JR60: The Utoeya Tragedy in Norway

A: Well, big guy, when you're right you're right. On Tuesday (July 19, 2011) you talked honestly but in general terms about the mindset of psychopaths. You talked about a psychopath who props himself up with ideology and believes he's a nice person.

Three days later, on Friday, July 22, 2011, Norwegian police arrested a 32 year old Norwegian man Anders Behring Breivik on charges of setting off a car bomb in Oslo and later mowing down at least 84 young people at a summer camp northwest of Oslo -- on the island of Utoeya. The report I read in Saturday's Globe and Mail ("Death toll reaches 91 in Norway attacks" by Walter Gibbs and Anna Ringstrom (Reuters)) gives some background information about Breivik. Early accounts referred to the gunman's Facebook and Twitter accounts. (Since then, his Facebook page has been blocked.) His Facebook page apparently listed interests in bodybuilding, conservative politics, and freemasonry. He described himself as "a Christian, leaning toward right-wing Christianity." He may also have been a a gun club member.

The real kicker is this: The Reuters account says, "Norwegian media said he had set up a Twitter account a few days ago and posted a single message on July 17 saying: 'One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests.'"

This is a horrible real-life example of exactly what you've been talking about for months now on this site. It's almost exactly word for word what you've been saying. An ideologue -- a psychopath who's got his teeth sunk deep into a Big Idea -- is capable of the most vicious crimes.

Sadness. Photo credit JAT 2014.

J: People from all quadrants, especially the conservative Christian quadrant, will be rushing in to offer their breathless analysis of "what went wrong." They'll speculate and cluck their tongues on the question of why a man who had so much, a man who appeared to be so capable and logical and well-organized, went so badly off the rails. Many people will shrug and say, "It's just life. Humanity's a pile of shit anyway, so who should be surprised?" Pious religious folk, including devout orthodox Christians, will invoke the Devil, as they usually do when they don't want to look at themselves and their own contribution to man-made evils such as the Utoeya tragedy. They'll say, "Satan possessed him and took his soul," and similar bullshit. Not many people will be looking at this man and his ongoing choices and saying, "This man turned himself into a psychopath. On purpose. Because he liked the high of hurting other people." But that's the only appropriate response.

This is the response the angels around me are having to this crisis. God's angels know what this man did this to himself. We forgive him, as we always forgive our brothers-and-sisters-in-temporary-human-form. But we can see this man's brain, and this man's brain is a seriously fucked-up mess. It also happens to be a fucked-up mess is a highly predictable and observable fashion. There's a pattern to his behaviour. A definite, clear, observable pattern. Brain scans would show this pattern. Nobody has to take my word for it. Prove it to yourselves through more research. Please!

A: Don't blame the Devil. Blame the brain.

J: Yes. You have to place the responsibility where it lies: squarely on the brain of this man Breivik. He made the choices and he made the plan. It's his responsibility. Years ago he stopped listening to his own soul. But he's still in charge of the rest of his brain and the rest of his choices, and he's still responsible -- legally and morally responsible -- for his choice to use his logic and planning skills to carry out an intentional crime against humanity. He's not a nice person, and he needs to be held to account during his human lifetime for the suffering he's chosen to create.

A: Is it actually possible for a person who's just mowed down 84 teenagers with a gun to still believe he's a nice person? How could he possibly think that? It's beyond belief! (Note: As of July 30, 2011, the number of dead at Utoeya is reported at 69, with the number of injured at almost 100.)

J: It's beyond belief to you because you're not a psychopath. You have a conscience and a connection to your heart and soul. Brievik has no such connections. He decided years ago to cut them off inside his own brain.

A: But . . . how is that possible? How can a human being actually sever connections inside their own brains? Aren't there fail-safes for that? Aren't there Darwinian imperatives to prevent that from happening?

J: The human brain is an extremely complex series of organs. Way more complex than any other system in the biological body.

A: This month's issue of Scientific American says essentially the same thing on the Forum page. ("A Dearth of New Meds: Drugs to treat neuropsychiatric disorders have become too risky for big pharma" by Kenneth I. Kaitin and Christopher P. Milne, Scientific American, August 2011, p. 16.)

J: I can't emphasize enough the stupidity of treating the human brain as if it's a single organ like the heart, and the insanity of pretending that human beings don't have information from their souls hardwired into their DNA. And when I say "souls" I mean only good souls. I have no time or patience for patently abusive religious doctrines such as original sin. I will not tolerate any Christian saying to me, "Oh, yes, of course we believe in the scientific reality of original sin being hardwired into our human DNA! Why, anybody can see he was born evil!" This is NOT what I mean.

Our man Breivik wasn't born evil. He wasn't born in a state of original sin. His biology has been gradually changed and altered over many years because of conscious choices he's been making. It's taken years for him to become a psychopath. Years. But the signs have been there. The signs of his status addiction and his obsessive compulsive dysfunction are clear from his Facebook page and other reports. He was fixated on bodybuilding, conservative politics, guns, freemasonry, right-wing Christianity, and the Big Idea of "us versus them" (i.e. Dualism). This is a package deal, folks. An observable package, an observable pattern of choices followed by an observable pattern of behaviour. Why would Breivik's soul, his true self, like any of these things? Why would his true loving self enjoy obsessive bodybuilding that damages the physical body over time? Why would his true loving self choose conservative politics that take away the sense of balance in a community between the rights of an individual and the rights of the group? Why would his true loving self think it's fun to shoot other people for the heck of it? Why would his true loving self accept the myths of Hierarchy and Dualism?

Why would he choose any of these things if he were in a state of balance and wholeness? He wouldn't. He just wouldn't do it. It would feel wrong to him. But he can't feel that wrongness because he opted years ago to start listening only to the stupid parts of his own brain -- the parts of the brain that are supposed to help people look after aspects of their human lives that are purely 3D, purely temporary. Necessary but temporary because life on Planet Earth is temporary.

A: In the past you've called these parts of the brain the Darwinian circuit.

J: Yes. There are parts of the brain devoted to human physiological needs and human safety needs. These can be thought of in a general way as the Darwinian circuitry. There are also parts of the brain that specialize in the soul's need for love and belonging, along with the soul's need for self esteem. These latter two parts can be thought of as the Soul circuitry. All these parts have to be working together in order for a person to feel balanced and whole and sane and safe. Self-actualized, as Abraham Maslow called it. All these parts are needed for the experience of faith -- genuine soul-based faith. It should go without saying that our man Breivik has the Big Idea but absolutely no faith. He calls himself a Christian, but he has no faith. All he has is the Big Idea.

A: You talked on Tuesday about score cards. You said a psychopath has a score card inside him instead of a heart.

J: The great dilemma for the psychopath -- the person who's dissociated from his own empathy and his own ability to love and trust -- is how to get through the day. How to fill up all the looooooong, boooooooring hours between waking and sleeping.

A: Seriously?

J: Oh, yeah. Tell a psychopath he has to sit under a tree and be still and quiet for 8 hours and he'll want to pull his hair out.

A: Really? I could sit under a tree for 8 hours and have a wonderful time.

J: Yes, but you don't feel empty inside. You don't feel purposeless and hopeless and restless and bored all the time.

A: Sometimes I feel restless.

J: How often?

A: I don't know. Maybe a couple of times each week.

J: A psychopath feels like this all the time. He lives constantly for the next brief high, the next brief hit of status or cocaine or sex. It's all he's got to get him through the day. There's only such much cocaine he can do each day, only so many times he can get an erection each day. So the mainstay for him is status points. He'll do anything to get status points for his internal scorecard. He'll keep his cell phone on 24 hours each day so he can get a "hit" from the fact that he's needed by somebody at 4:00 in the morning. He'll check his Facebook status 20 or 30 times each day. He'll play computer or video games that rack up big points. He'll gamble. He'll gossip. He'll focus fanatically on professional sports. Or, if he goes in a religious direction instead of a secular direction to find his daily supply of status points, he'll become a man of the Book. A pious, obedient follower of the Law. An obsessive compulsive religious devotee.

A: But not a nice person. Not a person of empathy and patience and humbleness.

J: He has to choose between being an addict and being a nice person. He can't be both at the same time.

A: Yet he's certain he can be. He's certain he's a nice person who's not an addict.

J: What's the greatest obstacle to healing for those who suffer from addiction?

A: Denial.

J: Our Norwegian man, Mr. Breivik, is in a serious state of denial about his addiction to status. He'll have no chance of recovery as a human being until somebody is honest with him about the nature of his addiction. Unfortunately for him, the doctrines of orthodox Christianity will only excuse his behaviour rather than force him to confront it. Pauline Christianity is, in essence, an anti-Twelve-Step Program.

This isn't exactly the sort of helpful Church teaching God's angels have in mind.

JR30: Foxes Have Holes, Canadians Have Gloves

A: I'd like to go back to some concepts we were discussing a few weeks ago about the soul. (http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/03/saying-67-in-gospel-of-thomas.html). At that time, you stated that souls aren't malleable. Yet you've also said that the soul is hardwired into human DNA, and elsewhere we've talked about the reality of neuroplasticity -- the ability of the brain to grow new brain cells. These three concepts seem to contradict each other. Can you explain?
J: It's not that hard, really. I'm going to use the analogy of a hand in a glove.

A: Okay.
 
J: The core aspect of a person that's eternal -- the soul -- can be likened to "the hand" in our analogy. Once you reach adolescence, your hand reaches its adult size and stops growing. It's yours for life. Everything about your hand is shaped by your DNA --the size, shape, flexibility, skin pigmentation, fingernail growth, and, of course, your unique set of fingerprints. (For those born without hands, the same principle would apply, though obviously the analogy would pertain to a different portion of the biological body). The characteristics of the hand are not malleable. You don't have a small-sized hand one day and an extra-large hand the next day. You don't have a pianist's hands one day and a mechanic's hands the next. Even the fine details, such as your fingerprints, don't change. You have the hand your DNA says you're supposed to have, and that's it. You can't change the overall form or function. The form and function of your hand are pretty much "carved in stone."

A: Except if you can afford plastic surgery.

“Jesus said: Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay down his head and rest” (Gospel of Thomas 86). February Snow, photo credit JAT 2015.

J: That's a surgical intervention intended to override your DNA. For the purposes of our example, we'll stick to a more basic example -- a person who lives in Canada and needs to wear a glove in the winter because it's cold.
 
A: Hey, count me in. I carry my gloves in my coat pocket from October till April. Just in case it suddenly gets cold.
 
J: The soul is like the hand of the hardy adult Canadian in our analogy. Its overall form and function are fixed. And there's nothing wrong with this. In fact, it's very helpful. Can you imagine how confusing life would be if your hand were very small on Monday and very large on Tuesday? How could you get anything done or decide what tools you need? How could you make long term plans? How could you decide on a career, a hobby, or a hands-on pursuit? You'd be in a constant state of anxiety because of the lack of certainty. It's good to be flexible and creative, but you can only afford to be flexible and creative if some things in life are certain. Like the size of your hand.
 
A: And the shape of your soul.
 
J: Exactly. The shape of your soul is fixed. Knowing this can give you great courage, great strength. Knowing who you are as a soul gives you the courage to say "yes" to the things you ought to be doing and "no" to the things you ought not to be doing. It helps you avoid the years of pain and frustration you feel when you're in the wrong job or the wrong location or the wrong relationship. The job you have may be a perfectly wonderful job from a logical point of view, but if it's not the right job for you as a soul, you'll get stressed out, and then you'll get sick, angry, depressed. If you believe you are a soul, and if you believe your soul has a unique blueprint, you have a terrific foundation of certainty and constancy to build your life on.
 
A: And nobody can take it away from you.
 
J: They can't take away your core self, your core blueprint, your soul. These belong solely to you. What they can take away, however, is the biological functioning of the parts of your brain linked to your human physiology. What they can take away is the glove that protects your soul during your human lifetime.
 
A: Explain how the glove works.
 
J: In our analogy of the hand in the glove, the glove represents the parts of your human biology that keep your temporary 3D human body functioning properly. But, like the glove that prevents warm-blooded fingers from freezing in minus 30 degree weather, the glove is essential to the health of the hand it protects. The glove isn't the same substance, if you will, as the hand, but it protects the hand and is absolutely indispensable. After the glove has been worn for a while, it starts to mould itself to the unique shape of the hand it protects. Eventually you can recognize it in a pile of similar gloves because it has a unique combination of bend marks and stains and the like. It takes on the characteristics of its owner's hand because it's malleable.
 
A: You're suggesting, then, that some of the circuitry in the brain and central nervous system is "fixed" -- not malleable -- because it's linked to the soul's blueprint. The rest of the circuits -- the parts that deal with human survival needs -- are not fixed and are instead intended to be malleable. Have I got that straight?
 
J (nodding): The human brain isn't a simple blob of jello where all the parts inside your skull behave exactly alike. The human brain isn't even a single organ -- it's several semi-autonomous organs working together. At least that's the theory. What happens in the case of major dysfunction is that one or more of the "essential services" in the brain goes off-line. Without input from these "essential services," other sectors of the brain don't do their own job as efficiently as possible. They may go into overdrive and try to make up for the loss of the other services by doing more work themselves than they're designed for. Some parts of the brain end up underactive, and other parts end up overactive. These realities are now visible on brain scans.

A: What's the final result of these imbalances?

J: In most cases the final result is a person who's standing outside in bitterly cold weather and wearing a glove that's covered in holes -- big, ragged holes that let the icy wind in and make you want to retract all your fingers into a ball in the end of your coat sleeve. It doesn't work very well.
 
A: So the thing to do is to fix the glove. Mend the holes and put new insulation in.
 
J: Mending the holes is what neuroplasticity is all about. The "essential services" that have gone off-line in the brains of many of today's adults can be gradually healed and restored. Eventually it becomes possible for them to hear what their own inner self has been saying all along. Eventually it becomes possible for them to hear what God has been saying, too.

A: This is a very helpful, hopeful message. It's much easier to begin the journey of healing when you have faith that your inner self is worth the trouble. It's also easier when you have a basic understanding of what it is you're trying to do.
 
J: I can't emphasize enough the connection between insight and healing. The simple experience of achieving insight is not only emotionally and spiritually transformative, but it lays the groundwork for your biological brain (your "glove") to rewire itself in positive, healing, holistic ways. Healing follows insight. Therefore, if you're a tyrant who wants to cripple the people around you so you can acquire fame, money, power, and sex, your most effective strategy is to prevent people from acquiring their own unique healing insights. People can't oppose you and overthrow you if they're busy dealing with all the holes you've put in their heads.
 
A: Holes caused by HDM strategies (http://concinnatechristianity.blogspot.com/2010/11/it-takes-village-non-hdm-village-that.html).
 
J: Yes. Status-based strategies. Plus choices like slavery. Intentional withholding of food and resources to drive up prices, increase poverty, increase fear, and reduce political opposition. Subjugation of women. Refusal to educate children -- either boys or girls or both. Burning of books. Controlling access to information. Lack of judicial transparency. Claims of religious infallibility. These are the strategies of tyrants.
 
A: What you've just described reminds me a lot of Hitler and his SS goons.
 
J: Actually, as I was talking, I was thinking of the religious tyrants of my day. The ones who were oppressing the regular people. Some things haven't changed much in the last 2,000 years.