Religious madness on steroids-Italian Worshiper Tears Both Eyes Out at Mass

[malaise]

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/weird/Italian-Worshiper-Tears-Both-Eyes-Out-as-Mass-130966548.html
<snip>
An Italian man tore both of his eyes out in the middle of the priest's homily at a church near Pisa, according to reports.

Fellow parishioners watched in horror as Aldo Bianchini, 46, used his bare hands to pull out both eyeballs. Bianchini later told surgeons, who were unable to save his vision, he heard voices that told him to do it.

"He was in a great deal of agony and he was covered in blood," Dr. Gino Barbacci told the Daily Mail. "He said that he had used his bare hands to gouge out his eye balls after hearing voices telling him to do so - to do something like that requires super human strength."

Father Lorenzo Tanganelli said he had just launched into his sermon when he saw a commotion in the back of the church, according to the Italian paper Corriere Fiorentino.

"This man at the back of the knave started tearing at his face and I realized he was gouging out his eyes," Tanganelli told the paper. "I called for assistance and the paramedics were quickly at the scene and he was taken away and then I carried on celebrating Mass but a lot of people had left because they were so shocked by what they had seen."
--------------------------

[FSogol]

1. Bad one, God. n/t

[Iggo]

5. Aw c'mon f***ing god!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. Religion 1 - Sanity 0

In WWII, Both Germany and the UK fed their soldiers a form of crystal meth to make them better soldiers, and to stay awake. That kind of mind manipulation was seen as necessary in order to beat a strong opponent.

Religions, if they pollute the brainwaves long and hard enough, can have the same impact as certain drugs, like meth to a soldier. Watching those babbling in tongues, or writhing as though the spirit had entered them, or teaching them to poison their kids, or shoot their neighbors, proves that religion is as bad as drugs.

Michele Bachmann claims to have a regular conference call with her god, doesn't she? After all, he instructed her, in no uncertain terms, that this election was her's to win. If there was a set of eyeballs that - - - - no, I will NOT complete that thought.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. "If your right eye causes you to sin,

gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell."

-- Matthew 5:29

What should we expect from a religion with THAT in its "Holy" book?

[malaise]

8. Run and leave the followers to Darwin

:evilgrin:

[WildEyedLiberal]

44. I guess metaphor is too complicated for you?

Somehow it isn't too complicated for the billions of Christians throughout the ages who have not gouged out their own eyes.

Seriously... and this is an example of the bulletproof atheist logic and reasoning I'm always hearing so much fuss about?

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[darkstar3]

51. If you don't understand that the comment was tongue-in-cheek,

and meant to point out that your choice of reading some of the Bible as metaphor and other parts of it (like Jesus) as fact is arbitrary. then the joke's on you.

[leeroysphitz]

3. Isn't that a sign of The End Times™?

[Posteritatis]

4. Why did I read that? Even the entirely non-graphic picture made me twitch. (nt)

[Suich]

7. No kidding. n/t

[malaise]

9. Same here

Gross does not describe it.

[Brickbat]

6. "This man at the back of the knave..."

"...and to the left of the varlet, and in front of the rogue..."

[Sal Minella]

10. and just southwest of the scalawag but east of the scamp . . . n/t

[malaise]

12. The sermon must have been tres boring

:D

[tawadi]

13. According to a HuffPost link,

"Bianchini studied chemistry and speaks five languages, but he had not found work. He has lived with his mother for about 20 years in Viareggio, a coastal city in northern Tuscany near Pisa."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/03/aldo-bianchini-tears-eyes-church_n_992108.html

[malaise]

15. Well he sure won't find work now

Clearly he has mental issues.

[tawadi]

18. Clearly. But that doesn't make a sensational headline.

:sarcasm:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

16. OMG. He really did speak in tongues.

[Duer 157099]

14. Finally, someone who takes those sermons literally

I can't count the number of sermons I have heard that tell people that God would rather they pluck their eyes out than sin with them.

It is straight from their "holy" book.

Who needs voices in their head when preachers will say the very same thing on a regular basis?

[SidDithers]

17. "to do something like that requires super human strength."...

To me, it sounds like it can be done with normal human strength, though I'd advise against it.

Sid

[malaise]

22. Unless he had super human strength

How the fugg to you do something like this to yourself? That is a higher level of madness

[hunter]

19. Madness is madness.

If it wasn't religion it would be dead people, lizard men, space aliens, talking trees, or something else.

[MADem]

20. Come on--that's just mental illness, pure and simple.

You can hold the Catholic Church responsible for a lot of things, but I think they're off the hook here. This guy is just crazy.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[malaise]

26. Excellent point n/t

[MADem]

27. That's as much culture and upbringing as anything else.

If you're told the same thing over and over again, you take it as fact.

The overwhelming bulk of people who are given a religious upbringing and participate in their faiths do not take the Gospel of Matthew to that conclusion. The man was schizophrenic, most likely. That probably affected his ability to find work as well.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. Pot allegedly has bad effects on people predisposed to schizophrenia, and that

is used as an argument for its continued criminality.

Can you imagine if, say, Deadheads were implicated in an international conspiracy to cover up child abuse, as the Catholic Church is?

All I'm saying is, if we're going to demonize and outlaw things that alter people's minds, lets start with the oldest and the biggest.

[MADem]

31. Well, I think the trend is towards decriminalization of pot.

It's a slow trend, glacial in some areas, but it's there.

The Catholic Church can't be blamed for this guy's behavior. They can be blamed for plenty, but not this. If it wasn't one thing with this guy, it would be another. The balance of his mind is disturbed, the poor guy is living in an alternate universe, and it's likely not a happy place for him.

[LeftishBrit]

39. I would agree with you here.

Very sadly, there are people who hear voices that tell them to mutilate themselves, as part of a psychiatric disorder.

I am neither a religious believer, nor a fan of the Catholic Church as an organization especially in its current form; but I don't think one can blame it for this poor man's actions.

[ret5hd]

41. Except, as pointed out above, this is EXACTLY what his religion required him to do...

to escape the fires of hell.

[MADem]

48. Poor guy was hearing voices, and he was probably the only one in the

church who actually listened to the reading from the Gospel according to Matthew...in an attempt to drown them out.

Everyone else was catching five zzzzz's.

The guy was surely unmedicated and suffering severe mental illness. Probably why he couldn't find work, either, despite science degrees and multi-lingual abilities.

[backscatter712]

43. Yeah, I agree. This man is mentally ill. n/t

[cleanhippie]

54. Where does one draw that line of distinction?

Sure, we can nearly all agree that this is mental illness, but where does religious devotion stop and mental illness begin?

[Dreamer Tatum]

21. Better that than crashing airplanes into buildings.

But hey, that's just me.

[Warpy]

23. Too bad his family didn't haul him in to a shrink instead of a church

The right medication can shut those voices up.

[Deep13]

33. +1 nt

[Warren DeMontague]

24. So can we finally admit that religion is as dangerous as, say, PCP?

:shrug:

[thelordofhell]

28. He was a Dallas Cowboys fan listening to the last part of the game

[RagAss]

30. LOL !....This thread is over !!!!!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[darkstar3]

32. He is a clearly disturbed individual, as others have noted.

Now here's my question: Would we ever have criticized him, heard about him, cared about him, if those voices had told him to dedicate his life to church bake sales?

[ButterflyBlood]

35. That'd be a little less harmful I'd say

nt

[darkstar3]

36. True, but also less categorized as mental illness.

If the voices say to do something bad, then it is always "obvious mental illness," but if the voices say to do something arguably good, what is it then?

[LeftishBrit]

40. Interesting point

It's probably not what you mean, but many people think that there's a spectrum between complete 'normality' and psychosis; and many people with no psychotic disorder have had experiences that could be regarded as symptoms of psychosis if more persistent and serious. One common example is hallucinations during an acute physical illness with very high fever. But many people have had strange ideas, perceptions, or a conviction that they heard someone speaking to them, under other circumstances.

So there may very well be 'harmless' hearing of voices that does not turn into a major disorder. And certainly 'Bake a cake for tea today' is a lot better than 'Tear your eyes out'.

One theory about 'hearing voices' is that what is heard is the subvocal speech that we all use to keep information in mind. People with schizophrenia may differ from others not so much in hearing the voices, as in failing to recognize that this is basically hearing themselves talk to themselves, and does not come from outside. And variations in *content* of the 'voices' may obviously also be a crucial indicator of level of mental health. A person who thinks they hear (their own, in fact) voices telling them 'Bake a cake' or 'Remember to put your key back in your purse' is likely to function better than the one who thinks they hear voices that say 'Don't go out today, people are plotting against you' or 'Pour all the milk away, someone is trying to poison you', and both will function better than the one whose 'voices' say 'Tear your eyes out' or 'Stab your wife, she's the devil'. The first may function essentially normally and just be considered slightly eccentric; the second may need more help, supervision, and perhaps medication; and the third is in the grip of a medical emergency,

[darkstar3]

52. You did miss my point. Still, it fits.

You see, while I was making a point specifically with regard to religion, your post shows that we as a culture are only interested in treating mental illness if such an illness causes negative or self-destructive effects. In fact, one viewing of the DSM will show you that doctors aren't even interested in diagnosing people with any kind of mental illness unless the symptoms they are experiencing have negative effects.

To me, this is a problem, not only because it is possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons, but also because it could lead to a clearly disturbed individual going untreated until they actually do something destructive, like tear out their own eyes.

[LeftishBrit]

55. Yes, I can certainly see the problem...

but it can be a dilemma either way. On the one hand, you don't want to miss someone's problems until they tear out their eyes, or go on a shooting rampage. On the other hand, there is also a danger in our conformist society of treating any eccentricity as pathological. If an unusual characteristic is not actually causing suffering to the individual or their associates, is it really necessary to treat it? The same issue can arise in matters of physical health: overtreatment of conditions, that are not actually causing a problem, can do more harm than good, but sometimes lack of treatment can allow a condition to progress to a dangerous level, and you can't always predict whether or when it will.

My interest in the thread topic comes more from the point of view of psychology than theology; hence no doubt our differences in focus.

[trotsky]

38. You and I both know that if you hear voices that tell you to do good things,

it's normal and admirable and a sign of god's certain existence, and certainly of religion's overwhelmingly positive role in society.

If you hear voices telling you to do bad things, it's mental illness and religion (and its teachings about uncritically accepting things without evidence) has absolutely no factor in it whatsoever.

[darkstar3]

53. The real question is, what if it's only one voice?

;)

[Silent3]

34. You've gotta learn to just say no...

...to the voices in your head when they start going on about crazy shit like that.

[deacon_sephiroth]

37. hallelujah! It's a miracle!

SUPER HUMAN STRENGTH???? Well there's only ONE force in this universe with the power to give a man SUPER HUMAN STRENGTH and that is the super human holy ghost OH YEAH!!! This man was not insane, how dare you say such a thing, this man was in the throws of a mighty religious ferver, the voice he heard was JESUS, his actions RIGHTEOUS! His faith and conviction were being TESTED BY GOD, this sort of thing happens ALL THE TIME and few answer the call with the rigth sutff, but this man's the real deal, not like the other PANSIES that walked out just because some guys is ripping his eyes out in the seat next to em. They're all show and no go and they'll certainly end up in HELL! Let us pray and if the mighty holy ghost comes unto me, let his voice be heard through mine in the ancient unknowable tongues! asdfhpqwohefouwghpw3894huhwev9p8q3hp49fhqpiubcpqiu34hc93 8n4 g932g74tcn90134nc03 490 g304 gt3029 4tg23089230 9n9328h4t 0932 gh32gh 3904 gh3 g3 g9023h g9389g h983hg092 3hgiuh gpaioh g89q3 3h4hv 4voiwuehgp wehl werhgo8yqp 39ygpqwohie;

[WildEyedLiberal]

42. Yes, this has everything to do with religion and nothing to do with mental illness

:sarcasm:

This guy was just devout... not schizophrenic or severely disturbed. Um, right.

What a completely dishonest and foolish thread, and so many allegedly "logical" atheists and nonbelievers are buying into this crap whole hog. :eyes:

[MADem]

49. It is quite possible that if he'd been at a Hank Williams JR, concert,

he would have been convinced that he was completely, totally "ready for some football" and run around tackling anyone who looked, even in the slightest, like a "Rowdy Friend" --he just happened to be in a church when his circuit board shorted out but good.

[struggle4progress]

45. Viareggio, si strappa gli occhi in chiesa: «Me l'ha detto una voce, ora mi curate?»

... The man had been under treatment for a long time for mental problems but had decided himself not to take the prescribed medications. He was seen privately by a psychiatrist and had regular checks in the local health clinics. He was born in England but has lived in Viareggio with his elderly mother ... Surgeons sutured wounds after the man was admitted in the department of psychiatry ...
http://www.ilmessaggero.it/articolo.php?id=165046

[Deep13]

50. Was it Oedipus?

No? How 'bout King Lear?