Platitudes drop like bricks from a clear blue sky:
In the same vein, Syme and Hagen go on to inform us, “… what the disease perspective has done is distract us from talking about the source of most mental anguish: adversity, often caused by conflicts with powerful or valuable others, such as employers, mates and kin.”
What? Are they really saying that no counselor has ever paid close attention to the effects of work and relationship issues in triggering serious depression?
The actual difference between typical mental health counsellors and evolutionary anthropologists is that the former do not treat mental health issues as if everyone involved were an animal, lacking reason and moral choice. But the evolutionary anthropologist, at least in Syme and Hagen’s account of their discipline, is obliged to do so. Evolutionary anthropology seems to mean never having to say that reason and moral choice matter.
Here’s a giveaway line: “Our ancestral lineage has grappled with adversity since before the dawn of Homo sapiens.” Yes, and doubtless the trilobite grappled with adversity too. But it wasn’t until the “dawn of Homo sapiens” that self-awareness made unhappiness a philosophical issue (As in, “Why are things the way they are?”)
Denyse O’Leary, “Why does “evolution theory” trivialize everything it touches?” at Mind Matters News
Probably, any perspective that sees humans as merely evolved animals will offer platitudes and prescriptions for suffering, rather than insight or inspiration.
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Well, give them credit for stating that depression and anxiety are NOT diseases. These authors are breaking away from the pill-pushers who have dominated therapy for 100 years. Their description of the process is accurate, even though they tack on “evolution” as an automatic branding.
It’s true that some people have stronger TENDENCIES toward anxiety and depression than others, but all TENDENCIES can be controlled and partly conquered by adjusting expectations and actions appropriately.
Darwinian evolution is the source of “Psychological pain”. But it is certainly not the source of “Psychological pain” in the manner they envision it to be, (i.e. per the author, “strong negative emotional responses to forms of adversity that were common during our evolutionary history,,,”)
No, the source of “Psychological pain” that comes from Darwinian evolution stems from claim that we are the result of purely mindless processes and therefore its implicit denial of the reality of God as our creator.
First off, the narrative of human evolution is a scientifically false claim:
Secondly, the denial of the reality of God, (and the implicit nihilism that the denial of God entails, Nietzsche, etc) is what is, in and of itself, the main source of “Psychological pain” in the lives of humans.
In fact, numerous studies have now also shown that faith in God has a tremendous beneficial effect on both our mental and physical health:
As Professor Andrew Sims, former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, states, “The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally.”,,, “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life;,,”
In fact, Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation.
In the interest of relieving depression, it is found that learning and reading about the afterlife and/or about Near Death Experiences is ‘generally quite successful not only in reducing suicidal thoughts but also in preventing the deed altogether.,,,’
Moreover, in the following study it was found that, “those middle-aged adults who go to church, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship reduce their mortality risk by 55%.”
And the following study found that Religiously affiliated people lived “9.45 and 5.64 years longer…”
Some atheists have tried to claim that volunteering, or just socializing in general, could produce the same effect, yet this following study found volunteering to be of limited benefit compared to actually being religiously affiliated.
Moreover, on top of the tremendous negative psychological impact that Atheist’s suffer because of their denial of the reality of God, it is also, ironically, impossible for atheists to actually live their lives consistently as their atheism were true. Or more specifically, it is impossible for atheists to live their lives as if the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution were actually true.
As the following article states: Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath.
Richard Dawkins himself admitted that it would be quote unquote ‘intolerable’ for him to live his life as if atheistic materialism were actually true
And in the following article subtitled “When Evolutionary Materialists Admit that Their Own Worldview Fails”, Nancy Pearcey quotes many more leading atheists who honestly admit that it would be impossible for them to actually live their life as if their atheistic materialism were actually true.
As should be needless to say, the impossibility for Atheists to actually live their lives as if atheism were actually true directly undermines any claim they may make that Atheism is true
Specifically, as the following article points out, if it is impossible for you to live your life consistently as if atheistic materialism were actually true, then atheistic materialism cannot possibly reflect reality as it really is but atheistic materialism must instead be based on a delusion.
Thus in conclusion, the source of “Psychological pain” in Darwinian evolution does not come from any ‘just-so story’ for human evolution that Darwinists may imagine to be true, but the source of pain instead comes from the implicit denial of God that Darwinian evolution entails..
In short, Darwinists, in their denial of God, have, In their ignorance, cut themselves off from the true source of all true joy and happiness in their lives.
@1
Literally said the same thing
Couldn’t careless for explaining the obvious and acting like evolution provided some magic new insight
I’d wish they’d apply their awesome way of thought to themselves, that might explain them away to
Darwinism certainly leads to mental issues. We’re speaking of people who say their lives are pointless and that there’s no free will while they engage in the most violent and absurd apologetics to try to convert the whole world to their irrational doctrine.
Insane they are.
The essay reads like it is evolutionary anthropologists venturing into the somewhat speculative field of evolutionary psychology. That said, the approach is more descriptive than prescriptive. They are offering an adaptationist account of human emotional responses to challenging life events not trying to offer treatment options for them