Psychology Debunked

    One day during a college course titled “Introduction to Psychology” I stumbled across a curious concept while I was being taught about the differences between “concrete and abstract” thought. The teacher made a statement to me that literally made me almost shiver I was so baffled by the completely illogical rambling that was seeming to come forth from this theory. It wasn’t that she was wrong, by any means because it wasn‘t her theory; it was that the theory was completely missing the point.
    The teacher presented the “fact” - which I will address later on why that’s in quotations - that concrete thought patterns always arise first and eventually lead to our ability to think abstractly. She made a statement along these lines, “Concrete thought is the ability for one’s mind to process things that they have come into contact with. Abstract thought is the mind’s ability to now process the abstract concepts of things like our own thinking, God is a concept of abstract thought, and so on.” When she said this I sat back in my chair stared at my paper, and I sank into deep thought.
    Suddenly it dawned on me. If God is an abstract thought, and concrete thinking always precedes abstract thought…why did anyone ever waste their time on developing the concept of God? There would be no need for it, and further more the development of abstract thought would not only be trivial, but actually counter productive. So I spoke up, “If concrete thought always precedes abstract thought doesn’t that mean that someone would have had to ACTUALLY come into contact with a “god” in order to actually process this information?” She stared at me for a second as if it really sank in for a moment, and then she said something very close to, “Well, he shows that there is an absolute process of development in the human mind which begins with concrete thought and then ends with the ability to process abstract thoughts. We learn from our parents, and they learn from their parents and so forth.” Naturally this puzzled me as I mowed it over in my head. I leaned back again then retorted quickly, “So what about the people who were before those people, and the people before those, and before those? Who would have ever felt it necessary to develop the concept of “god” if concrete thinking always precedes abstract thinking?” She then began to quickly recover with a, “Oh well he doesn’t address that in his theory.”
    Wow…I sat back in pure and utter amazement. Why the heck not? This is a foundation for all that we as humans know and understand. This is a key element to almost everything that we believe about ourselves today. If we don’t even understand what we think we understand; how lost are we? This was a travesty to me. I was upset, but nonetheless I realized something must be done about this. This is something that definitely merits some excessive thought.
    For the next several days I had these thoughts racing through my mind. I couldn’t shake them no matter how I tried. About two days later while I was sitting in my Child Psych class the teacher began to delve into how our identities are formed. This is a very fascinating subject with most, if not all of it, being completely subjective.
    She began the class talking about parent-child relationships, and how dramatically important they are when suddenly she said something that I could not ignore. She began to talk about tough love; the “I do this because I love you”, the “This hurts you more than it hurts me” kind of love. It right there and then dawned on me. In Hebrew 12, and yes…this is from the Bible, it states, “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it.” (NIV) Whabam! It hit me like a bolt of lightning as if God himself screamed down to me, “OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE MY PERFECT WONDER!” How can none of us see this? The oldest psychology book of all time is the Bible! Its teachings are over 4,000 years old in some parts, others only a short, minor 2,000 years old, and its truths and teachings are as advanced if not more so than the psychology books we possess today. How unreal is that?
    I was so baffled by all of this it made me literally question everything I had ever learned in life about the way we think, the way we raise our children, everything. So I began to ponder; what if the Bible literally contains everything we need to know about our identity, where we come from, why we think what we do, and so on. You can address everything from the very beginning of psychology, from its very roots, with the Bible.
    To begin, lets lay out the fact that all of my references are going to be based on the information in my psychology book which was approved for use by my college. It’s titled Exploring Psychology: 7th Edition by David G. Meyers. For the sake of not discrediting his knowledge because I’m sure overall he knows more than I do, I just want to state that I don’t disagree with him in many of his concepts or other arguments and theories proposed by his book, only the foundation. Really quickly lets establish a metaphor to give a proper comparison of what my purpose is.
    You have a building. A plain Jane, average building. What is the first thing that you do? You gather the materials, you pick a spot, and then you lay the foundation. How many people begin constructing the building from the sky down over top of a location they have yet to choose? Probably none, unless they are specifically trying to prove that gravity is an irrelevant concept, which we all know it’s not. So you begin with just that, the foundation. If the foundation of a building is broken, or in this case, nonexistent; how can it stand? How can it stand up to any real tests, development, and then especially acceptance?
    So we begin by defining psychology, and then placing exactly what it is they wish to discover in more basic terms since most definitions are a simplified versions of the larger picture. Psychology as defined in Exploring Psychology is “The scientific study of behavior and mental processes” (Meyers pg. 4). That being the definition, lets take a look at what this same book states that actual goal and purpose for developing psychology really was. On page two of Meyer’s book, he begins by talking about why people actually began to pursue a scientific study in the field of what is now modern psychology. He states, “Once upon a time, on a planet in your neighborhood of the universe, there came to be people. Soon thereafter, these creatures became intensely interested in themselves and in one another. They wondered, ‘Who are we? From where come our thoughts? Our feelings? Our actions? And how are we to understand - and to master or manage - those around us?’ Psychology’s answers to these wonderings have developed from international roots in philosophy and biology into a science that aims to observe, describe, and explain how we think, feel, and act. Understanding the roots of today’s psychology helps us appreciate psychologists’ varied perspectives.” Tell me you noticed the word “roots”. Now, for the sake of further affirming my argument, lets also define what roots are exactly in this context.
    Roots in this context are very similar to the word that I used in my metaphor of the building. The term roots in this particular case is the literal equivalent to “foundation”. The definition of roots according to dictionary.com is, “a part of the body of a plant that develops, typically, from the radicle and grows downward into the soil, anchoring the plant and absorbing nutriment and moisture.” The key word in that is anchoring, or a perfect comparison to foundation.
    So if psychology sets out in attempts to explain who we are and where our thoughts come from, don’t we have to start with where we come from? Lets first begin objectively by starting with the concept that God does not exist. If there is no God, where did our thoughts come from? Where did the unexplainable concept of consciousness come from? The unfortunate truth of the matter, at least at this time, is that our consciousness completely and utterly dumfounds our most brilliant minds, our scientists.
    In America few opinions are valued as highly as scientists. If anyone slaps on the title “Ph.D” onto anything, we blindly and stupidly accept it without a second thought…even the more educated of us. This is an unfortunate travesty that we as intelligent beings need to escape. We have been given ample brain power to think on our own, and we have been given the ability to make and discern information presented to us, however, laziness usually trumps our desire for truth.
    So when we analyze the concept of consciousness we find that there is a way to scientifically observe the chemical components of what I will be referring to as a “soul”, however, consciousness would probably be the more preferred scientific term due to an unfortunate predisposition to atheism, which I will address later. The soul in terms of science is all of the processes and chemical components that make up our brain and its functions. Scientists literally have no explanation for this. They do have assertions which are positive or declarative statements made with little or no evidence backing them up, but theirs aren’t backed by any real evidence. Consciousness is such a hot and impossibly difficult subject that my book doesn’t even address its beginnings in any shape or form; it simply acknowledges what the process of it are, and how it functions for us.
    So if science can’t give us a logical picture of what consciousness is, why pursue further knowledge about anything to do with the way, reasons, and degrees to which our thoughts and minds work? I think before people consume themselves with all of the science and the philosophy, they need to sit down and really consider the beginning of their thinking. Why are they even thinking about why they are thinking if they don’t even care about how they came to be in the process of thinking? It’s such a trivial process if you don’t address the main issue; why and how did we even begin to think?
    So science has failed us, up to this point at least, so let us lean on the only other source that we as humans, outside of our own misguided thoughts and polluted concepts which are a collection of all of the knowledge that created our scientific failure,  have…religion.
    Before I delve more into this I recommend reading “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist” by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek because it was the beginning for this dramatic process for me, and I believe it will put all of this into perspective for you. After reading their book I came to the conclusion that Christianity was the only thing in my life that consistently made sense, and I feel that it will also help bring to fruition the intention of this whole work. I truly believe that anyone who reads that book will come to one of only two possible conclusions. They will completely and utterly change their lives forever, or they will walk around knowing there is a God and doing what they used to anyway. I truly don’t believe there are any other potential outcomes.
    Now, lets get back to my point. When science fails you, where do you turn? What else is there left to explain the “unexplainable”? That is where the whole concept of religion kicks into full gear. When the things we can observe through natural processes happen in the natural world, yet can’t be explained by the natural world, that’s when the supernatural begins its triumphant reign.
    I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that many people will sit here and say, “Well, who cares? Someday scientists will be able to explain this scientifically…just look how far we’ve come in the past fifty years.” This I will agree with - they probably will, however, will they ever be able to discover something that not only fits into the concept of God, but that doesn’t strengthen the concept of God? I think not. Every time a scientist discovers something new that absolutely baffles them and startles them to the point of shock, they automatically are conditioned by the world to first be in amazement, and then suddenly throw it into normality. Just because something becomes common knowledge, does that make it any less amazing than it was when it was discovered? How can you look into the mirror, recognize that you’re staring yourself in the face, and not see God? Wonder and awe should be written on all of our faces like a joke tattooed on a popsicle stick.
    I literally want you to right this moment to stop reading this, go look in the mirror, and analyze your entire function - how your eyes actually see everything upside down, then your brain flips it so you can function properly, how a single strand of an amoeba’s DNA, a one celled organism, contains the same amount of information (in terms of strands of letters which leads to the actual ability to function in the cell) as would every single letter from one thousand Encyclopedia Britannica lined down your sidewalk. Have you ever really sat back and processed this? So go, I challenge you to stare yourself in the face in the mirror and mouth these words, “There is no God. I am proof there is no God.” That’s what scientists, and ourselves alike, have the audacity to say to God when they look in the mirror every day of their lives. Can you live with yourself knowing that this is what you say to God every single day that you deny His existence?
    Okay, back to a slightly more positive and less philosophical perspective. We have now established that our roots are the keystone of our life, existence, and literally the driving force and building block under everything we do in life. What is the purpose of living if it’s all for not, right? Sure you better the world around you, but why? For what if there is no underlying purpose?
    This is where, for me, the whole beginning to our roots begins. In the theory of concrete vs. abstract thought we find a pattern in our human development that is completely universal, and never abridged by any culture or creature. We have an established order in which we develop our cognition. First comes concrete thinking which is then always proceeded by abstract thinking. Here in lies the problem.
    By definition, according to medical-dictionary.com, concrete thought is “a stage in the development of the cognitive thought processes in the child. During this phase thought becomes increasingly logical and coherent so that the child is able to classify, sort, order, and organize facts while still being incapable of generalizing or dealing in abstractions. Problem solving is accomplished in a concrete, systematic fashion based on what is perceived, keeping to the literal meaning of words, as in applying the word horse to a particular animal and not to horses in general. In Piaget's classification this stage occurs between 7 and 11 years of age, is preceded by syncretic thinking, and is followed by abstract thinking.” If you notice, in the definition it clearly states that concrete thought always precedes abstract thought.
    Now to really get the ball rolling on this subject, we need to define what abstract thought is. By definition, according again to medical-dictionary.com, abstract thought is “the final, most complex stage in the development of cognitive thinking, in which thought is characterized by adaptability, flexibility, and the use of concepts and generalizations. Problem solving is accomplished by drawing logical conclusions from a set of observations, such as making hypotheses and testing them. This type of thinking is developed by 12 to 15 years of age, usually after some degree of education.” Here we see that the ability to think and process information about things that we have otherwise had no contact with is developed. So now to my overall point.
    If concrete thought always precedes abstract thought, or thoughts about objects and experiences we have actually had physical contact with compared to our thoughts about things we have not actually experienced physical, concrete, experiences with, when or why would concepts like God, gods, and other concepts similar to this ever be worth developing? If humans simply always existed the process of developing concepts like those of God would serve no purpose. They would therefore be completely unimportant. They would have no value whatsoever for our earthly lives.
    This then brings me to my point. Piaget’s theory talks about a process which is universal to the world as we know it, you can’t describe what you haven’t experienced unless you first learn how to describe what you have experienced. If this theory is completely accurate then where in the timeline of human development would there have been a need for people to develop the concept of God? If no one had ever had an up close and personal, if not completely concrete, experience with God, how would they have ever come up with even the basic concept. It would defy the process that we know to be true as it is. While Piaget’s theory is still a theory, it seems to currently be a universal “truth” so to speak. There is a set order in which things appear to develop which experiments can be observed and reproduced.
    So if we defy this “law” so to speak, then we have only two possibilities: one: we have somehow always been able to think abstractly since before we were born, or two: someone, somewhere in our history had an actual encounter with God, walked alongside Him, spoke to Him, lived with Him, regardless of how brief the period may have been. If we put this into perspective we realize that either someone was created with both the ability to think concretely and abstractly, or someone had an actual interaction with God. Which is more believable? We somehow defied the absolute process of development as we know it all on our own steam and will power, or that there was divine intervention which enabled us to now put into concrete terms what we all know to be true? Both of these potential outcomes point directly to the fact that there is a God. Once we establish that through our psychological research and development, we have discovered our roots, our foundation is built, and we can begin to build upwards from there.
    Alright, fantastic our location for our foundation is all set up and we’re ready to go. We have actually properly begun our construction. This should be exciting. We now have our foundation’s location laid out, and now it’s time to see which “blueprints” to use.
    Frank Turek and Norm Geisler convincingly defend the Bible, especially the New Testament’s, authenticity. Here I’m going to try and summarize basically what their overall evidence was, and I again would highly recommend reading about in the book I mentioned previously. They begin by showing mind blowing statistics, which you are more than welcome to research because as Christians, we know we don’t have anything to hide. The burden of proof isn’t on us as many think it is; we have more than ample proof of what we believe, but we always seem to be on the defensive when really our attack is the most powerful of all. I’ll show you a little bit about what I mean.
    In their book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, they lay down the law. Think about any person from history you have ever learned about, read about, seen evidence for, etc. Did you know that if you take the top ten pieces of literature from ancient times, and add all of the supporting documents stating their existence it pales in comparison to the evidence for the New Testament? The New Testament, of the Bible, has at least 15,000 ancient manuscripts to back up the existence of Jesus and the books surrounding His ministry. The next closest article would be Homer’s lliad which has 643 manuscripts that support it’s existence. That should be some pretty dramatic proof right there.
    As if that’s not enough, the gap in time between when the original copies were written and the date of the copies that we actually have obtained is 500 years. Many of the documents regarding the New Testament and the times and works surrounding it are within 100 years, and out of those, many are placed within 30 - 40 years of Jesus death (Geisler and Turek). Comparatively, there should be no question regarding the authenticity of the New Testament. The problem is, people know that if the Bible is true, and all of its guidelines, morals, and truths become real, they are now responsible for their lives which many people don’t like. They would rather spend their time trying to prove them wrong, which usually ends in complete futility, rather than just excepting the truth that is so bluntly placed before them.
    There is ample more evidence regarding eye witness testimony, works that aren’t from Christian background or even more importantly opposing viewpoints, and historically accurate facts, truths, embarrassments, etc. that further back up the authenticity of the New Testament, however, I feel it a bit unnecessary in light of this evidence to write every single one of them down (Geisler and Turek). As I said before, the burden of proof isn’t on us, it’s on the non-believers.
    So now we have established that Christianity is the way to go. We have the location of our foundation, God is the location, and we have our set of blueprints for life, the Christian Bible. We can continue even further in our building process now. Are you excited? Scared? A little troubled? You probably should be, but the beauty, which I will show you at the end of all of this, is that you don’t have to be.
    Okay, now we face the true question: where did we begin, and how? If you look into Genesis 2:7 we find something extremely interesting. It states, “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” If you really sit back and look at this you find something very interesting. First, man was made from the dust of the earth, or more generally made from the particles or elements that make up the earth, which is the basic design of the human body. Secondly, we find that he “breathed into us the breath of life” which demonstrates the concept of a spirit.
    When you scroll back to Genesis 1:26 you find something also fascinating when it says, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” This shows that we are made in the likeness of God. We are made in His direct image, and therefore should be treated as such. The really interesting thing about this is when you get into how the Bible depicts God, it shows Him as the being with an all knowing, all present, all powerful spirit and that likeness dwells in us. I make sure to illuminate the word likeness because we are not equivalents, simply made in the overall image of God. We therefore only have bits and pieces of these qualities which ends on developing the perfect relationship, a need for His love, power, and mercy and also the ability to choose it.
    Time to get back to consciousness. When the Bible talks about our body and the breath of life, it literally is referring to our body, and the likeness of God’s spirit dwelling in us. When we see this concept we can now grasp consciousness. This explanation is as equivalent to any scientific theory we have ever developed. All science has are assertions regarding this concept, so why would any one automatically shoot down what the Bible says unless they simply don’t want to believe in it? The fact of the matter is that the New Testament has been proven to be the most historically accurate collection of documents of all time, period. Regardless of your opinions on historicity, if you really step back and look at it, we have less evidence of George Washington’s existence than we do of Jesus’, and his life was less than 300 years ago. The real reason people argue about Jesus’ life is because if He was real and was who He said He was…we will have some explaining to do.
    For those of you who still doubt whether the Bible or God are really true, Norm Geisler and Frank Turek presented two very interesting points. First, they said, “If you could be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that God existed - would you believe or not? Because if the answer is no, then why even bother looking in the first place? You have already ruled out a possible answer, and your search is therefore flawed.” Secondly, they say, “If you really have so much faith that God isn’t real, jump off a building and test your theory.” Now, of course we don’t actually want you to do this, but simply think it over for a second. Are you really willing to bet your existence on your theory that there is no God?
    Now, here is the good news. Two thousand years ago, there was a man named Jesus, whether you like it or not. All of history backs this fact up. He lived in the exact time frame the New Testament claims, he lived the same life, died the same way. Even other historians starkly opposed to the Christian faith recorded His existence. If He were not a real person, or more bluntly never existed period, why would people who were completely against His teachings and beliefs include Him in their accounts of time?
    Once you establish the fact that He existed it frees you up to now lean back on the previous argument regarding the truth backing the New Testament. If all of the historical events, places, people, times, and accounts have all been proven accurate, it now opens you up to the possibility that what the man said was true. If what He said was true then you have the lucky pleasure of being an heir to His kingdom, God’s glorious kingdom. I think that it’s no small blessing when put into the trivial context of this world. What’s greater: being able to live comfortably in a house with a nice car for seventy years, or being able to walk side by side your creator in a paradise where you get praise Him for all of His glory and infinite love? I’ll have the latter please.
    What’s more, this man Jesus, died under the complete and consuming belief that He was dying for your, your mother’s, your brother’s, your loved one’s, Hitler’s, Mother Theresa’s, and my sake. He took on the complete burden of sin, not only taking on sin, but literally became sin. He took on the absolute and complete burden of rape, murder, lust, adultery, lies, and greed under the belief that He was doing it for you.
    Here lies the million dollar question…If you were standing in a circle with a man that had just brutally beaten, raped, and slaughtered your family and were given the option of either having him shot or taking the bullet so that he may live, what would you do? Regardless of whether you believe that Jesus was the Son of God or not, He was convinced that what He was doing was the equivalent of this choice that you are now being faced with. Not only that, but after being tortured before His crucifixion more severely than any other man had ever been beaten beforehand, after being ridiculed, spit on, struck in the face, head, back, and legs, after being stripped absolutely naked and having his clothes used for gambling as they ridiculed Him some more, after all of this while they were driving rusty nails through his palms and His wrists, He uttered these words, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” Regardless of what you may think of the Man, He was the true and full blown definition of humility, perseverance, and compassion.
    So in conclusion, I beg you to consider all of these things, and not just bury this under some notebook on some shelf, but to really truly dwell on these concepts and allow it to sink in. If after everything, hopefully including reading the book I recommended, you still don’t believe then I suppose I don’t know what can sway you.

----I plan on finishing this by actually comparing the rest of the psychology book to the Bible in order to try and find similar lessons and teachings that are still completely relevant today in modern psychology as they were two and three thousand years ago, but as for now there really isn’t too much more time to continue this before my time to give it to you runs out. So, if you are ever interested in reading more about this kind of thing always feel free to get a hold of me because I would love to speak with you and further discuss the different things that I have learned over the past few months from you and my separate readings. Plus I know for a fact that with your extensive knowledge about the topic that I’m interested in you would be phenomenal mentors. I could really benefit from some discussions with the both of you.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.
God bless,
Caleb Lindsay