anything to say, then stay silent. — TimeLine

?

Faust makes sense all of a sudden.

"Methinks, a Million Fools in Choir are Raving and Will Never Tire." — TimeLine

But do they sing as sweetly as you?

I took "fails utterly" to mean it's useless. — Hanover

How dare you.

The non-religious, the religious and the completely mindless twat hath arrived. — TimeLine

So...me, Agu, and you? >:O

And don't intentionally misrepresent what I say — TimeLine

Oh...

I couldn't give a toss
— TimeLine

I have transcended
— TimeLine

>:O

TimeLine hath reached the summit of Aussie assholery.

I'm not addressing your topic anymore. I await the OP so the discussion can get back on track.

Ah, none at all I see. Keep holding the rope. — unenlightened

Only if you keep living up to your name, ;)

Depression does have a specific definition (it's a collection of moods and behavior changes), but the term is also used very generally. There is a difference between "major depression" and "my life is a pile of shit and I am very unhappy about it".

"Depression or unhappiness" generates a lot of traffic in doctor's offices, but some of the patients that report depression really do have a mood disorder called "depression".

Consider something more specific: bi-polar or manic-depressive disorder. The visible signs of mania or severe depression do not require a patients report. Sleeplessness, severe agitation, screaming incoherently, extreme anxiety, and response to hallucinations for mania; for depression one sees flat affect, retarded movement, very slow response in speech, lack of physical care, excessive periods of sleeping, very poor task performance, and so on.

Major and severe psychiatric conditions like paranoid schizophrenia, anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, etc. all have obvious behavioral components.

The diagnosis of physical maladies often begins with self-reports. If patients don't report double vision and headaches, a doctor will not order MRI or CAT scans for brain tumors. Severe headaches are invisible to MRIs or CAT scans, so a diagnosis of Migraine pretty much has to depend on patient reports. Blood tests can reveal some disorders, but not all of them, and even tumors can be mistaken for something else. — Bitter Crank

(Y)

One of the problems (I think it is a problem, anyway) with psychiatric diagnosis is that way too many definitions of abnormalities have been sub-divided too often to create a very large list of disorders. Doctors and other practitioners need recognized diagnoses in order to get paid, and the DSM supplies those diagnostic numbers. The more numbers there are, the more often one can get paid for dealing with what may be extremely nebulous 'problems'. — Bitter Crank

This is a bit too cynical I think. Number pushing can be attributed to practically any field. To be honest, you're getting more at the fact that medical practitioners aren't themselves without problems (even though modern society holds them up now as gods.)

The topic is mental illness diagnosis, if you care to look, and I am fairly confident that that is part of clinical psychology. So kindly do not berate me for talking mainly about clinical psychology. I am well aware that there are practical differences, just as there are between medicine and medical research, but again, so the fuck what? — unenlightened

Are you really this dumb? >:O

I studied psychology for four years at one o them academic universities, where they play with rats, and also monkeys in the good old days. What is your qualification for wagging your fingers so strenuously? — unenlightened

You studied psychology for four years, yet you still can't figure out why it's important to distinguish between different forms of psychology. Wow. *grabs rope*

It's actually pretty easy to diagnose whether someone has depression or not. The difficulty, though, is figuring out what sort of depression someone has, why they have it, and how treatment can be applied so as to move the patient forward into a healthier future. It doesn't take a psychiatrist or a rocket scientist to tell me or anyone else that a lot of people out there are seriously mentally screwed up, and just because diagnosis and treatment doesn't always work doesn't mean we should throw everything out.

By focusing on clinical psychology, everything else is being ignored for the moment - so the fuck what? It's the topic of the thread. — unenlightened

Uh, no it's not. Your refusal to acknowledge the practical differences between academic psychology and clinical psychology is entirely against the premise of the thread. University professors testing lab rats are not diagnosing and treating people, clinical psychologists, counselors, and therapists are, in conjunction with medical doctors.

If you know nothing about the subject, keep your fingers still, eh?

To me, in a non-Protestant understanding, having a personal relationship with Christ means to follow him, his teachings, his Church, and to partake in communion. If these are all not evidences of a Christian having a relationship, which I think always is personal, then I don't know what else to say.

prefer to leave it undefined because it's a term used ad hoc by preachers and pastors at large (it changes with their usage). — VagabondSpectre

Fair enough. I agree with the last bit :)

The priest blesses the blood and the body, and interprets it's meaning for you. — VagabondSpectre

The priest doesn't interpret anything during the Eucharist. Everyone ought to understand what is going on.

I'm not too familiar with Pentecostal trends, but non-denominational born-again Christians basically incorporate this idea into all of their religious practices. For them God is a relationship, not a religion. They "speak in tongues" and believe that they're communicating directly with god.

The chasm between a Catholic notion of "relationship with god" and the non-denominational notion is massive. — VagabondSpectre

True. I only compared the two forms of Christianity in order to contrast the ways in which a relationship is understood to be had with God in each.

For a skeptic I cannot see any source of permission or prohibition from outside man - that means: in the skeptical view there's nothing forbidden to mankind, anything is allowed. — Kai Rodewald

Allowed by whom or what? Allowance of actions, whether all, some, or none, derive from a causal chain. However, there's a difference between everything's possible and everything's allowed. This is why we have governments, for example, that have judicial branches who oversee what people can and cannot do without punishment. This isn't to say they cannot do x or y, but that there will be consequences. I don't think it follows that chopping your dick off is allowed merely because you don't follow an ethic. You're still stuck with moral dilemmas whether you or I like it or not.

How're you two defining a "personal relationship"? I think all Christians would hold that one must have something along the lines of a relationship with Jesus/God in order to live their faith. But, is having a "personal relationship" with Jesus exactly the same for a Catholic as it is for a Pentecostal? Hint: I don't think so...

Divine personality, right? I wouldn't say that necessarily what Jesus said and taught were "divine", but his person was regarded as being divine.

So - when Jesus says 'he that drinks of the water of which I speak will thirst no more', what this is a reference to, is this scam whereby one of the sects has taken control over a network of wells in the Galilean region. This means a lot of people have to make do with inferior-quality bore water, which is quite high in salts and therefore deleterious to their health and besides is not thirst-quenching, being so salty. So Jesus has worked out a plan with his band of 12 intrepid followers to overthrow the stranglehold this sect has established on the wells, ensuring that 'those who follow him' will have access to the non-salty water and, accordingly, 'thirst no more'.

Credible? Y/N? — Wayfarer

Turns water to wine, but can't make well water cleaner >:O O:)

It's rather a tragedy that unborn children are forced into a world where they are destined to suffer immensely. There's no guarantee of insurance on human suffering, so any potential good experienced is moot and trivial sentimentality.

Don't leave, Robert. I like your posts, for what it's worth (Y)

The Word became flesh at a certain point in time, yes, but the Word itself didn't come into being. — Thorongil

I feel as though language breaks down at this point. If the Word did not come into being, then how does it follow that the Word be-came flesh? If Christ is God, and vice versa, surely God cannot create, somehow, more of himself, right? You just stated that the Word (God, correct?) did not come into being, which to me says that God did not facilitate his own act of being to be. In my mind, this means that God can only create the world. So, how does Christ fit into that?

Opposition to the second amendment entails wanting to ban guns, seeing as the amendment ensures the opposite to be protected.

And I agree that more guns doesn't equate to less crime. When did I suggest that to not be the case? :s

I'm saying that before you start banning guns, or slapping taxes on them, there needs to be more work done in helping to remedy the three issues I stated in my first post. If you don't do that, you've not inclined those who commit the crimes to live a more appreciative, moral life. If people don't think they owe anything to the State, then they won't give two shits about murdering someone. And a tax is not the most hospitable of ways in which to garner change. For instance, legalizing various drugs, and then taxing them to high heavens, will not lower drug related maladies if we don't also step up our prevention and rehabilitation systems.

Did your post contain a Star Trek image?

I'll stand and fight poverty, poorly funded public school systems, and ineffective local governments. And while it is true that the gun culture in the US is patently insane and entirely out of hand, the second amendment doesn't effect the day-to-day crime that goes on not only in the big cities, but in smaller communities as well. It doesn't make much sense to me to blame guns, and then want to ban guns, when nothing is being done to combat the underlying reasons that have long facilitated the issue of gun violence. If we help eliminate the reasons that propel people toward handling and using guns, then we'll see less staggering murder rates, as you cite above.

You sound more sad than bitter here, BC O:)

No, because there never was such a time. "In the beginning was the Word..." — Thorongil

Surely Christ in the flesh was a unique emanation, and wasn't always there, right? What did Mary birth then if that's not the case?

I'm not following this. — Thorongil

Wouldn't it be possible to create nothing?