People who believe God talks to them--What's going on?

This all seems quite rational when he recounts it in person.

xpost

People who believe God talks to them are obviously completely fucking insane (no offence to yr dad, Adam), why are we even bothering discussing this rationally? It's like people who believe the trees or Jimminy Cricket or Shaq or Bilbo Baggins talks to them; just cos one person's completely batshit aural delusion is grander than another person's doesn't mean they're any less fucking crazy in the head.

And maybe, just maybe, they are lying in the service of justifying their own faith? A kind of competition with other Christians?

Just because he admits his own condescension doesn't make it any less condescending.

one interesting spin on it might be: why do some people claiming to act on god's behalf (and perhaps on His specific instructions), gain credibility... and why do so many not gain any credibility at all?

just how should i feel about this sort of thing if i am a non-believer?

lots of x-posts

NB. I am being comically wankerish on this thread on purpose.

seriously, why did numerous people believe john smith (of the mormons)but so many other people who claim god speaks to them, are decried as schizoids and freaks? the vicissitudes of religious belief are pretty fascinating, seeing as they are often largely determined (so i think) by pretty worldly factors.

Yeah, but the 'God-spot' is king of distracting. If I found a point on your brain I could prod and make you see a chair, it doesn't mean there are no chairs, or that if I sat you in front of a chair and prodded this part of your brain (Ok, I'd be something of a dick, but assume I have your consent), it wouldn't stand to reason to claim there wasn't a chair in front of you. It's kind of a question about whether this part of the brain causes thoughts about God, or is stimulated by thoughts about God, or, indeed, God Himself.

x-post to Martin: Yeah, I got asked all thise questions when I got locked up too. I do believe in God, and that he 'guides' my actions in some way, but I just kept my crazy mouth shut about that.

PS. God just told me to go and get ice cream but when I got to the freezer in the garage it was all frozen and frosty and horrid and inedible = I have said bad things here this evening.

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see, nick, part of me agrees with you, but also i wonder where this kind of talk gets us. i find it more interesting to think about how and why certain claims are believed by some people (and, often, why those same people stop believing after a certain point).

i think in the end it comes down to questions of community, god as social bond, and hearing a voice in a certain kind of evangelical community must be a sort of validation, like faith healing.

if there was a religious community that, as you point out about pre-reformation, was prone to think badly of this sort of thing i think it would cease to be expressed, at least publicly.

i find joan of arc to be one of the most fascinating stories ever... i am not sure whether
i believe that god really was speaking to her, but i am certain she wasn't just trying to
impress anyone.

the kind of person you're referring to would be an empty, searching person willing to
do anything to get attention... they exist, sure, but you can't lump them in with other
people experiencing other sorts of phenomena (whether that be true divine revelation,
mental illness, or some other inexplicable event).

that said, i certainly hope that at least some of the people who claim to be spoken to by
god are actually being spoken to by god... i would find this to be a much more interesting
world.

why did so many choose to believe joan at the time? why was her peculiar conviction so inspiring for some and dangerous for others?

anyway i think we've had a joan of arc thread right?

there's a lot of really weird middle ground between telling the truth and telling a lie

This is still pretty much the case in Catholicism. I grew up in a strongly Catholic environment (rural Southern Ireland), and I never heard anybody claiming God spoke to them, and if they had, the first people to laugh at them would be other believing Catholics. Instruction comes from the priest, not directly from God.

i onced ask my sister about the people in her church who seemed suspiciously moved to a great extent by the word of god and she rolled her eyes. i dont know, however, whether most christians look down upon such ostentatious displays of faith as she does.

You do strike me as sane. I myself am extremely sane. Yet I have enough visions and voices to keep me entertained all day long with the TV off! I assure you it's possible.

Speaking of SPECTRUMS, I would like to point out that the book I previously suggested, "Grand Illusions: The Spectral Reality Underlying..." by Gregory Little picks up precisedly where Jung left off with his book about UFO phenomenon.

I have had poems come out of my head almost word-perfect in one draft, and had NO idea how I came up with them (rare, but it does happen). Where's that shit come from? It's always in there. The mind is a strange and powerful thing.

Surely this is a common way to feel? If not, you're all madder than I thought.

"we all go a little mad sometimes.."

Me too. You can have a very active inner world---crack jokes to yourself, make up songs, ponder anything and everything---yet still be pretty grounded in reality.

I missed this part! He takes mighty quick surveys.

you ever read Jaques Vallee?

i suggested something similar earlier upthread:

i think it's more or less the same as that subconcious 'inner voice' everyone has. it's just that religious people tend to interpret it as the voice of god and thus give it more importance.
-- latebloomer (posercore24...), September 16th, 2004.

What this leads to is the question of whether or not all people who believe in religious doctrine of whatever creed are irrational / delusional / insane or not, on an incredibly mild level (which may just be a level of acceptance of received wisdom as opposed to a level of actual engagement with rational argument, which obviously doens't make you insane necessarily, just not interested in / capable of the kind of rationality necessary to conclkude that God doesn't exist - otherwise my [vaguelly] Christian mother would be 'insane'; she doesn't believe in God because he speaks to her but because she thinks or feels or whatever that it's a nice thing to believe and she hasn't ever really engaged seriously with the arguments against), and whether the ones who hear voices are, in addition, schizophrenic or something similar.

Obviously there is SHITLOADS of WILD conjecture here, and I'm sure someone will take offense, but certainly none is meant. I mean I love my mother, obviously, I just think she's completely irrational about some things (like reading The Daily Express, but that's another matter).

I guess it depend on what degree they feel God is talking to them or making them do things. Otherwise non-mentally ill religious people might interpret their interior dialogue as God talking to them. I doubt that requires a truly fucked up or abnormal mechanism. Maybe the voice of 'God' is a part of their subconcious they don't normally access with everyday conciousness so that when they have these 'voices' or thoughts (maybe unleashed as the result of an emotional crisis or some other catalyst) it's interpreted as an "other".

But these people usually can control their own actions, even if 'God' is speaking to them, no? Schizophrenic differ in that they are literally at the mercy of the voices in their heads.

You have a point. Maybe the difference is that they FEEL like they can make the choice between obeying the voices in their head and not obeying (even though in all probability they will)?

Possibly another difference is that their 'voices' are perceived as a break form ordinary conciousness, experienced as an 'other'.

Schizophrenics are largely not able to differentiate between their voices and themselves (which is why they often have 'Jesus' complexes or messiaanic delusions).

Dude, aren't you the one who invoked 90% of ILX agreeing with you as a reason why you're right?

Ha! Can we go back to the basic premises of Christianity here?

Oh, Happy Rosh Hashanah.

You never told me if whether or not you believe these people are actually hearing GOd.

I'd also had a good few bongs but at this point felt totally alert. 'God' told me that the next time I took ecstasy I was going to die, he didn't tell me in which manner, whether it be completely drug induced or by falling under a bus, but this was just so real feeling that however implausible it seemed in the cold light of day I have never touched ecstasy again.

Can't be a bad thing, eh?

thanks,

amateur!!st

Heard of, but never read. I definitely will if you have a suggestion in particular. Thanks to overstock.com, I spend about $100/month on books.

Do you want to spend $200/month on a opera singer's career?

-- redfez (redfe...), September 17th, 2004.

get 'dimensions' or 'passport to magonia' first if you can.

also recommended: 'confrontations', 'forbidden science', 'challenge to science' and 'messengers of deception'.

also recommended in that vein (not by vallee though):

'the trickster and the paranormal' by george p. hansen and 'borderlands' by mike dash.