 Save 10% with my code Bobby10 on raw, organic, grass-fed and grass-finished, freeze-dried organ meats from grassland nutrition. Link in the description box. All right, guys. Welcome back to the channel. If you're new, Manus Bobby, guys, today a different type of reaction video. We're going to check out the Academy of Ideas, a big YouTube channel with 1.3 million subscribers with their video, why the lack of religion breeds mental illness. When I read that title, I knew I'm going to watch this video, so might as well watch it together. Let's have a look. In his essay, The Ames of Psychotherapy, Carl Jung called this the general neurosis of our times, and as he explains further, the lack of meaning in life is a soul sickness whose full extent and import our age has not yet begun to comprehend. I think we're just starting to comprehend it right now. His crisis reaches back several generations. In the late 19th century, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche observed that nihilism or what he termed the radical repudiation of meaning was on the rise in the West. Was this the result of the fall of the Christian worldview and the rise of a scientific, reductionist, and mechanistic worldview? Was the death of God the most momentous event of the modern era? Nietzsche writes, Walter Kaufman felt the agony, the suffering, and the misery of a godless world so intensely at a time when others were yet blind to its tremendous consequence, that he was able to experience in advance, as it were, the fate of a coming generation. That is very deep, and as I always say here on this channel, there are just two options in life, God or nihilism. No matter which ideology you want to place on top of your priority list, it will always lead to nihilism if you don't have an origin of absolute truth and meaning. We are now experiencing the fate that Nietzsche prophesied, a fate where, in the words of Victor Frankl, ever more people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for, a fate which is manifesting in a hatred of the existing society, the apocalyptic sense of an ending, and the need for some kind of worthy cause to give meaning to one's life. In this video, we are going to explore what meaning in life is and why it is so important. We will then examine why the decline in religion may be the prime cause of this modern crisis of meaning and a prime factor in the widespread occurrence of anxiety disorders, neuroses, and depression. Happiness, writes Ian McGilchrist, is about the present moment, independent of other moments, whereas meaning links events across time, thus integrating past, present, and future. This is absolutely beautifully put and something that I personally haven't reflected upon. Back in the day I studied about Buddhism and in Buddhism it is all about coming back to the present moment, forgetting the past, forgetting the future, and realizing that this moment is all we got, but the same time it felt so meaningless. If you look into the works of Eckhart Tolle and The Power of Now, you will see that so many people seek more meaning, but cannot find it in his works. And this is why this quote here, where we're integrating past, present, and future, is so extremely powerful. Meaning in a human life is grounded in narrative. A life narrative is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. And this story acts as a sort of cognitive organizing process that helps us make sense of who we are and where we are going. Our narrative gives rise to and sustains our sense of self and just like a novel or movie, it is defined by a particular plot or theme. This theme can be coherent in life affirming, or it can be disjointed, disempowering, incoherent, and so lacking in meaning. The less meaning our life has, the more we will suffer. And this is exemplified by the experience of many Schizophrenics who struggle to view life through the coherence of a narrative. In madness and modernism, Louis Sass quotes- It's quite interesting, yet again it makes me think about Buddhism because Buddhism in its essence is about the no-self, the realization that we are empty, essentially, that we have no self. The self is an illusion within Buddhism and once you let go of the self, you will reach nirvana, but at the same time it leads to nihilism, yet again because you don't feel any type of meaning in your worldview. The Schizophrenic patient who said, I feel as if I've lost the continuity linking the events in my past. Instead of a series of events linked by continuity, my past just seems like disconnected fragments. And as McGilchrist explains concerning this disturbing lack of a coherent life narrative. If your world disintegrates through a lack of narrative, you stop seeing anything in context, and it becomes puzzling, even frightening. Its sheer facticity then stands out, since it can no longer take its place in any world schema of other things and people that would give it meaning. While most- Wow, for people that followed this channel, you know that I went vegan for four years straight, now thank god I'm not vegan any longer, but this is exactly how I felt like when I was vegan. Nothing was in place, there was no continuity, I was all over the place and not myself any longer. People do not suffer the disintegrating effect of no life narrative. What many lack is a satisfying narrative that is rich in meaning. A narrative, in other words, that creates fulfillment and enables one to cope with the existential conditions of life. The great prevalence of anxiety disorders, depression, addictions, and psychotropic and illicit drug use is evidence which points to this dire lack of meaning and as Jung notes, meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness. To make matters worse, while many people feel that their life is missing something, most do not realize that what is missing is meaning. Instead, to fill this void of meaninglessness, many people- Yes, absolutely. Yet again I have to circle back to veganism, because when I talked to vegans they didn't even understand that meaning was missing in their lives, they didn't get it. Even though they abstained from eating meat and therefore were saving animals, they still didn't see any meaning in their life. Peace after more money and material goods, elevated social status, increased knowledge, or most of all moments of pleasure and happiness. But none of these things are adequate replacements, for as McGilchrist explains, people who report being happy, but have little or no sense of meaning in their lives, have the same gene expression patterns as people who are enduring chronic adversity, such as loneliness, bereavement, or poverty. Makes sense. Given the importance of meaning, how can a life lacking it be infused with it? How, in other words, can we discover a more meaningful life narrative? While there are many practical steps to move us in this direction, from finding a life purpose, to cultivating interpersonal relationships, to confronting life's challenges, one of the most effective is to tap into the wisdom embedded in the mythos of the great religions. What is the use of a religion without a mythos, asks Jung, since religion means, if anything at all, precisely that function which links us back to the eternal myth. Mythos, or what is more commonly called myth or mythology, contains truths about the human predicament in the nature of the psyche that are expressed in narrative form. These narratives can be used to augment our own personal narrative with rich threads of meaning, as they provide insights for how to cope with elements of the human condition, be it freedom, loss, loneliness, sickness, old age, suffering, or death. In the modern day, many of us have relegated myth to the realm of fiction, believing that only reason, logic, and science, or what is called the domain of logos, can reveal to us the truths of the world. But as Jung writes, myth is not fiction. It consists of facts that are continually repeated and can be observed over and over again. Both logos and mythos are realms for discovering truth, but the truths they reveal are of a different nature. Science teaches us the neurological correlates behind the phenomenon of pain. Mythos teaches us how to meaningfully endure pain. Science teaches us how to cure sickness. Mythos teaches us how to meaningfully cope with loss and death. Or as Karen Armstrong explains, This is something that atheists just don't want to understand. They want scientific proof for the existence of God. They are not willing to accept philosophical, theological methods in order to deduct truths. It's very simple. There are different tools in the toolbox to deduct truth. Logos or reason is the pragmatic mode of thought that enables people to function effectively in the world. People have always needed logos to make an efficient weapon, organize their societies or plan an expedition. Logos is continually on the lookout for new ways of controlling the environment and is essential to the survival of our species. But logos has its limitations. Good at manipulating the world and making us powerful, it does not contribute to any broader understanding of the meaning of our lives. For that, people turn to mythos. We can gain exposure to the realm of mythos through great works of literature, be it those of Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, or Cervantes. But the great religions are the ultimate source of this wisdom. For the primary purpose of religion, from time immemorial, has been to help us cope with our existential predicament and to find meaning in life. Even if this purpose has at times been corrupted by religion in its organized and institutional forms, not only Christianity with its symbols of salvation, writes Jung, but all religions, including the primitive with their magical rituals, are forms of psychotherapy which treat and heal the suffering of the soul and the suffering of the body caused by the soul. And in a speech given to a group of psychotherapists in the 1930s, he further explains, it is not to play on words when I call religion a psychotherapeutic system. It is the most elaborate system, and there's a great practical truth behind it. As an example of how one can put the mythos of religion to use, Jung explores the symbolic notion of the imitation of Christ. Is not a Jesus, he asks, a prototype of those who, trusting their inner experience, have gone their individual ways in defiance of the world? Of course, Jesus said that if we are hated, we should remember that the world hated him first. So of course we can see him as the prototype that endured the suffering of this world. The imitation of Christ is the notion that Jesus' life should be used as a template for how to live. According to Saint Augustine, emulating Christ was the fundamental purpose in the life of a good Christian. But as Jung explains, the traditional interpretation of the imitation of Christ, as counseling that we strive to live as Christ did, has this disadvantage. In the long run, we worship as a divine example a man who embodied the deepest meaning of life, and then out of sheer imitation, we forget to make real our own deepest meaning. Self-realization. Jung suggests that the imitation of Christ should be interpreted in a symbolic manner, as the call to go our own way and to strive to develop ourselves as fully as as humanly possible. For Jung's sock, priced as an example of someone who actualized himself completely, and who was unafraid to follow his conscience, even if it ended in his persecution. Christ, in other words, was an example of a heroic personality. The imitation of Christ, explains Jung, might well be understood in a deeper sense. It could be taken as the duty to realize one's deepest conviction, with the same courage and the same self-sacrifice shown by Jesus. Yes, that could be, but at the same time it brings some problems with it, because how would the person know how to self-actualize? Self-actualization is a term that is used in Buddhism, Hinduism as well, and especially nowadays in the New Age movement. And we see so many people absolutely delusional entrapped in those New Age doctrines far away from religion losing their minds. So therefore the imitation of Christ could be much more suitable for the broad masses, because they would have an ideal model to follow. The imitation of Christ is but one example in the deep well of practical wisdom embedded in the great religions. And to profit from this wisdom we do not need to become a follower of an organized religion, nor must we pledge allegiance to any specific sect or creed. For as many organized religions are corrupted by power and degraded by politics, they can be barriers to accessing the authentic truths of religion. Fortunately, profiting from the truths of the great religions can be accomplished through a personal effort, reading the texts, learning about the various rituals embedded in the mythology and most importantly, putting into practice what we learn can give... On the other hand, if you don't subscribe to one particular religion, however, you could be sidetracked and absolutely lose focus and then start worshiping your own desires yet again. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the motivation behind it, why you wouldn't like to subscribe to organized religion because of its corruption etc etc, but at the same time I've been there, I've done that and I do see that we as humans are so flawed and if we give up guidance, we always fall back into our own desires. That's why we are in this mess. Assess the value and truth of any myth is to act upon it. The myth of the hero, for example, which takes the same form in nearly all cultural traditions, showed us how to live more richly and intensely, how to cope with our mortality, and how creatively to endure the suffering that flesh is heir to. But if we failed to apply it to our situation, a myth would remain abstract and incredible. For the truths of religion to impact our life, we do not need to fully understand their meaning. For myths, like dreams, are encoded in symbolic form and so they point in the direction of truths that are not fully comprehensible by the conscious intellect. But as Jung explains, we like to imagine that something which we do not understand does not help us in any way, but that is not always so. Myths have a direct effect on the unconscious, no matter whether it is understood or not. The fact that it's repeated telling has not long since become obsolete can, I believe, be explained by its usefulness. This explanation, this argumentation, could of course be used for the trinity within Christianity, which is a mythos that cannot be truly understood. In the modern world, many of us have completely severed our connection to the realm of mythos, and many of us view religion with derision and scorn. Some consider this as a sign of enlightenment and progress, but it may be a form of psychological regression. In a lecture delivered to Yale University in 1937, titled Psychology and Religion, Jung went as far as to call atheism the urban neurosis, and in his decades of practice treating hundreds of patients, he came to the conclusion that for some patients, the only means of fixing what ailed them was the birth of a religious attitude to life. Among those in the second half of life, he wrote, that is to say, over 35, there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. That's so fascinating, I'm 35 years old. If we continue to spurn religion, we will not lose our need for meaning. We will merely look for meaning in other places. We will worship the state, a political party, or science, all of which are inadequate and sometimes dangerous substitutes. Yes, every single human being has a priority list, either consciously or subconsciously. There are certain things in life that are the most important to you. However, if we don't put God on the priority list, we put whatever on the priority list and we start defying that. That is essentially the real idolatry. It's not so much about bowing in front of statues, of course, that is part of idolatry. But the real idolatry happens in the heart when you start worshiping anything but God. You prioritize your job, you prioritize drinking, you prioritize whatever. This, of course, will make a human lose meaning in his life. To the cultivation of an authentic religious outlook on life. Yes. Perhaps, therefore, we need the mythos of religion to nourish our psyche and imbue our life with meaning and purpose. Perhaps without some form of a religious outlook, man descends into the chaos of nihilism, totalitarianism, Not perhaps. and hatred of self and society. And for those who think science has done away with our need for religion, Jung poses the following question. Can science be so sure that there is no such thing as a religious instinct? Actually, in the last few years, there have been studies done and this religious instinct has been found within healthy people. However, atheism was diagnosed in mostly mentally ill people. All right, that's it for today's video. Long enough as it is, please let me know in the comment section how you liked this type of reaction video as well. And if you enjoyed it, I'm going to continue with this type of work. If you liked it, leave the thumbs up as well and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. If you want to support this channel, all the links are in the description box below. Thank you so much. As always, may God bless you all. Much love and peace.