Bad Is Stronger than Good

Introduction

In this physical realm, we can seem to sense the entropy all around us dragging us down, holding us back, and moving us inexorably towards old age and death.  Ironically, there could have been NO entropy without an initial massive infusion of Syntropy somewhere, sometime, at the beginning of physical matter and/or at the beginning of this physical universe.  Entropy couldn’t exist without its opposite, Syntropy.  So, where’s the Syntropy?  Obviously, Syntropy must exist; but, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of it here in this physical realm.  So, where is it?  And, why doesn’t this physical universe seem to have any Syntropy that we can draw upon and use to renew ourselves?  Why does there seem to be only entropy in this physical universe?  Where did all the Syntropy go?

The following rings true to me, because I have lived it and experienced it in my own life:

Bad Is Stronger than Good

Dissimilar attitudes, we have noted, turn us off to others more than similar attitudes turn us on.  And others’ criticism captures our attention and affects our emotions more than does their praise.  In everyday life, bad events have stronger and more lasting consequences than comparable good events.

 Destructive acts harm close relationships more than constructive acts build them.  Bad moods affect our thinking and memory more than do good moods.  There are more words for negative than positive emotions.

Single bad events (traumas) have more lasting effects than single very good events.  Routine bad events receive more attention and trigger more rumination than do routine good events.  Losing money upsets people more than gaining the same amount of money makes them happy.

Very bad family environments override the genetic influence on intelligence more than do the very good family environments.  Bad parents can make their genetically bright children less intelligent.

A bad reputation is easier to acquire, and harder to shed, than a good one.  Poor health decreases happiness more than good health increases it.  (Social Psychology, p. 416.)

See also:

Bad Is Stronger than Good

http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71516.pdf

https://syntropy.site/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Bad-Is-Stronger-than-Good.pdf

In this physical realm, entropy seems to be much stronger than Syntropy.  It seems as if it were designed to be that way.  “Designed by whom?” I’d like to ask.  The natural man seems to reign supreme.  In this physical realm we seem to be constantly fighting against entropy.  We try to get out, but they just keep dragging us back in.  The bad or the entropy seems to be much stronger than the good or the Syntropy.  It’s infinitely easier to destroy than it is to design, build, make, and create.  The new doesn’t look new and doesn’t stay new for long.  Entropy seems to dominate syntropy.  The bad seems to dominate the good.

It seems to be much easier to hate than it is to love.  It’s much easier to criticize than it is to praise.  Entropy happens naturally, whereas we actually have to work at it if we want to achieve some sort of Syntropy, Structure, and Order.  Entropy happens automatically, whereas Syntropy, Friendship, Kindness, Mercy, or Love actually have to be chosen into existence by the Human Psyche.   What an interesting social phenomenon to experience and observe!

The Incidents and My Experiences

All throughout my life, frustration, anger, mistrust, disgust, and hatred came much easier to me and for me than confidence, peace, trust, faith, pleasure, joy, happiness, and love.  It was always easier for me to doubt than it was to trust.  I was born with trust issues.  I’ve been an agnostic skeptic, critic, and doubter for most of my life – for over fifty years of my life.  Sometimes I would start to swing the other way; but, I always found a way to put a stop to it.

Skepticism, doubt, anger, hatred, and mistrust put a heavy burden on your relationships.  I wasn’t a pleasant person to be married to, let me tell you.  I wouldn’t have wanted to be married to me.  Hatred feeds and breeds hatred.

My wife and I were separated for seven years while I worked through my issues.  She lived upstairs with the family, and I lived alone in the basement.

Reconciliation required that I learn how to forgive and learn how to see my wife in the way that God sees her.  It wasn’t easy for me to do, because it didn’t come naturally to me.  I had to learn to trust God, which is very difficult to do if you hate God and hate your life.  I was a Materialist, Naturalist, Nihilist, and Atheist at the time, so I had a bit of changing to do.  It’s extremely difficult for us to learn how to trust God.  It doesn’t come naturally for most of us.

My Observations and Conclusions

Six years ago, I was a Materialist, Naturalist, Nihilist, and Atheist.  I didn’t know what those other things were at the time; but, I knew what Atheism is.  I knew something that nobody else seemed to know.  I knew that God does not exist; and at the time, I desperately wanted it to be true.

I always believed that skepticism and doubt were the superior point of view – the more open-minded point of view.  Boy, was I wrong!  But, I didn’t know it at the time, because I had never experienced faith, trust, joy, peace, and love within myself or towards others.  We only know what we have lived and experienced for ourselves.  Knowledge is a function and a product of the Human Psyche, and it only knows what it has lived, experienced, and observed – unless it chooses to trust someone who has lived and experienced the things that it personally has not lived and experienced yet.

Fascinating, is it not?

Well, I think it is, because I have now lived it and experienced it on both sides of the fence, which I never thought would ever happen for me.  I thought that I would always be agnostic and would always be a skeptic, doubter, and critic.  I didn’t ever expect to experience a spiritual rebirth, but I have.

Go figure!

But, that seems to be what my life has been all about – an attempt to overcome my mistrust, my hatred, my anger, my depression, my nihilism, my frustration, my cynicism, my doubt, and my skepticism; and now in some small part, I have.

The grass really is greener on the other side of the fence; but, I didn’t know that while I was a Materialist, Naturalist, Nihilist, and Atheist.  It has to be experienced in order to be believed.

Simple Truths about Psychiatry

I have gotten more value and more simple truth from Peter Breggin M.D. about Psychiatry and Practical Psychology in two or three hours than I have gotten from two or three years of BYU professors of psychology teaching me the Evolutionary Perspective, Materialism, Naturalism, Behaviorism, and Darwinism.

Dr. Breggin is a Psychiatrist who refuses to prescribe drugs.  Go figure!  He does Relationship Therapy with his clients and heals their mental illnesses without the drugs, by healing and fixing their relationships.  I call it Friendship Therapy, but it’s Social Psychology at its best; and, it’s what healed me from the substance-induced psychosis and mental illnesses that my medical doctors and psychiatrists gave to me.  I have experienced most everything that Dr. Breggin talks about in these videos – on both sides of the fence; and, I can testify from firsthand experience that he is telling us the truth.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdo601sRKNc70BA5MV51kS-Mr6ypsvd1F

In his videos, Dr. Breggin talks about all the harmful effects of the different psychoactive drugs such as Valium, Xanax, Seroquel, Risperidone, Prozac, Soma, Ambien, Halcyon, Lunesta – all of which they had me on and had me cycling through at the same time (2010-2012), along with a bunch of others such as Trazadone, Melatonin, and Buspirone.  The withdrawal was hell; and, he talks about that too.

Dr. Breggin does an excellent job falsifying Materialism, Naturalism, Psychiatry, or Pharmacology.  Now, if there were only some way that I could repay the favor and help him falsify his Evolutionary Perspective or Darwinism, then his education would be complete or perfect, in my humble opinion.

So, how does Dr. Breggin treat and cure his clients of suicidal ideation, schizophrenia, depression, psychosis, hallucinations, delusions, ADHD, and a bunch of other little nasties without giving them drugs?  He uses friendship, charity, kindness, respect, and LOVE to cure the schizophrenics and psychotics.  He uses hope to cure those who are depressed.  He helps to heal their relationships, and he gives them a reason to live.  He gets them off the drugs, which are causing their brain imbalances and mental illnesses.  It sounds like ministering to me.  It sounds like faith, hope, and charity.  That’s precisely what the Christians (Mormons), that I started associating with during my withdrawal in 2012, did for me to help treat me and cure me of my Schizophrenia, Psychosis, Delusions, OCD, Insomnia, Suicidal Ideation, Paranoia, Anxiety, and Depression.  It was their friendship, kindness, respect, and love that won me over and made me want to live again.

In contrast, it was the dozen different drugs that the psychiatrists were giving me that were causing these different mental illnesses, because ALL the “mental illnesses” went away after I got off the drugs and got sober.  Valium and Xanax are more addictive than heroin; and, I spent time on both of them.  I was a zombie, one of the living dead; yet, on the inside, I was terrified and in excruciating pain.  It was hell.

The drugs caused my mental illnesses and destroyed my relationships.  I had no social support from my family and lived alone in the basement when I was a junkie, staring at the wall all day and the ceiling all night.  It’s called substance-induced psychosis.  Benzos produced years of insomnia; and, the whole thing was followed by six months of withdrawal symptoms – paranoia, psychosis, delusions, hallucinations, insomnia – when I went cold turkey.  And, it was friendship, kindness, and love from society, a therapist, and the local Christians which got me through the six months of hellish withdrawal to sobriety.  The contrast couldn’t be more extreme.  Drugs kill.  Relationships cure.  Drugs are entropy.  Relationships are Syntropy.

These Christians (Mormons) became my friends.  They and their friendship, kindness, and love gave me Faith, Hope, Charity, something to look forward to, and a reason to live – to replace the deep dark black hole of fear, nihilation, numbness, and apathy that the different drugs had carved into me.  The very things that Dr. Breggin does to treat and cure his patients is the very same thing that was done for me to treat and cure my nearly endless list of diagnosed mental illnesses.  Dr. Breggin is spot on, all the way!  The Mormons that I associate with call it “Ministering”; and, it really works.  It treats and cures mental illnesses; whereas, the drugs that the Materialists, Naturalists, Behaviorists, Atheists, and Psychiatrists give us actually cause a whole host of new mental illnesses that we never had before.

In the 19^th century, they called it Moral Therapy or Moral Treatment – the very pinnacle of Social Psychology in the world to date – a practice that was banned by the psychiatrists and drug companies, and then replaced by their drugs instead.  The drugs are entropy.  They accelerate our death.  Relationships or friendships are Syntropy.

When it comes to psychotherapy and psychology, we have actually retrogressed and gone backwards towards the dark ages, ever since we handed “psychotherapy” and “psychology” over to the Materialists, Naturalists, Darwinists, Atheists, Pharmacologists, and Psychiatrists who started pushing their drugs on us as a replacement for psychotherapy, friendship therapy, relationship therapy, psyche therapy, social psychology, and the Atonement of Christ.  For psychotherapy, we transitioned from Syntropy over to entropy.  These people switched from treating the psyche or the soul over to trying to treat the brain; and, the whole enterprise has gone downhill ever since.  We are not our brain.  Our brain is going to die and cease to exist, but our Human Psyche will go on.  Shutting down the brain or drugging down the brain is not going to do any kind of psyche therapy.  It’s only going to give people additional mental illnesses or brain damage that they are going to have to work through and overcome.

The typical psychiatrist will give you a dozen NEW mental illnesses in an attempt to treat what he thinks is a mental illness.  It’s criminal.  It’s insane.  It almost cost me my life.

Think about it!  Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Pharmacology, and Psychiatry are based exclusively on entropy.  As a society, we actually turned psyche therapy over to entropy.  Death and extinction are the result of entropy.  As a society, we have completely eliminated the Syntropy from psyche therapy.  Syntropy is order, structure, sanity, sobriety, life, and love.  Relationships produce Syntropy.  The different types of Syntropy are chosen into existence by the Human Psyche.  In contrast, the drugs can only do entropy, death, disease, and extinction.  Entropy is tied to physical matter – Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, Pharmacology, Classical Physics, and Psychiatry.  Syntropy is tied to the Human Psyche and is fed by relationships, friendship, kindness, charity, hope, faith, mercy, grace, and love.  Syntropy is based upon Quantum Mechanics.  Syntropy is the Atonement of Christ.  Syntropy is eternal and everlasting, without a beginning of days or an end of years.

Breggin’s Relationship Therapy, or Moral Therapy, or the Mormon’s Ministering Program, or the Atonement of Christ, or what I call Friendship Therapy is the treatment and the cure for mental illness; and, it doesn’t require any drugs to get the job done.  There’s NO love or friendship to be found within a drug; and therefore, there is NO psyche therapy to be found in a drug either.  Syntropy is based upon friendship, mercy, grace, kindness, charity, and love, which means that Syntropy or Order or Love is chosen into existence by the Human Psyche and all those other psyches.  Psyche Therapy is Syntropy.  Relationships produce Syntropy.  You don’t get any of that from a drug, or from sitting and staring at the wall all day.

Simple truths about psychiatry!

Social Psychology, Friendship Therapy, Relationship Therapy, Psyche Therapy, Ministering, Moral Therapy, Faith, Hope, Charity, Syntropy, or the Atonement of Christ is infinitely superior to psychiatry, drugs, and entropy; and, the effects of Syntropy or Relationships will continue to last and be remembered long after your physical brain is dead and gone.  Simple truth!  What more could you ask for?

Reference

Myers, D. G. (2010). Social Psychology (10th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.