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Why Saint Paul might have had an unhealthy soul

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
Why Saint Paul might have been a sociopath. By sociopath I mean a person who according to the modern psychiatric discoveries, suffered a sort of bipolar disorder.
In neuroscience, these subjects are absolutely guiltless since it is due to the fact that the two parts of the brain don't communicate, or tend not to.

We can sum up what sociopaths like Paul have as main characteristics;
- lack of empathy or contempt towards suffering
- Schadenfreude that is, persistent but unwilling joy towards people's mishaps or misadventures, and insufference or hate towards people's joy.
- Incapability of feeling romantic love and incapability of understanding it.


Paul probably had a unhealthy sexuality due to physical or hormonal problems. At the same time he felt hatred towards women's beauty.
 
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Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
My thread is just a summary of the chapter about St Paul present in a new book, Mauro Biglino's Gods and semigods, available in Italian only

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Why Saint Paul might have been a sociopath. By sociopath I mean a person who according to the modern psychiatric discoveries, suffered a sort of bipolar disorder (slightly associated with forms of epilepsy and autism).
In neuroscience, these subjects are absolutely guiltless since it is due to the fact that the two parts of the brain don't communicate, or tend not to.

We can sum up what sociopaths like Paul have as main characteristics;
- lack of empathy or contempt towards suffering
- Schadenfreude that is, persistent but unwilling joy towards people's mishaps or misadventures, and insufference or hate towards people's joy.
- Incapability of feeling romantic love and incapability of understanding it.


Paul probably had a unhealthy sexuality due to physical or hormonal problems. At the same time he felt hatred towards women's beauty.

One thing I cannot stand is the modern trend to try to psychoanalyse and pathologise historical figures based on spurious guesswork and the ridiculous assumption that ancient people thought in pretty much the same way as modern people.

It's just a narrative fallacy.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
One thing I cannot stand is the modern trend to try to psychoanalyse and pathologise historical figures based on spurious guesswork and the ridiculous assumption that ancient people thought in pretty much the same way as modern people.

It's just a narrative fallacy.
Saint Paul used to say that women should wear head coverings not to turn angels (?) on..


I don't think this is a good premise to prove he was normal.
 

leov

Well-Known Member
Why Saint Paul might have been a sociopath. By sociopath I mean a person who according to the modern psychiatric discoveries, suffered a sort of bipolar disorder (slightly associated with forms of epilepsy and autism).
In neuroscience, these subjects are absolutely guiltless since it is due to the fact that the two parts of the brain don't communicate, or tend not to.

We can sum up what sociopaths like Paul have as main characteristics;
- lack of empathy or contempt towards suffering
- Schadenfreude that is, persistent but unwilling joy towards people's mishaps or misadventures, and insufference or hate towards people's joy.
- Incapability of feeling romantic love and incapability of understanding it.


Paul probably had a unhealthy sexuality due to physical or hormonal problems. At the same time he felt hatred towards women's beauty.
I would rather use this book to understand St. Paul:
The Gnostic Paul
She nailed it.
 
Saint Paul used to say that women should wear head coverings not to turn angels (?) on..


I don't think this is a good premise to prove he was normal.

What were normal beliefs among Hellenic Jews 2000 years ago?

For the Hellenic part, in Classical Athens it was considered shameful to refer to a woman by name (unless she was a relative or priestess). Paul's attitude to women was far more enlightened than this, and women could have status in the Early Church.

Diogenes used to live in a jar, take dumps in the theatre, wank himself off in public and pissed on people who annoyed him. He was considered a great philosopher :D

This is what I meant about it being ridiculous to assume people in the past had the same mindset as people today and jusdging 'normal' by our standards.
 

leov

Well-Known Member
What were normal beliefs among Hellenic Jews 2000 years ago?

For the Hellenic part, in Classical Athens it was considered shameful to refer to a woman by name (unless she was a relative or priestess). Paul's attitude to women was far more enlightened than this, and women could have status in the Early Church.

Diogenes used to live in a jar, take dumps in the theatre, wank himself off in public and pissed on people who annoyed him. He was considered a great philosopher :D

This is what I meant about it being ridiculous to assume people in the past had the same mindset as people today and jusdging 'normal' by our standards.
Paul referred to myth of Sophia ("because of angels") justifying covering which was symbolic as it refers of state of the souls and not to sex. (ref. "Gnostic Paul" Pagels).
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
What were normal beliefs among Hellenic Jews 2000 years ago?

For the Hellenic part, in Classical Athens it was considered shameful to refer to a woman by name (unless she was a relative or priestess). Paul's attitude to women was far more enlightened than this, and women could have status in the Early Church.

Diogenes used to live in a jar, take dumps in the theatre, wank himself off in public and pissed on people who annoyed him. He was considered a great philosopher :D

This is what I meant about it being ridiculous to assume people in the past had the same mindset as people today and jusdging 'normal' by our standards.
My reflection goes further than that. It is about Christianity and hedonism, because it is Saint Paul that has vilified sexuality, pleasure, beauty to create a religion of frustration and sorrows.

Saint Paul has created that sick Christianity that for centuries has infested Catholicism, often through wicked monks and nuns.

This scene is emblematic. In this movie a girl mistreated in a nuns institute, ends up committing suicide. Fortunately defended by one of her teachers.

 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
My reflection goes further than that. It is about Christianity and hedonism, because it is Saint Paul that has vilified sexuality, pleasure, beauty to create a religion of frustration and sorrows.

Saint Paul has created that sick Christianity that for centuries has infested Catholicism, often through wicked monks and nuns.

This scene is emblematic. In this movie a girl mistreated in a nuns institute, ends up committing suicide. Fortunately defended by one of her teachers.

No, it was really Augustine and the powers that be of the Empire that did that damage.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
To me, it seems that Paul was quite bright and had a very strong imagination but maybe too much of the latter.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
Why Saint Paul might have been a sociopath. By sociopath I mean a person who according to the modern psychiatric discoveries, suffered a sort of bipolar disorder (slightly associated with forms of epilepsy and autism).
In neuroscience, these subjects are absolutely guiltless since it is due to the fact that the two parts of the brain don't communicate, or tend not to.

We can sum up what sociopaths like Paul have as main characteristics;
- lack of empathy or contempt towards suffering
- Schadenfreude that is, persistent but unwilling joy towards people's mishaps or misadventures, and insufference or hate towards people's joy.
- Incapability of feeling romantic love and incapability of understanding it.


Paul probably had a unhealthy sexuality due to physical or hormonal problems. At the same time he felt hatred towards women's beauty.

As the whole "Paul"story starts out
with his ridiculous whopper about "Jesus"
coming to talk to him, everything else he
says can be taken as being as real as
what Joseph Smith said about the "gold
books" he found and translated to the
Book of Mormon.

Later on in the "Paul" account we find the
story of him being bitten by a snake, but
protected by god from the effects.

If one analyzes the story, it completely falls apart,
could not possibly have happened as described.
The lack of poisonous snakes on the island is just
one of the problems.

Once we were safe on shore, we learned that we were on the island of Malta.2 The people of the island were very kind to us. It was cold and rainy, so they built a fire on the shore to welcome us.

3 As Paul gathered an armful of sticks and was laying them on the fire, a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, bit him on the hand. 4 The people of the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other, “A murderer, no doubt! Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live.” 5 But Paul shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed. 6 The people waited for him to swell up or suddenly drop dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw that he wasn’t harmed, they changed their minds and decided he was a god.

IF the account is not entirely made up, then I'd guess
he found a harmless snake, and made a show of it
to impress the rubes





 

whirlingmerc

Well-Known Member
To me, it seems that Paul was quite bright and had a very strong imagination but maybe too much of the latter.


I see some stunning insights in Paul.

Of course it is a trauma capturing christians and bringing them to be put in prison or to death and getting a rebuke by the Jewish Messiah that you got it all wrong.

I like how he was blinded and while he stood blind Jesus said 'i am sending you to open blind eyes'. A tough job indeed without God's help and lots of it.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
I see some stunning insights in Paul.

Of course it is a trauma capturing christians and bringing them to be put in prison or to death and getting a rebuke by the Jewish Messiah that you got it all wrong.

I like how he was blinded and while he stood blind Jesus said 'i am sending you to open blind eyes'. A tough job indeed without God's help and lots of it.

I guess you missed the insight about
the phony snake story, huh.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
To me, it seems that Paul was quite bright and had a very strong imagination but maybe too much of the latter.
I just made a thread ...surely influenced by Biglino's works. But thanks for your open-mindness, Metis;):heart:
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Saint Paul used to say that women should wear head coverings not to turn angels (?) on..


I don't think this is a good premise to prove he was normal.
You don't think there are other explanations why you have Paul say one thing in one book, and a completely contradictory thing in another? You have to go to mental illness first? What about this simpler, and widely accepted view of modern scholarship? The later books were not written by Paul at all, but someone trying to normalize the radicality of Paul's early theology to Roman conventions and norms?

That actually is the consensus opion of scholars. Authorship of the Pauline epistles - Wikipedia

Now, isn't that simpler than trying to psychoanalyze someone 2000 years ago, when you don't even know what your source material is about?
 

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
Why Saint Paul might have been a sociopath. By sociopath I mean a person who according to the modern psychiatric discoveries, suffered a sort of bipolar disorder (slightly associated with forms of epilepsy and autism).
In neuroscience, these subjects are absolutely guiltless since it is due to the fact that the two parts of the brain don't communicate, or tend not to.

We can sum up what sociopaths like Paul have as main characteristics;
- lack of empathy or contempt towards suffering
- Schadenfreude that is, persistent but unwilling joy towards people's mishaps or misadventures, and insufference or hate towards people's joy.
- Incapability of feeling romantic love and incapability of understanding it.


Paul probably had a unhealthy sexuality due to physical or hormonal problems. At the same time he felt hatred towards women's beauty.

I think he had a sunstroke on his way to Damasco. It happens when it gets very hot, there.

Ciao

- viole
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
I think he had a sunstroke on his way to Damasco. It happens when it gets very hot, there.

Ciao

- viole
He said we women are supposed to wear veils not turn men on.
I wonder what he would say in a 2019 Rome, in full Summer:p:p
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
By sociopath I mean a person who according to the modern psychiatric discoveries, suffered a sort of bipolar disorder (slightly associated with forms of epilepsy and autism).
Sociopathy has nothing to do with bipolar or epilepsy. Autism can involve impairment of empathy but doesn't involve the anti-social traits of sociopathy.
 
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