Why do Intelligent People Still Believe in Religion? 35: Overcoming Hadephobia | GinaConspiracy
Phobias are a tricky thing to overcome There are several different problems that go into them
These phobias have become an integral part of your identity, changing your identity makes one nervous and uncomfortable Just like in paradigm shifts you memories will then have to rewrite themselves to include this new mindset and create a new identity After your phobia goes into extinction you will be a different person and you will have to be prepared and ok with that Many people are stuck on their idea of their identity so much that they can never move on and better themselves With the advice in this video please keep in mind, I am not a psychologist and I have no credentials or experience in professional counseling
However from the readings I have done there are 3 major methods and a few alternative and experimental methods accepted by the psychological community After talking to several people with strong hadephobia after deconversiion, I have noticed the pattern that all of them also have other phobias or anxieties, and just like myself they attempt to move from the super passiveness they have held all of their lives and many times have to spend a period of time being passive aggressive as I was in in my video “Passiveness and deconversion 4” For these people I seriously recommend professional therapy and overcoming hadephobia will be easier once you learn how to overcome your other phobias and anxieties My therapist in the navy was oddly a nun who was pretty awesome and liberal She helped tremendously in moving me towards a much healthier mindset overall so overcoming hadephobia was a lot easier once I figured out the mechanisms for myself
The first one I will brush over because I don't want to do advertising for phamacueticals are prescription drugs If you go to therapy they can be highly useful but I am not a psychiatrist so I can't help you in that area The next part is counseling Being taught new ideas to look at your reality, and just having someone acknowledge that your fear although illogical do not make you a wuss or crazy can really help The final part is desensitization
This requires you to, in a controlled manner, face your fears When you have control over your situtation, that really helps you I have talked to a few teens with hadepbhobia on this channel, and several were trying to use blasphemy as a way to overcome their fears and it wasn't working that well because they still had that gut instinct In familiar surroundings where the emotional links were first made that's like someone with a fear of rats covering themselves with rats This form of desensitization is called flooding
It can work with say a fear of dogs, if one is locked under controlled conditions in with a friendly dog, one can get over the fear of the dog because nothing happens except for slobbers Of course this might create a phobia of saliva especially if they have a germ phobia already If you are away from the surrounding you originally gained hadephobia, this situation might help If you are stuck in the same surroundings especially as a teen at home with your religious family this might do the opposite The effect of blasphemy is not at all instantaineous
So all you have is familiar surroundings reminding you that hell awaits you for doing that The little Albert case I discussed in the last video involved first the child in the same room, with the rat without the loud noise At first the child cried but over time the rat could get closer and closer to the child without a fear response At the extinction point Albert could even hold and pet the rat This is called systematic desensitization
Just like the way I tackled my irrational judgmental response the someone discussing their homosexuality, the same can be done with any other irrational religious phobias or responses Anytime you get an emotional response to any free thought you have, not blasphemy, just thinking about doubt or heaven, keep at your command all the logical rational arguments you have to not believe in it After enough times I have no way of saying how many, your emotional reactions will desensitize, allowing you to think freely without fear The first step used in treatment for phobias is to teach the patient relaxation techniques On of the first things a phobic person will do when confronted by a phobia of seize up and get excited or panic, the sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive
Usually these people are not capable of really relaxing in non-stressful situations so when they face a fear they certainly don't know how to relax then When one learns to relax in non-stressful situations, they can stop the fear reaction from happening by forcing themselves to relax and think rationally around they fear The next setup is to rate your anxiety level for each phobia you have say on a scale of 1-10 or 1 to 100 You rate 100 as the most fearful you've ever been 0 is the most peaceful you've ever been
This allows you to focus on the amount of fear that you have and rate progress as you go along On top of this you can rate how afraid you are right then and make yourself aware that you need to stop and relax before you go forward otherwise you will go to far and feel too much fear to calm down The next stage in to build a anxiety hierarchy, or in the case of non-hadephobes, judgmental hierarchy as well can work to I'm sure there are judgments I still have that I haven't realized I need to overcome, but i've taken on the hierarchy piece meal Many times in the case of hadephobia, one can analyze triggers and levels of of fear created by doing certain actions or thinking certain thoughts
What one can do is focus on the areas that cause some but not a lot of fear and you can desensitize yourself to those fears with may reduce some of the greater fears to a manageable level The last step involves using relaxation and imagining a member of the hierarchy, then use relaxation techniques while focusing on them Focus on the fear for 10 seconds then go back to relaxation Repeat these steps starting out slow and working your way up to all of your fears This method links your fears with relaxation instead of anxiety
These are the steps used by psychologists for your average phobia The other treatments I've looked at that are alternatives are generally used for PTSD patients, so if you continue to wake up screaming in the middle of the night thinking about you because you have a Nam style flashback please seek professional help One last point to make about this is how to cure hadephobia in other people Or even the fear of doubt, evolution, atheism or even the fear of secularism I know people who will literally turn their opinion of you on a dime the moment they find out you are an atheist
Secularism tastes like bitter poison in the mouths of many even though it is wonderful for Christians in nations where they are the minority The red scare created a secondary fear of atheists and anyone who doubts god It has been shown that if you explain evolution without using the word evolution, people tend to accept it, as it makes complete sense, but as soon as you use the word evolution, they close their minds off in fear They fear the breakdown of their society, crime rate rising and not being patriotic enough Questioning Jesus means you hate America which of course leads to baby eating
So how do we fix hadephobia in the in our areas? Many “new” atheists try to use to flooding mechanism as a form of desensitization As stated above this can be useful in certain circumstances In other circumstances it can actually do more harm than good In Indiana we have recently had a billboard campaign Through the center for inquiry raising secular awareness We had a few people show up to the center in the last few weeks because of the sign
P Z Meyers actually criticized the billboard because it wasn't in your face and controversial enough In midwest indiana, change bad and jesus good Just raising awareness about secularism and that doubt is ok in this region is a major assault on people's beliefs This IS flooding to many people The bile and hatred we have received just from this is fairly powerful as people just want to make it stop The fear of what Jerry Fallwell preached about gods wrath on the nation or state if we allow secularism to exist in our state is burned into their brains
On the coasts the number of people offended by the Christmas “Its a myth you know?” Billboard was probably lower than our billboard here Whether you take the passive atheist approach or the Hitchens style “new” atheist approach should depend entirely on location, the person and the situtation If you don't access the situtation correctly you could do more have than good The best advice for people who don't feel they can make this assessment yet should follow the advice of my friend at the center “I'm not a scientist and I'm not a philosopher
The best I can do is not be a dick, treat people well and show people what a secular humanist can do without god
Source: Youtube
Leave a Comment