ASM140 Boredom, Antipsychotics, and Proof of God

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boredom anti-psychotics and proof of god all that and more on this week's episode of ask science mike [Applause] [Music] science faith welcome to ask science mike the weekly podcast where i answer your questions about science faith and life i'm mike mccarthy your host known all over the internet as science mike and i'm a completely unqualified dude who reads a lot and has an interesting story about science faith atheism all that stuff if you've never heard of me look me up but otherwise let's do a podcast hi science mike this is danielle from canada long time listener first time caller i was calling to ask about what the effects of antipsychotic drugs could have on the brain's ability to experience god meaning can the way that the drug operates suppress religious experiences thank you well danielle congratulations this was without question one of the hardest questions that i've had to research in quite some time on ask science mike for those of you who may be new to the program it's a new year you may be finding a new podcast this is a show where i do my best to answer questions about science about faith and then just sort of general life questions from the perspective of someone who loves science and is a non-scientist but does get rave reviews from scientists whose work has been featured on the program and i always look for some evidence-based support for my answers on questions involving science so here uh danielle i had an incredibly difficult time there just isn't a lot of literature or studies on the effects of antipsychotic drugs and religious experiences other than uh some literature and a couple of studies that have to do with grandiose religious experiences or delusions of grandeur that have religious overtones people who believe they are god people who believe they are christ or can perform miracles in fact i read a first-hand account of someone who thought they could perform miracles and became mildly violent when people you know didn't agree that this person could perform miracles actually ended up punching someone they end up being taken away by the police they thought the police were pharisees trying to stop their divine work of course the person came down from the manic high got medication and was able to see that through more clear eyes so that's all i could find and yes antipsychotics do interfere with delusions of grandeur or grandiose religious experiences but i think we would probably agree that is a good thing but that's all i could find so to go any deeper in the question we're going to have to go into you know my slightly educated opinion my non-expert opinion and just based on how i've studied god and the brain in the past the first thing i'd like to say is there is no one religious experience or god experience there's an incredible diversity in the ways people feel and encounter god what they would describe that as that varies by practice by religious sect uh by personality all sorts of factors go into how you experience god uh so antipsychotics would have a very high impact on delusions of grandeur how does that translate to other mystical experiences or ecstatic experience speaking in tongues for example or feeling god's presence in a way that makes you very elated i don't know i don't know how antipsychotics would impact more contemplative or quiet experiences that involve what people feel is the presence of god i don't know how antipsychotics are of impact people who feel like they can hear the voice of god in their minds as highlighted in the research of tonya lerman at stanford who's found that many people who encounter a god active in their lives have basically trained themselves to experience part of their mental activity as from coming beyond their consciousness i don't know how antipsychotics will affect any of those issues i did find a few studies that were about meditation and antipsychotics or psychotic episodes but the findings were mixed and in some cases contradictory so that didn't even give me uh good guidance so being a non-expert non-doctor non-mental health professional i am so reticent to talk about antipsychotics and spiritual experiences and offer any kind of uh advice on maybe what you should do because i may give you terrible advice out of my ignorance so the only advice i can offer is to talk to a trusted mental health professional about if you are experiencing if you're on antipsychotics and you're finding it difficult to have religious experiences that are important to you we're going to leave it to the professionals this week i think the stakes are too high for me to go on with my opinion now danielle i don't know if you're asking out of curiosity or from personal experience if it's from curiosity i apologize for not having more to say if it's from personal experience i do want you to know there is no one way to experience god and if you found on the other side of some treatment program that involves antipsychotics that you can't have religious experiences that you once valued but these medications are treating the symptoms or the or the profile of difficulty you were having before then i think it's okay to grieve the temporary loss of that type of religious experience and then to look for new ways to find the presence of god in your life if that's something that's important to you if these medications are working for you let them work and i would say even see god in that see a relief from symptoms as part of god being active in your life thank you for a wonderful question and i wish you well [Music] if you like this podcast but you'd like to see me in person guess what i'd love to see you too and in february i'm going to be at three different places on three different dates where we could see each other and you know you could see what ass science mic is all about so february 7th i'll be in orange california doing an ask science mic live february 10th i'll do an ask science mike live in cincinnati ohio and on february 23rd i'll be a part of the revive 2018 conference in san diego california with a really amazing lineup of speakers teachers amazing influencers so if you'd like to learn more about where i'll be this month just go to asksciencemike.com and click on the events button in the menu where you can find more information about orange california cincinnati ohio and san diego california i'd love to see you soon [Music] our next question came in via email and it reads i used to think there was evidence of god even with just the unseen eye and that all men are without without excuse because god makes himself known but now after beginning to understand natural selection evolution etc there seems like there is no evidence for a god i hear atheists use this phrase a lot that there is simply no evidence for a creator what evidence do we have that would support a creator if there is any well thank you for your question the first thing i want you to know is that a lot of people have this question you might have grown up in a religious context or a faith community where people didn't express these kinds of doubts about the existence of god but you are not alone now this podcast started because i faced that same kind of situation in my life and there's a great temptation among christians to offer easy pat answers about the existence of god and i can't do that honestly this is a question that i st still wrestle with in some ways now if you're new to my work you may not know that uh in september 2016 i released a book called finding god in the waves and that book is my story of growing up in the southern baptist church and then going through the same kind of doubt that you're going through now i ultimately became an atheist and was an atheist for a couple of years before i had a mystical experience that caused me to search for god in a new way and it's a pretty well-known story among people that follow me so if you're interested in hearing more about that i did an interview with pete holmes for example or i host another podcast with a friend of mine called the liturgist podcast and episodes six and seven go into detail in my story but my story won't really help you answer any of these questions that will just make you feel less alone so i'm going to read a little passage to you now from my book finding god in the ways and this chapter is called einstein's god when someone says i believe in god they're being vague it's a necessity when people discuss god they're often working from a false assumption that we all mean the same thing when we say god it's a reasonable assumption most words that are used as commonly as god have meanings we all agree on you don't see heated facebook debates over the meaning of the word chair or what chairs mean in our lives today but god is a complicated idea historically and philosophically and there are an incredible number of definitions for who or what god is consider this there are atheists who lack belief in any god or gods there are antitheists who assert that belief in god is harmful there are agnostics who say that they don't know who or what god is there are pantheists who say that the universe is god there are deists who say that god made the universe but that god does not intervene in the universe anymore there are non-theists who find both atheism and theism too limiting they believe god is real but beyond any human understanding or definition then there are theists who say that god is a being with specific will agency and a plan for humanity even among theists there are thousands of conflicting ideas about god the world's three largest monotheistic religions all point toward the god of abraham but they disagree wildly on god's character and what his or her plan for humanity is each of these theistic religions is subdivided even further into countless sects that disagree about what or who god is and let's not forget polytheists who believe that there are many even countless gods out there the point here in this book is that there is no single understanding of god that is universal and even when you say a creator what do you mean by a creator do you mean that the universe came from something because we know the universe did in fact come from something big bang cosmology tells us that our universe emerged from a singularity uh infinite space compressed nearly infinitely to the degree that our entire observable universe once fit in the volume of a sugar cube a mysterious oneness with the potential to create all that is is that god you've learned to approach god as a puzzle as an equation to be solved that's what you've been taught in your life but i have found that as fascinating as puzzling through the most fundamental questions about reality are it's ultimately unsatisfying that happens in the left hemisphere of your brain and since the enlightenment humans have been obsessed with the kind of reductive thinking the left hemisphere excels at and it's great it gives us iphones and spaceships and cancer medicines but there's something gratifying about viewing the world more holistically and i think you may find that there are other ways of approaching faith and belief than questions about the ultimate nature of god that there is some benefit to simply being in god's presence this is a deep issue i can't do it justice in a seven minute answer on a podcast so here's what i'd encourage you to do just go get a copy of finding god in the ways i honestly i feel totally ick about trying to take people in spiritual crisis but i i put it in book form for a reason i've got 288 pages that wrestle with this topic and now that the book's out and paperback you can get it for less than 10 bucks if you've got an audible subscription i recorded the audiobook it's me talking and you can get that as your monthly download on audible so then it's it's no cost beyond what you're already paying for an audible subscription and um i don't know i just i think a lot of us got stuck not because the image of god we were handed is bad but because we grew up in faith traditions where it was frowned on to do any sort of spiritual exploration where any other approaches to faith were treated as heretical or dangerous and i think that does a great disservice to not only faith in general but christianity specifically because the christian tradition is broad there are mystics in christianity there's an entire eastern wing of the faith that has a fundamentally different approach to theology and certainty than its western counterpart so if you check out my book hopefully you can find more to chew on there maybe a little solidarity but if you don't that's okay i've got a lot of podcasts out there check them out and uh i'll say this what if god is less like an equation that we solve and more like falling in love [Music] hey science mike i have a little bit of neuroscience for your face number of years ago i went through through an event that caused me to be diagnosed with ptsd now about eight years later i feel like i've dissected the majority of those events and i'm relatively okay with those things however the way i think about the world has changed a lot since then and i've noticed a few of the things i used to love are less interesting to me largely things that i deem simple or less mentally intensive tasks now before i probably wouldn't pick up a book by kierkegaard or schopenhauer or neuroscience i probably would have picked up a light novel or a feel-good christian book but those kind of things have very little interest for me now and that might be better for learning in the long run however even things like watching a lighthearted television drama or watching a sunset have also become more difficult for me thinking the areas of the brain that are responsible for critical thinking or narrative thinking have become more thoroughly developed areas of the brain responsible for presence or a sense of awareness have become less developed as a result of thinking critically about things and i practice mindfulness on a regular basis but i was hoping if you i was hoping you could suggest perhaps some more some more recommendations for things i can do to help myself be okay with doing simple tasks so maybe dishes aren't as agonizing or doing laundry doesn't seem like my mind's melting out my nose anyway thank you science mike for all you do god bless well if you wouldn't have mentioned ptsd there were parts of the question that i thought i could have asked myself i am no fan of sitcoms or television um drives me crazy to sit and watch tv i tend to read 10 to 15 non-fiction books for every novel i can touch and the novels i like tend to be hard sci-fi i especially enjoy books in which the author took the time to calculate actual orbital orbital trajectories and orbital mechanics in order to create the plot of the novel um i'm a real nerd so i can relate to a lot of what you were saying there and i don't know if what you're describing is related to ptsd specifically or perhaps it's just uh what happens when we grow in response to trauma and pain it sounds to me like you're growing and changing as a person sometimes it takes something terrible to get us out of a rut but once we're out of that rut we see the world in a whole new way that has certainly happened to me in my life the books i enjoy today would have frankly been behind my comprehension in my early 20s and that's because my whole worldview collapsed when my worldview collapsed i stopped putting boundaries on my thinking and experienced tremendous growth in my life i used to love sitcoms and now it's not that i hate sitcoms it's just that i know i've only got so many grains of sand in the hourglass and i don't want to spend them listening to a laugh track now that said i do watch sitcoms i watch simple television programs kind of in your parlance but i do that as a social activity with my family if my wife and children want to watch a television program i can sit and enjoy it but i don't watch the tv as much as i watch them that's when i'm present i'm not always sometimes i stick my nose and my phone and listen to you all say things on twitter it just depends on how the day has been i'm dealing with changes in my life i had a motorcycle accident a couple years ago and my mental stamina has changed my endurance has changed my temperament has changed no one can tell on stage or on the podcast but people who spend a lot of time with me notice an edge that didn't used to be there and impatience my point is not to center your question on my experience but to relate to you we grow and we change because we are dynamic creatures not static so of course your brain has changed of course some parts of the brain would be structurally different or richer than they once were there's a saying in neuroscience that neurons that fire together wire together your new interests have created neural pathways in your brain they've created literal structures and tissue that help you understand what you once could not now let's start by not judging your experiences so much why deem things as simple or not practice non-judgment and see how that helps you to relate in my life i used to think dancing was stupid and anyone who danced looked silly and then someone taught me to dance and i love dancing now it's one of my favorite things i used to hate pop music i couldn't stand pop music i only liked you know alternative music or classical or jazz but now i love pop music why because i i saw my children sing in pure celebration of life using pop music i saw what was under the thing i had deemed too simple to be interesting so start by not judging your experiences so much practice non-judgment that's part of mindfulness and once you're not judging great really be intentional on mindfulness now i don't think it'll work with a sitcom but you mentioned dishes specifically why don't you try to wash dishes very slowly make slow deliberate actions and and really anticipate each step you turn the water on run your fingers through the stream of water feel it warm up pay attention to how it feels in my experience suds are delightful that this soap creates that nice sudsy froth and it feels great to run your hands through it just focus on that sensation and be fully present i've actually found that if i get too present in washing dishes that uh in time my back will alert me that i have spent too much time enjoying the warm water and watching dishes go from dirty to clean there's something gratifying about it just it's just practice it's just practice the same as true of a sunset simply be present with every moment treat it as a meditation when you notice thoughts or feelings appear acknowledge them and return your attention to that sunset anytime you notice your attention shift just gently return it to the sunset this is the power of mindfulness this is the power of a contemplative faith is the ability to be present and to find enjoyment and joy and grace in all things sometimes when i have a really bad headache i will sit in a room and meditate on the headache and become grateful for it focus on every sensation it's hard to work with a with a terrible headache but sometimes instead of just suffering i explore it so i encourage you uh if and i i'm i'm reflecting on what you have said you've described to me something in your life that seems to be bothering you so if this bothers you if you'd like to appreciate these things that you consider more simple do them mindfully you know i've started to read more novels lately i like weird ones but occasionally i'll read just like a mass media like bestseller novel and um i'll just get into it it takes work right after i have to continually kind of practice that uh intentional non-judgmental posture um i have to reassure myself that i'm not wasting my time but after i learned that uh i think you know katy perry and taylor swift were amazing um that there was something i was missing experience i actually enjoy looking at popular media and and finding what it is in that experience that so many other people enjoy uh so just take it up as a challenge i mean you're reading some it's pretty tough books uh but that you're only challenging yourself in a couple of parts of the brain so maybe it's time to challenge your mind in entirely new ways and may you enjoy that search [Music] our final question came in via email and it reads i have an image i was not able to paste here but my fifteen-year-old brother who is a victim of sexual abuse for four years sent it to me a grown man and inside of him is a little girl holding a red heart reaching towards a little boy the caption reads we we're all different on the inside hashtag transage hashtag age fluid love is love where is this headed what information can i send him it's common sense pedophiles shouldn't even be in the same space as our lgbtq friends but can you explain further a pedophile destroys another human life lgbtq folks are courageous people being true to who they are it doesn't hurt anyone thank you amanda i am a straight white middle-class married raised baptist now richard rohr is spearheading a lot of my faith questions with more questions as well as the liturgist podcast and rob bell when the news came out of my brother's abuse the god i was raised with was not enough anymore thank you for all your transparency amanda first i am heartbroken about what happened to your brother i am just heartbroken and i'm sorry for the waves spreading out from that abuse that violation of trust that violation of his human dignity that now is running through your life let's knock down your approach to god and the world and i grieve for you for your family i've noticed that in discussions of same-sex marriage and equality for lgbtq people it's a common thing to talk about a slippery slope that what's next people marrying lots of people and polygamy what's next people marrying animals what's next a legitimization of child abuse and [Music] that troubles me it troubles me to lump lgbtq people in with bestiality or pedophilia it trolls me deeply lgbtq people engage in consenting relationships with other adults that's not what happens with people have sex with animals and that is not what happens when people abuse children children cannot offer consent and so anyone who engages in a sexual act with a child does so in a predatory manner even if they themselves have been abused before even if they have some underlying mental health issue or neurological condition that causes them to be attracted to children there was once a question on this podcast from someone who was attracted to children who had never acted on that impulse but sought help help without being judged help without being ostracized it was the healthiest approach to that kind of attraction i can imagine it is never okay to violate another person's consent in regards to sexuality never and children cannot offer consent this is the critical distinction between the lgbtq movement and people who abuse children that critical notion of consent i think religious people too often cause harm by centering all decisions about sexuality on religious conditions and rules by equating all sins as equal if in the eyes of god stealing a candy bar killing someone and raping a child are equal what kind of monstrous god is that it's time for us in our churches to include consent in a discussion of sexual behavior we have a rampant problem with consent violation in our society women are frequently sexually assaulted and harassed men are also sexually assaulted and harassed and it seems statistically that children are frequently sexually assaulted and harassed we've got to start talking about consent in all contexts of sexuality now if people are placing additional boundaries beyond consent in their religious sect you know whatever but we cannot in good conscience even a conservative person compare lesbians and bisexual people and gay people members of the trans community queer people intersex people with pedophiles because one one set are in a genuine pursuit of mutual love and affection and the other group are predatory now you say where is this going where's this headed this is headed wherever we allow it to head humans create human society there was a time when it was morally acceptable and kind of fun to boil a cat in oil on a friday night at a gathering of a public gathering that was just a kind of a party now we've said that is unacceptable there was a time when it was acceptable and encouraged to stone gay people to literally kill them for who they are and now we've said that's not acceptable so we will decide as things go forward whether lgbtq folks have full equality under the law with straight people or not and we will also decide what is normal and appropriate in terms of pedophilia there have been times in western civilization where pedophilia has been much more tolerated than it is now i am encouraged that we have moved away from an acceptability of adults engaging in sex acts with children but it's up to us we make those decisions so don't don't feel like there's some inevitable moral collapse that because we accept same-sex marriage one day adults will be able to have sexual relationships with children and have to be socially acceptable it's not true we make that decision together as a society and i will continue to advocate for the full inclusion and legal equality for the lgbtq community and i will continue to support pedophilia being a criminal act although i would much prefer a restorative justice approach to pedophilia and i also prefer that we stigmatize it less for people who have never committed a sex act with a child to be able to ask for and receive treatment without destroying their life i think some of this is a monster of our own making so i have compassion for people who because they were abused or attracted to children and i think they should be able to access treatment without judgment but i don't think that love is love when it comes to sex acts between an adult and a child i had the pleasure of touring the united kingdom and the republic of ireland in uh the fall and winter just to support fighting on the waves in its uh uk release and at my ask science mike london event i met a man who is an artist his name is harris and harris took some photos at that event and they were gorgeous and we were talking about his other work and he mentioned that uh he's a poet and so i'd like to share with you a piece here by harris called we dreamed in monochrome and if you enjoy it i'd encourage you to go to sciencemike.com click on episode 140 on the show notes and see if you can connect with harris to hear more of his work this is we dreamed in monochrome our thoughts were of memories long nights and waking days tears well spent as our fears rose up to greet us like those first kisses of the sun that they break we each are no more than history in the making we are nothing we are nothing less we are past we are those better days all the good we've mastered all the good we must lead and the faults we've claimed our own handed down to us by doting fathers fled to us like oxygen through the lineage of our beloved matriarchs passionately painfully mixed with life [Music] an eternity of frozen moments knit together and play back in double time we are over all too quickly first drafts left unfinished wistful immortal unsung melodies [Music] though we can't help but fight it we could no sooner drink the ocean or chart the stars we are a gracious discord the beginning of some sympathetic symphony and out of time and somehow in time something beautiful and dismayed [Music] we are still those children we've long forgotten all that awkwardness and innocence that we have simply lied to our inner selves taught ourselves no longer to laugh with abandon and not to cry [Music] we gathered within great monuments built to ages dead and spent marveling at eloquent colors and vivid words telling of a great and distant future nothing more now than our tomorrow we bought praise and lovers fully pressed lives deep as reservoirs that have set the earth upon its axis our bravery and treachery and candor and mistakes and those beacons of our human race who have told their stories and had their stories told that we have set our backs to what we've known and fixed our eyes on late horizons calling for some internal camaraderie with our thoughts to these great memories all their nights and making things their tears well-spent as our fears rise up to break over us like waves we each are no more than history in the making will be seldom seated chasing dreams of those who come before us to make the world a better place by some internal [Music] this great potential left untapped until we see the limits self-imposed that was we dreamed in monochrome thanks for listening to this week's show i'd like to thank all of my patrons on patreon uh who make the show financially possible they not only throw me a dollar five bucks a month to keep the show going they also take time of their week to pick the questions that you listen to every week if you'd like to be involved in that just go to ask sciencemike.com click on the patreon button you can learn more about supporting the show financially it makes a huge difference in my life so thank you for that i want to thank andrew golucky for his work doing pre-production on ask science my greg nordin the show's producer thank you as always greg and jeb bodaford my friend for writing the ask science mic theme song thank you all for listening and i can't wait to talk to you next [Applause] [Music] week