RE: Some theists are just to far gone
June 1, 2015 at 4:18 pm
(This post was last modified: June 1, 2015 at 5:19 pm by Pyrrho.)
(June 1, 2015 at 3:32 pm)robvalue Wrote: What I really want to know is what goes on in their heads. When they say God is talking to them, or even appearing to them, does it really seem to them like they are hearing/hearing something? I figure either they genuinely are, which is frankly very distressing; or they have convinced themselves they are when they're really not (perhaps more likely); or of course they're just making it up. I wonder how the percentages would fall.
If God has ever tried to talk to me it must have been on a day he was a bit hoarse and lost his voice.
I can tell you how it was for me, and how it was for most others I spoke with regarding this. I do not recall any who claimed to hear a distinct, clear voice, like a real voice (like you would have to be crazy to hear). What people had were various feelings, which they sometimes interpreted as being somehow a message from god. I personally found the feelings idea not very convincing, and was pretty skeptical of that even when I was still a believer.
Edited to add:
I believe many simply misidentified their conscience, and believed it was god talking to them. Some seemed to identify it with particularly strong feelings of conscience.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
