(June 8, 2009 at 8:27 pm)Matt85 Wrote: How do you guys explain events where people have shared the same delusion? my room mate was telling me about her whole family seeing "spirits" .
We should not underestimate the power of the mind to see what it wants to see. Our senses do not present the world to us unfiltered. Everything is processed prior to becoming a conscious experience. Our mind is pre-disposed see certain things -- human faces and forms, volitional movement -- these pre-dispositions help us survive in a world where we need to quickly identify freinds and foes. However, they can also lead us to seeing things that are not there. Combine this with the influence of group dynamics and it is easy to see how mass delusions occur.
It is most telling that groups never (or rarely) see something contrary to their belief system. Groups of Muslims see visions of Muhammed, Christians see Jesus or Mary, Hindus see Hindu gods, groups of atheists see nothing supernatural. We see what we want. This is why it is important to have independent, verifiable evidence that any event occured as described by eye witnessess. Eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable. While we might be willing to accept certain, unimportant (in the larger scheme of things) events on the basis of witness statements, this is because such events do not claim the extra-ordinary-- they fit within our verified system. Miracles, however, do not and therefore require further evidence before they are to be believed.
Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. - Francis Bacon
