What Chick tracts reveal about...zzzzz

Must finish post before Ambien sets in..
I already feel a bit drunk and am losing my balance. But if do this right, I will get to work early, leave early, and instead of taking a nap, exercise and sleep even better from then on.

At the recent Cleveland Freethinker's party at the Freethinker's Palace, someone brought in a Chick Tract, "Fairy Tales?" about a little boy who was told to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. One day he went to school and these horrible children made fun of him, and after that, this 8 year old boy goes on a killing spree and is forever angry with his parents and rejects God. I didn't finish the rest because what struck me was a theme I see in so many of these evangelizing tracts. They paint the average human being as horrible selfish monsters with zero empathy, and completely lacking in self control. But when the magic ingredient is added, Godkelseltzer, all their inborn evil dissipates in a fizz of effervescence, much like an angel's fart.

What does this tell us about how the people who agree with these view the nature of humanity? Personally, my view is based mostly on what I know about myself and my motivations, and I add to that what I've observed in others, and what I know about human psychology.

I think humans are naturally empathetic, and want to see themselves as good and want to be good. I think there are powerful forces (including perhaps, just inborn genetic influences) that lead people astray. For example, I think a lot of negativity comes from people's natural tendencies to fall into the many traps described in social psychology that each and every one of is is prone to.

So if a religious person honestly portrays the default setting of a human without God as some sort of horrible monster, where are they getting that impression from? Is that how they see themselves? Are the burdened with overwhelming guilt that's maybe undeserved? Or do they full well know they are selfish pricks and they fear the rest of the world must be the same?

Please, if anyone would like to analyze something else in a tract, post a comment.

And on to Ambien--

Special Concerns In Patient Brochure:

variety of abnormal thinking and behavior changes have been reported to occur in association with the use of sedative/hypnotics. Some of these changes may be characterized by decreased inhibition (e.g. aggressiveness and extroversion that seemed out of character).. (I ask my friends- would I be ok with an increase o abnormal thinking and decreased inhibition?)
Visual and auditory hallucinations have been reported as well as behavioral changes such as bizarre behavior, agitation and depersonalization.

Complex behaviors such as “sleep-driving” (i.e., driving while not fully awake after ingestion of a sedative-hypnotic, with amnesia for the event) have been reported with sedative-hypnotics, including zolpidem. These events can occur in sedative-hypnotic-naive as well as in sedative-hypnotic-experienced persons.

Due to the risk to the patient and the community, discontinuation of Ambien CR should be strongly considered for patients who report a “sleep-driving” episode. (I would hope so!)

Other complex behaviors (e.g., preparing and eating food, making phone calls, or having sex) have been reported in patients who are not fully awake after taking a sedative-hypnotic. As with “sleep-driving”, patients usually do not remember these events. Amnesia, anxiety and other neuro-psychiatric symptoms may occur unpredictably.

Oh great, so at night I'd be sleep-calling up guys on ambien, sleep-driving out to sleep-eat great food followed by sleep sex (and perhaps the post-coital sleep-cigarette) and I won't even remember it in the morning. It could be like a secret world just for ambien people. I'll have ambien friends I forget about during the day, but at night, a whole new adventure begins.

Note to friends, I may call you in the middle of the night hallucinating, drive over your house with home made breakfast, and then have sex with the body pillow I thought was my ambien lover. I won't remember a thing, so please forgive me!