“To understand it, as I understood it. Hearing it from the mother… That is, from the mother-half of Norman’s mind. You have to go back ten years…”

There is something about the human mind that most of us completely misunderstand:
Nature vs. nurture.

Almost everyone has heard of this debate and can probably define both terms at elementary levels. However, most people fail to understand when nature vs. nurture actually applies.

Whether it’s how someone reacts to stress, their propensity towards violence, risk for disease, or whatever, we always ask if it’s nature or nurture.

We ask this because that makes nature a possible explanation. And nature is easy, because we can’t really do anything about it:

“God just wanted it to be that way” … “It’s human nature.”

Simultaneously, nobody want’s nurture to be the reason why bad things happen…

First, if nurture were the cause of problems then it would require us to admit that something we are doing is wrong (and no one likes to do that).

More importantly, however, it is incredibly difficult to correct nurture problems. Fixing a nurture issue would involve restructuring whole environments or even changing society.

Just by having the option to point to nature, we then neglect issues that are probably because of nurture.

The problem with this is that recent scientific discoveries have shown that very few things – if any at all – are actually because of nature (or “genetic predisposition”) and almost everything is because of nurture.

Medically, most problems are because of nurture. Even the things that were once believed to be genetic (like weight, blood pressure levels, Alzheimer’s, cancer) are all showing to be a matter of environment. Height, skin tone, eye and hair color are about the extent of what’s controlled by nature. Other than those things, most are nurtured.

Not too long ago a study was conducted that showed just how powerful nurture and environment really are. It was on the prolonged effects of something called the “Dutch Hunger Winter”, which was a three month famine during the winter of 1944-45. Millions starved and over 22,000 of Holland’s citizens died.

Researchers found that the deaths weren’t the end of it, though. Another outcome of the famine proved to be quite peculiar:

During the Dutch Hunger Winter, people (that were still fetuses in their mother’s wombs) were significantly altered biologically and chemically.

Decades later, those with mothers that were pregnant during the famine were programmed to be very stingy with food intake; especially with sugar. Their mothers did not get appropriate nourishment during the famine, therefore their bodies learned to survive on less sustenance than the average Dutch citizen (born either before or after the Hunger Winter). They couldn’t handle sugar intake the same way and it ultimately made them more susceptible to having problems with high blood pressure and weight.

This is environment (nurture) masked as nature.

More interesting than changes to risk levels for certain diseases though, is how nurture shapes human emotion and behavior.

Few things that we think, feel or do are because of our nature; almost everything is because of our environment.

This is especially true when it comes to drugs and addictions. Genetic pre-disposal to addiction is a fallacy. And that isn’t just a theoretical statement; there is hard, chemical science behind that…

Another study conducted on pregnant women, this time, looking at how abuse towards the mother effects offspring, helps to show this.

When someone is abused, either physically or emotionally, their body releases a hormone called Cortisol to handle the stress. Cortisol is a steroid hormone that functions to both increase blood sugar and aid in the metabolism of fat, protein and carbohydrates. In laymen terms, Cortisol is like engine coolant (it keeps things from getting too “hot” or too “cold”).

What this study found was that when a pregnant mother is exposed to it, the unborn child is also injected with Cortisol. When over exposed to anything during prenatal development, people can become dependent on it. The findings then indicated that the same subjects needed higher levels of Cortisol on a daily basis all the way through adulthood.

This means the subjects essentially needed stress, because they needed Cortisol.

At the same time, they found that those who did not have mothers that were abused but were themselves the subjects of long-term abuse, still became dependent on higher levels of Cortisol. Sustained abuse and prolonged exposure to Cortisol made this other set of subjects crave stress and pain just the same.

Ultimately, long-term exposure to Cortisol damages the hippocampus and can result in memory loss, impaired learning and loss of critical thinking skills.

A higher percentage of both sets of abused subjects went on to become addicted to things that raised their levels of Cortisol.

The subjects also showed a higher likelihood of developing paranoid schizophrenia.

“His mother was a clinging, demanding woman… and for years the two of them lived as if there was no one else in the world. Then she met a man and it seemed [to Norman] she “threw him over” for this man. That pushed him over the thin line… and he killed them both.”

On September 11, 2001 America had a bad day.

2,996 people were killed and as far as American deaths in one day go, only a few others are even in the same realm: September 17, 1862 (Antietam), December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor) and June 6, 1944 (D-Day).

Also, compounding this tragedy, was that it happened unexpectedly and on our soil. Antietam was still on American soil, yes, but we knew something like that was on the horizon given the ferocity of the Civil War. 9/11 came out of nowhere.

Unlike any of the other horrible days, we also watched the events as they unfolded on September 11th. Modern mass media allowed us to witness death and destruction like never before. I remember being glued to my television that day, and seeing every report, video, and image from the Northeast in real time.

America had a bad day.

But as horrible as 9/11 was, it wasn’t our most significant day in recent history. Hell, it wasn’t even the most significant of that year … or that month.

No, the most significant day of this century was actually the day after:

September 12, 2001.

Sure, the events of 9/11 were shocking, graphic and even disturbing, but the events themselves didn’t exactly have a lasting effect on us. We still fly in planes. We still build high-rises. People still live in New York City.

And we didn’t all-of-the-sudden become aware of “terrorism” because of September 11th either; it was already a ubiquitous fear of Americans.

Attacks on US soil happened all the time before 9/11. CIA headquarters was bombed in 1993. Hundreds were killed and maimed when the Murrah building in Oklahoma City was attacked. The Atlanta Olympics were targeted in 1996. Not even a decade before, in fact, the World Trade Center itself was the target of a bombing.

When you look at it objectively, September 11th – as memorable as it was – didn’t change much and wasn’t anything new.

No, the day that really made waves and shaped America into what it is today was September 12, 2001.

Why, you ask?

Well, for starters it was on 9/12 when the largest restructuring of government in American history began.

Following the attacks from the day before, America:

1) Declared “War on Terror” (a war that we are still fighting today)
2) Developed plans to invade Afghanistan (where we are still fighting) and later Iraq (where we fought for years)
3) Planted the seeds for the USA Patriot Act (which has dramatically expanded the authority of US law enforcement agencies)
4) Started drawing up the Department of Homeland Security (which completely changed America’s military and defense structure)

September 12th was also the first day in the “post-9/11” world.

No longer could we conveniently travel without first taking off our shoes and going through a full body scan. Our phone calls are not private and every website we visit is now kept on file. Our doors can be kicked in just for living in the same neighborhood as someone that may be connected to terrorism. Our police look like soldiers.

Each day we are abused by something that has to do with “post-9/11” national security.

On September 11th we were sad, angry and even frightened, but on September 12th we wanted justice.

America’s goal for the world was no longer to create peace, but instead rid it of evil. We needed to vanquish terrorism and the “evil doers” … to get our revenge.

This shift in collective ethos has had a dramatic impact on the minds of individual Americans. It’s established a competitive attitude; because others are out to get us and we must best them. It’s made us more defensive; since we have a “city on the hill” that others are trying to take away. It’s reinforced the notion that we are good and others bad; which is frequently topped off with new terrorist groups rising and falling.

We don’t just live in a country that governs based on terror, we make our own terror.

We don’t hope that the world becomes a better place, we hope that the world doesn’t make our place worse.

We abuse ourselves.

And almost 14 years after 9/12 it’s safe to say that this abuse is long-term.

“But in Norman’s case, he was simply doing everything possible to keep up the illusion of his mother being alive. And whenever reality came too close, when danger or desire threatened that illusion, he’d dress up.”

Christianity is evidently dying.

The internet is killing it. Barack Obama is killing it. Science is killing it. Gays and Planned Parenthood are killing it.

At least this is the rhetoric you will hear from your pastor, cable news pundits, that Facebook evangelical, or maybe even your congressman. They’ll even point to figures that show Christianity in America is tanking.

Well … they’re wrong. Christianity is not dying, it’s transitioning. And the figures actually show that it’s strengthening.

What’s really dying in America is nominal Christianity; there has been a decline in the number of people who call themselves Christians but only enter the doors of a Church twice a year. Some Americans no longer feel they have to dishonestly mark the “Christian” box, and feel comfortable marking “atheist” — but this shows Christian health rather than weakness.

Ed Stetzer (a self-proclaimed Christian writer) explains this point very well in a 2013 article title, “The State of the Church in America, Hint: It’s Not Dying.”

To briefly summarize, Stetzer states that although survey results show a dip in people identifying as Christian, the percentage of true believers (those who “would say that they have met Jesus, He changed their lives, and since that time their lives have been increasingly oriented around their faith in Him”) has not shrunk at all.

If anything, based on his findings — as well as those of others — that percentage is growing.

Still not convinced? The Left Behind franchise has sold 60 million books in this country.

This growth of “true believers” (while others leave the church) is especially odd considering Stetzer leads into this assessment by stating that, “the percentage of true believers had been constant since about 1976 [prior to this transition].”

So, even though people are leaving, the number of people that truly believe (over 25% of America, by the way) is actually growing.

Why is that? Everything in statistics says that shouldn’t happen and there should be a similar reduction in the number of “true believers” … that is, if the subjects from 1976 and 2013 are effectively the same.

Well, the subjects are not effectively the same.

One set faces a lot more stress on a daily basis. One set releases a lot more Cortisol.

“He’d walk about the house, sit in her chair, speak in her voice … He tried to be his mother.”

We’ve all heard a version of the phrase everyone believes in God in a foxhole.

There have also been several studies on people turning to religion when they are scared, sad, lonely, etc.

This certainly helps explains why immediately after 9/11 there were spikes in Bible sales, church attendance and mega-church construction (to be fair, there were spikes like this in all religions). That growth, however, was really within the “Christians on paper” group from above and wasn’t sustained.

It doesn’t explain the rise of “true believers” from September 12th on.

The sustainability and gradual increase of true believers could actually be more chemical…

Duke University Medical Center recently analyzed high-resolution MRI data of participants’ hippocampal volumes and found that there was greater hippocampal atrophy in participants who were born-again Protestants, Evangelical Christians, Devout Catholics or other types of Christians that could be deemed “true believers”.

What’s that? Oh, yeah…

People that are subjected to physical and emotional abuse become addicted to higher levels of Cortisol.

Long-term exposure to Cortisol damages the hippocampus and can result in memory loss, impaired learning and loss of critical thinking skills.

Everyone believes in God at AA meetings.

“She insists she did nothing, that Norman committed all the murders just to keep her from being discovered. She even smiled a bit coquettishly as she said that.”

There are 702 US military installations around the world in 132 countries; each like a city or town. At every one of them is an Officers’ Christian Fellowship and a Christian Military Fellowship. The stated goal of these organizations is to “have a spiritually transformed military that is powered by the Holy Spirit.”

The United States Air Force Academy used to periodically hold brown bag luncheons in which all of the cadets would meet in the mess hall to have a sandwich and listen to a speaker. More often than not, these were Christian focused discussion and in 2005 one was even titled, “Why we cannot let you have your God while we have ours.”

Claims were brought forward against the United States Air Force that “officers at the Academy were using their rank and power to engage in proselytization … and that the only way cadets could resource their spirituality was from the bucket of conservative Christian evangelicalism.”

Claims were brought forward against the United States Army that officers would refer to one of their Jewish soldiers as a “fucking Jew”.

When America invaded Iraq a military chaplain baptized several soldiers in Saddam Hussein’s swimming pool. Effectively, he invaded an Islamic country and performed a Christian ritual in their Islamic leader’s home. He was awarded chaplain of the year for this by the US military.

The Air Force is probably our most deadly division of the armed forces. The Strategic Air Command has their fingers on buttons that could actually destroy the world.

The Army polices foreign lands.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

It’s the most pernicious doctrine in all of religion – in order for you to be saved and forgiven of your sins, somebody else had to die.

Nurture masked as nature.

“…And they’ll say, ‘Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly.’”