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So I've been reading about islamist radicalisation methods and how seemingly average individuals can forsake all reason in order to follow a doctrine of some kind.
There were some interesting parallels between their life in constant fear, strict upbringing and the process of developing a complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
Initially I thought my intuition was misleading me as I was reading about PTSD, but then I found a more systematic disorder or C-PTSD which not only mentions religious practitioners as likely victims, it outlines the crucial contributing factors that I was already noticing in radical life accounts such as living in fear, dependence, war, manipulation and indoctrination.
The way I see it, Islamic religion likely does have a structure of practice, family life, social orientation and worldview which increases the potential for feelings of oppression, enmity, strife, cause, division, fear, submission, etc. to arise. It doesn't happen in every family, but a traditional Muslim religious upbringing creates vulnerable people, who over time are more likely to develop C-PTSD as compared to other religions or non-religious people.
Muslim people are more easily influenced and more likely to break under pressure, what further fuels this chain are their isolation and cultural differences with the rest of the world, as well as relative proximity of their habitats to areas of conflict and larger than average resource scarcity.
Life in constant fear or dependence restructures the brain, some studies show the shrinking of hippocampus relation to fear and religious experiences. Religion is linked with the brain's emotional processing and reward systems, furthermore overzealous practitioners are often diagnosed with psychosis, mania, OCD and other disorders.
My theory is that there's something fundamentally wrong about how Islam and many if not all religions are practiced and passed to younger generations, that leaves its participants vulnerable and likely to develop C-PTSD or live in a polarised, stressful environment with conscious enmity, inadequacy, adversity that make it much more likely for such people to radicalise, go crazy or develop apathy, chemical, emotional or social dependency on the radical sect agents and the more common C-PTSD conditions, as well as lose their ability to adapt to new situations, process emotions or cooperate with other human beings.
The age the religion is introduced to children seems far too young and intended to outstrip their natural capacity to create their own associations or perspective.
There are multiple causes of this and I may investigate further to provide a list of some kind, so far 'fundamentally wrong' is the invitation to disprove or elucidate on this assertion.
edit: The idea touches on more dimensions than psychology and neurosciences, it is a macro problem for social sciences, mathematics and many other fields.
If you agree or disagree, please tell me why.
There were some interesting parallels between their life in constant fear, strict upbringing and the process of developing a complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
Initially I thought my intuition was misleading me as I was reading about PTSD, but then I found a more systematic disorder or C-PTSD which not only mentions religious practitioners as likely victims, it outlines the crucial contributing factors that I was already noticing in radical life accounts such as living in fear, dependence, war, manipulation and indoctrination.
The way I see it, Islamic religion likely does have a structure of practice, family life, social orientation and worldview which increases the potential for feelings of oppression, enmity, strife, cause, division, fear, submission, etc. to arise. It doesn't happen in every family, but a traditional Muslim religious upbringing creates vulnerable people, who over time are more likely to develop C-PTSD as compared to other religions or non-religious people.
Muslim people are more easily influenced and more likely to break under pressure, what further fuels this chain are their isolation and cultural differences with the rest of the world, as well as relative proximity of their habitats to areas of conflict and larger than average resource scarcity.
Life in constant fear or dependence restructures the brain, some studies show the shrinking of hippocampus relation to fear and religious experiences. Religion is linked with the brain's emotional processing and reward systems, furthermore overzealous practitioners are often diagnosed with psychosis, mania, OCD and other disorders.
My theory is that there's something fundamentally wrong about how Islam and many if not all religions are practiced and passed to younger generations, that leaves its participants vulnerable and likely to develop C-PTSD or live in a polarised, stressful environment with conscious enmity, inadequacy, adversity that make it much more likely for such people to radicalise, go crazy or develop apathy, chemical, emotional or social dependency on the radical sect agents and the more common C-PTSD conditions, as well as lose their ability to adapt to new situations, process emotions or cooperate with other human beings.
The age the religion is introduced to children seems far too young and intended to outstrip their natural capacity to create their own associations or perspective.
There are multiple causes of this and I may investigate further to provide a list of some kind, so far 'fundamentally wrong' is the invitation to disprove or elucidate on this assertion.
edit: The idea touches on more dimensions than psychology and neurosciences, it is a macro problem for social sciences, mathematics and many other fields.
If you agree or disagree, please tell me why.
