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Post by ts on Mar 30, 2013 23:21:24 GMT -5
I don't say that an atheist necessarily will attribute a voice to God. But if he is delusional and is "SURE" the voice came from God, then that is that. If he is delusional s/he is not sure of anything. If anyone is hearing voices they are not normal, regardless to whom they attribute the source. People hear voices. Different people attribute the voices to different sources. It is abnormal for people to hear voices. The source attributed to the voice is not the issue. Why would an atheist attribute the voice to god? An atheist would likely NOT attribute a voice to the voice of God. However, we are not talking about an atheist. We are talking about a delusional atheist. The question is, why is it impossible for a delusional atheist to hear a voice and attribute it to God? If this delusion is a mental illness, you would find proportionally just as many atheists experiencing it as Christians. If an atheist DOES hear God's voice and KNOWS it is God's voice, you might well expect him to lose his atheist membership and join the Christians. The atheists should be glad for that because it would keep their gene pool clean. The Christians would be glad because they would have an otherwise rational convert except for the fact that he is hearing God's voice, which is not a problem for many Christians. It is a win win situation.
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Post by dmmichgood on Mar 30, 2013 23:46:06 GMT -5
Gene, I am not certain where this is leading, either. Just musing. A Christian who hears God's voice is "delusional" but can still be considered a Christian. An atheist with the same "malady" loses his atheist status. If you take out the nut cases who CLAIM to be Christian and say God told them this or that in order to control people(Jim Jones types) without actually hearing voices... If you take out the sociopathic atheists with a chip on their shoulder who are only out to bash Christians... Then you are left with more or less a pool of emotionally sound people with different beliefs. The atheist is a chemical imbalance away from losing his atheist status and believing in God and the Christian is a chemical imbalance away from people giving him a lot of grace. First of all, everyone, please let's quit referring to people who are mentally ill & have hallucinations as "nut" cases.
It isn't any joke for these people afflicted with such a problem.
They are ill, -just the same as someone who has a disease is ill- cancer, TB, heart disease, kidney disease, or what-ever.
NAMI- the National Alliance on Mental Illness- has a publication where they often feature someone with a certain kind of mental illness.
Recently someone with schizophrenia wrote about how it felt to hear these voices telling you things that made you paranoid, -feeling that you could not trust even your family members, who were only trying to help you, voices -telling you not to take that medicine -" they" were "poisoning" you.
To have such a debilitating disease to start with and on top of that not being able to trust anyone- Can you imagine how horrifying that must be?
These people are ill, miserable, misunderstood and leading a very unhappy life.
It isn't something that we should be jesting about.
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Post by rational on Mar 31, 2013 0:04:16 GMT -5
An atheist would likely NOT attribute a voice to the voice of God. OK Given the person is delusional, it would not be impossible for the atheist, or any person, to attribute the voice to anything - god, a goat, or, as one well known case, a labrador retriever. They are, after all, insane. Delusions are a type of mental illness. Mentally ill people are found among christians, atheists, mormons, buddihsts, etc. OK
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Post by ts on Mar 31, 2013 0:21:31 GMT -5
It is not unprecedented that an otherwise sound minded atheist gets a delusion that he hears God's voice and subsequently accepts Jesus as his Saviour with much joy. Then lives, with this delusion, an otherwise normal, untreated, sound and unmedicated life with perhaps no other audible voices ever again, or, if so, very rarely.
I never saw the post that sacerdotal was referring to on another thread. Were you suggesting that all Christians are delusional if they either hear audibly or internally the voice of God? For example, are you making no distinction between the person who "hears God's voice" to kill her children and the one who hears God's voice to go to fly to Israel even though they have no money, they obediently go to the airport though they have no money and someone shows up with just enough money for them to make the flight while they are standing in the queue?
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Post by sacerdotal on Mar 31, 2013 0:48:23 GMT -5
Gene, I am not certain where this is leading, either. Just musing. A Christian who hears God's voice is "delusional" but can still be considered a Christian. An atheist with the same "malady" loses his atheist status. If you take out the nut cases who CLAIM to be Christian and say God told them this or that in order to control people(Jim Jones types) without actually hearing voices... If you take out the sociopathic atheists with a chip on their shoulder who are only out to bash Christians... Then you are left with more or less a pool of emotionally sound people with different beliefs. The atheist is a chemical imbalance away from losing his atheist status and believing in God and the Christian is a chemical imbalance away from people giving him a lot of grace. First of all, everyone, please let's quit referring to people who are mentally ill & have hallucinations as "nut" cases.
It isn't any joke for these people afflicted with such a problem.
They are ill, -just the same as someone who has a disease is ill- cancer, TB, heart disease, kidney disease, or what-ever.
NAMI- the National Alliance on Mental Illness- has a publication where they often feature someone with a certain kind of mental illness.
Recently someone with schizophrenia wrote about how it felt to hear these voices telling you things that made you paranoid, -feeling that you could not trust even your family members, who were only trying to help you, voices -telling you not to take that medicine -" they" were "poisoning" you.
To have such a debilitating disease to start with and on top of that not being able to trust anyone- Can you imagine how horrifying that must be?
These people are ill, miserable, misunderstood and leading a very unhappy life.
It isn't something that we should be jesting about.I agree. Thanks for sharing that.
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Post by dmmichgood on Mar 31, 2013 0:50:30 GMT -5
It is not unprecedented that an otherwise sound minded atheist gets a delusion that he hears God's voice and subsequently accepts Jesus as his Saviour with much joy. Then lives, with this delusion, an otherwise normal, untreated, sound and unmedicated life with perhaps no other audible voices ever again, or, if so, very rarely. I never saw the post that sacerdotal was referring to on another thread. Were you suggesting that all Christians are delusional if they either hear audibly or internally the voice of God? For example, are you making no distinction between the person who "hears God's voice" to kill her children and the one who hears God's voice to go to fly to Israel even though they have no money, they obediently go to the airport though they have no money and someone shows up with just enough money for them to make the flight while they are standing in the queue? I wonder what you are trying to prove here, ts?
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Post by ts on Mar 31, 2013 1:11:33 GMT -5
It is not unprecedented that an otherwise sound minded atheist gets a delusion that he hears God's voice and subsequently accepts Jesus as his Saviour with much joy. Then lives, with this delusion, an otherwise normal, untreated, sound and unmedicated life with perhaps no other audible voices ever again, or, if so, very rarely. I never saw the post that sacerdotal was referring to on another thread. Were you suggesting that all Christians are delusional if they either hear audibly or internally the voice of God? For example, are you making no distinction between the person who "hears God's voice" to kill her children and the one who hears God's voice to go to fly to Israel even though they have no money, they obediently go to the airport though they have no money and someone shows up with just enough money for them to make the flight while they are standing in the queue? I wonder what you are trying to prove here, ts?Not trying to prove anything. Just musing. It just seemed like, from the OP, that rational was lumping all Christians into the same category as someone like Jim Jones or the lady who was "hearing God's voice" and killed her children. I am just musing what it must be like to be an atheist and hear God's voice. If it is a mental illness, it must surely be just as possible for an atheist to hear God's voice as a Christian. I say that there are some very sound and sane folks who are Christians who do indeed hear God's voice audibly and are no threat to anyone and are not mentally unstable in any way. I also offer that there are likely sane, rational atheists who have heard God's voice and have been changed and chosen to follow Jesus as a result and have not needed professional counseling or medication. Just offering another perspective.
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Post by ts on Mar 31, 2013 1:19:37 GMT -5
First of all, everyone, please let's quit referring to people who are mentally ill & have hallucinations as "nut" cases.
It isn't any joke for these people afflicted with such a problem.
They are ill, -just the same as someone who has a disease is ill- cancer, TB, heart disease, kidney disease, or what-ever.
NAMI- the National Alliance on Mental Illness- has a publication where they often feature someone with a certain kind of mental illness.
Recently someone with schizophrenia wrote about how it felt to hear these voices telling you things that made you paranoid, -feeling that you could not trust even your family members, who were only trying to help you, voices -telling you not to take that medicine -" they" were "poisoning" you.
To have such a debilitating disease to start with and on top of that not being able to trust anyone- Can you imagine how horrifying that must be?
These people are ill, miserable, misunderstood and leading a very unhappy life.
It isn't something that we should be jesting about. I agree. Thanks for sharing that. If a guy like Jim Jones uses God's name to abuse and kill trusting and sincere people, he is a nut case. I am not saying that people with schizophrenia are "nut cases". I am saying that there are sociopaths out there who find ways of deceiving people. Nut cases. I do have compassion for the people who were deceived. What am opposed to is that it seems that some atheists like to lump those nut cases in with the true and sincere Christians who really do hear God's voice and call them just as delusional as the nut case.
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Post by dmmichgood on Mar 31, 2013 1:45:44 GMT -5
.l ... .. . . regarding mental illness--- some scientists criticize people for faith-stating it is not based upon scientific facts .. 1) but science fails in some regards .. it doesn't rightfully EXPLAIN paranormal events .. . .. .2) nor does science adequately explain mental illness so then, I ask: 3) if scientists are so smart, why don't they know more about the cause(s) of mental illness and why are there not more methods to treat and/or cure it? does science have all the answers, no, it doesn't 4)---no one wants to get "tagged" with a diagnosis of schizophrenia so they will do almost anything to cover it up .. who me, no I didn't hear any voices! it is STILL in 2013 a dreaded thing to have and no wonder-people treat people who are mentally ill far different --they are shunned ; they are treated as though they have a highly contagious disease like the plague ----aside from that, though, 5)there are many accounts in Scripture of people who were "vexed" (with demons) .. not saying that everyone who is mentally ill is possessed by demons, .. yet, the medical profession as a whole fails to explore this possibility ! ! 6)my take is if you are going to criticize , but cannot come up with better answers , do you have a right to criticize ? is there adequate data ? likely not .. one reason being that so many people are in denial and fail to report accurately what they are really thinking and feeling .. ask 50 people whether or not they have ever had the measles and you will get a fairly honest 'yes' or 'no' but ask 50 people if they have ever had a mental illness and the answers will not be so clear cut many folks are still afraid to be honest about how they really feel ; ; or the kinds of perceptions and thoughts they could be having that are not normal .. so, they go untreated .. it's pretty hard to treat something, if one simply denies that something exists 1) Science is busy explaining normal events, They have no reason to enter into ideas of para-normal events.
2) No they can't explain the causes of mental illness- but they have found some causes & are checking more all the time.
3) Ibid
4) no one likes to be "tagged" with any mental illness-denial is often the case-
(Why is that? I believe it has a lot to do with the idea that we feel that we are in complete control of our "mind", when actually the "mind" is a product of our brain, an organ like the rest of our organs -heart, liver, kidneys,- an organ less understood until now but we are getting better at understanding it even just recently)
5) being "possessed of demons" was sorrowfully, for the miserable people suffering from mental illness, was often believed to be the cause in past ages.
6) My take is that if you criticize & can't come up with better answers, why don't you become a member of NAMI ( National Alliance on Mental Illness) We need all the help that we can get to track down, understand mental illnesses, & find alleviation for the misery of mental illness.
NAMI 3803 N. Fairfax Dr. Suite 100 Arlington VA 22203-1701
ph: 1 (800) 950-6264
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Post by ts on Mar 31, 2013 1:53:35 GMT -5
.l ... .. . . regarding mental illness--- some scientists criticize people for faith-stating it is not based upon scientific facts .. but science fails in some regards .. it doesn't rightfully EXPLAIN paranormal events .. . ... nor does science adequately explain mental illness so then, I ask: if scientists are so smart, why don't they know more about the cause(s) of mental illness and why are there not more methods to treat and/or cure it? does science have all the answers, no, it doesn't ---no one wants to get "tagged" with a diagnosis of schizophrenia so they will do almost anything to cover it up .. who me, no I didn't hear any voices! it is STILL in 2013 a dreaded thing to have and no wonder-people treat people who are mentally ill far different --they are shunned ; they are treated as though they have a highly contagious disease like the plague ----aside from that, though, there are many accounts in Scripture of people who were "vexed" (with demons) .. not saying that everyone who is mentally ill is possessed by demons, .. yet, the medical profession as a whole fails to explore this possibility ! ! my take is if you are going to criticize , but cannot come up with better answers , do you have a right to criticize ? is there adequate data ? likely not .. one reason being that so many people are in denial and fail to report accurately what they are really thinking and feeling .. ask 50 people whether or not they have ever had the measles and you will get a fairly honest 'yes' or 'no' but ask 50 people if they have ever had a mental illness and the answers will not be so clear cut many folks are still afraid to be honest about how they really feel ; ; or the kinds of perceptions and thoughts they could be having that are not normal .. so, they go untreated .. it's pretty hard to treat something, if one simply denies that something exists 1) Science is busy explaining normal events, They have no reason to enter into ideas of para-normal events.
2) No they can't explain the causes of mental illness- but they have found some causes & are checking more all the time.
3) Ibid
4) no one likes to be "tagged" with any mental illness-denial is often the case-
Why is that? I believe it has a lot to do with the idea that we feel that we are in complete control of our "mind", when actually the "mind" is a product of our brain, an organ like the rest of our organs -heart, liver, kidneys,- an organ less understood until now but we are getting better at understanding it even just recently
5) being "possessed of demons" was sorrowfully, for the miserable people suffering from mental illness, was often believed to be the cause in past ages.
6) My take is that if you criticize & can't come up with better answers, why don't you become a member of NAMI ( National Alliance on Mental Illness) We need all the help that we can get to track down, understand mental illnesses, & find alleviation for the misery of mental illness.
NAMI 3803 N. Fairfax Dr. Suite 100 Arlington VA 22203-1701
ph: 1 (800) 950-6264
yet, some are delivered from "mental illness" in the name of Jesus.
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Post by dmmichgood on Mar 31, 2013 2:03:19 GMT -5
I agree. Thanks for sharing that. If a guy like Jim Jones uses God's name to abuse and kill trusting and sincere people, he is a nut case. I am not saying that people with schizophrenia are "nut cases". I am saying that there are sociopaths out there who find ways of deceiving people. Nut cases. I do have compassion for the people who were deceived. What am opposed to is that it seems that some atheists like to lump those nut cases in with the true and sincere Christians who really do hear God's voice and call them just as delusional as the nut case. your previous quote: "If you take out the sociopathic atheists with a chip on their shoulder who are only out to bash Christians..." So, are now trying to equate,"sociopath" Jim Jones with "sociopath" atheists?
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Post by dmmichgood on Mar 31, 2013 2:58:33 GMT -5
1) Science is busy explaining normal events, They have no reason to enter into ideas of para-normal events.
2) No they can't explain the causes of mental illness- but they have found some causes & are checking more all the time.
3) Ibid
4) no one likes to be "tagged" with any mental illness-denial is often the case-
Why is that? I believe it has a lot to do with the idea that we feel that we are in complete control of our "mind", when actually the "mind" is a product of our brain, an organ like the rest of our organs -heart, liver, kidneys,- an organ less understood until now but we are getting better at understanding it even just recently
5) being "possessed of demons" was sorrowfully, for the miserable people suffering from mental illness, was often believed to be the cause in past ages.
6) My take is that if you criticize & can't come up with better answers, why don't you become a member of NAMI ( National Alliance on Mental Illness) We need all the help that we can get to track down, understand mental illnesses, & find alleviation for the misery of mental illness.
NAMI 3803 N. Fairfax Dr. Suite 100 Arlington VA 22203-1701
ph: 1 (800) 950-6264
yet, some are delivered from "mental illness" in the name of Jesus. quotes please.
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Post by ts on Mar 31, 2013 9:35:28 GMT -5
yet, some are delivered from "mental illness" in the name of Jesus. quotes please.I am looking forward to seeing some statistics that show that there are just as many atheists hearing God's voice as Christians. If it is a delusion and a mental illness, you would expect that. However, if an atheist hears God's voice and is converted to being Christian, then he will no longer be an atheist and not show up in the statistics as an atheist hearing God's voice.
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Post by ts on Mar 31, 2013 9:38:18 GMT -5
If a guy like Jim Jones uses God's name to abuse and kill trusting and sincere people, he is a nut case. I am not saying that people with schizophrenia are "nut cases". I am saying that there are sociopaths out there who find ways of deceiving people. Nut cases. I do have compassion for the people who were deceived. What am opposed to is that it seems that some atheists like to lump those nut cases in with the true and sincere Christians who really do hear God's voice and call them just as delusional as the nut case. your previous quote: "If you take out the sociopathic atheists with a chip on their shoulder who are only out to bash Christians..." So, are now trying to equate,"sociopath" Jim Jones with "sociopath" atheists?No. I am not talking about ALL atheists. I am just suggesting that there are just as many sociopathic atheists as those you associate with being Christians. There are people in both groups only interested in themselves who are intelligent and manipulative and have a selfish agenda. I am eliminating them from the discussion for the sake of keeping the discussion from going to extremes in a straw man kind of way.
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Post by rational on Mar 31, 2013 10:41:00 GMT -5
It is not unprecedented that an otherwise sound minded atheist gets a delusion that he hears God's voice and subsequently accepts Jesus as his Saviour with much joy. Then lives, with this delusion, an otherwise normal, untreated, sound and unmedicated life with perhaps no other audible voices ever again, or, if so, very rarely. Delusional people are not sound minded. I said that having auditory hallucinations was abnormal. That is correct.
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Post by rational on Mar 31, 2013 10:43:51 GMT -5
yet, some are delivered from "mental illness" in the name of Jesus. More often that not the deliverance is due to medication or other therapy. Of course there are spontaneous cures but attributing them to god is simply a matter of belief rather than fact.
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Post by rational on Mar 31, 2013 10:47:34 GMT -5
No. I am not talking about ALL atheists. I am just suggesting that there are just as many sociopathic atheists as those you associate with being Christians. There are people in both groups only interested in themselves who are intelligent and manipulative and have a selfish agenda. I am eliminating them from the discussion for the sake of keeping the discussion from going to extremes in a straw man kind of way. Your arguments here are all straw men. As I have pointed out in the past - the difference between atheists and theists is that atheists believe in one less god. Otherwise they have the same traits the probability of them being sociopaths is the same. They are humans.
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Post by snow on Mar 31, 2013 12:55:59 GMT -5
If he is delusional s/he is not sure of anything. If anyone is hearing voices they are not normal, regardless to whom they attribute the source. People hear voices. Different people attribute the voices to different sources. It is abnormal for people to hear voices. The source attributed to the voice is not the issue. Why would an atheist attribute the voice to god? An atheist would likely NOT attribute a voice to the voice of God. However, we are not talking about an atheist. We are talking about a delusional atheist. The question is, why is it impossible for a delusional atheist to hear a voice and attribute it to God? If this delusion is a mental illness, you would find proportionally just as many atheists experiencing it as Christians. If an atheist DOES hear God's voice and KNOWS it is God's voice, you might well expect him to lose his atheist membership and join the Christians. The atheists should be glad for that because it would keep their gene pool clean. The Christians would be glad because they would have an otherwise rational convert except for the fact that he is hearing God's voice, which is not a problem for many Christians. It is a win win situation. ts, schizophrenia is treatable. When they are taking their medications they do not hear voices. If an atheist becomes delusional he would not become a Christian, he would hopefully be taken to a doctor and get meds that would correct the issue. My experience with schizophrenics is they only 'regress' when they are feeling good again and think they don't need their medications and slowly they go back to their delusional states. I don't blame them really because there are unpleasant side effects to the medications, but after this has happened several times and it's caused problems for them, they slowly realize they need these meds for life. Then they have a chance of a normal life. DMG is right in her post. These people have a serious disease that is no different than heart trouble or high blood pressure. It is a disease. The only thing that stigmatizes these people over people with heart disease is that their illness can sometimes cause them to harm others or at the very least frighten others. But it is one of the mental illnesses that medications can control. Bi polar is more challenging and the drugs used for these people are not pleasant and they aren't always as effective as the medications for schizophrenics. My heart goes out to these people. Life is hard enough without having a brain that makes life harder to interpret.
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Post by emy on Mar 31, 2013 13:43:22 GMT -5
ts, schizophrenia is treatable. When they are taking their medications they do not hear voices. If an atheist becomes delusional he would not become a Christian, he would hopefully be taken to a doctor and get meds that would correct the issue. My experience with schizophrenics is they only 'regress' when they are feeling good again and think they don't need their medications and slowly they go back to their delusional states. I don't blame them really because there are unpleasant side effects to the medications, but after this has happened several times and it's caused problems for them, they slowly realize they need these meds for life. Then they have a chance of a normal life. DMG is right in her post. These people have a serious disease that is no different than heart trouble or high blood pressure. It is a disease. The only thing that stigmatizes these people over people with heart disease is that their illness can sometimes cause them to harm others or at the very least frighten others. But it is one of the mental illnesses that medications can control. Bi polar is more challenging and the drugs used for these people are not pleasant and they aren't always as effective as the medications for schizophrenics. My heart goes out to these people. Life is hard enough without having a brain that makes life harder to interpret. Good post! TS, seriously, I think the delusional person who hears God telling him to fly to Israel without having means to do so is only a couple steps from the one who hears God saying to kill (or do harm to) someone. Do you have an anecdote for that Israel scenario?
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Post by sacerdotal on Mar 31, 2013 14:34:01 GMT -5
It just seemed like, from the OP, that rational was lumping all Christians into the same category as someone like Jim Jones or the lady who was "hearing God's voice" and killed her children. That was not the intent of the OP. The discussion was raised in another thread about someone those that followed God's voice to kill, and the courts have in many cases declared those people insane. In the Andrea Yates case- SHE DID have a long history of mental illness and was advised by her doctors not to be left alone. What you (or some other Christians) would call faith, others would call irrational.
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Post by dmmichgood on Mar 31, 2013 20:58:28 GMT -5
If he is delusional s/he is not sure of anything. If anyone is hearing voices they are not normal, regardless to whom they attribute the source. People hear voices. Different people attribute the voices to different sources. It is abnormal for people to hear voices. The source attributed to the voice is not the issue. Why would an atheist attribute the voice to god? An atheist would likely NOT attribute a voice to the voice of God. However, we are not talking about an atheist. We are talking about a delusional atheist. The question is, why is it impossible for a delusional atheist to hear a voice and attribute it to God? If this delusion is a mental illness, you would find proportionally just as many atheists experiencing it as Christians. If an atheist DOES hear God's voice and KNOWS it is God's voice, you might well expect him to lose his atheist membership and join the Christians. The atheists should be glad for that because it would keep their gene pool clean. The Christians would be glad because they would have an otherwise rational convert except for the fact that he is hearing God's voice, which is not a problem for many Christians. It is a win win situation. I wonder if you have ever really been listening to why I'm an atheist.
It has nothing to do with my "gene" pool! ;D
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Post by dmmichgood on Mar 31, 2013 21:24:09 GMT -5
I wonder what you are trying to prove here, ts? Not trying to prove anything. Just musing. It just seemed like, from the OP, that rational was lumping all Christians into the same category as someone like Jim Jones or the lady who was "hearing God's voice" and killed her children. I am just musing what it must be like to be an atheist and hear God's voice. If it is a mental illness, it must surely be just as possible for an atheist to hear God's voice as a Christian. I say that there are some very sound and sane folks who are Christians who do indeed hear God's voice audibly and are no threat to anyone and are not mentally unstable in any way. I also offer that there are likely sane, rational atheists who have heard God's voice and have been changed and chosen to follow Jesus as a result and have not needed professional counseling or medication. Just offering another perspective. Neither a Christian or the Atheist is rational and "sane" who hears "audibly" the voice of anyone who isn't there.
If they are hearing a voice "audibly " speaking, they are having audio hallucinations. If they are "seeing' someone who isn't there, they are having "visual" halucinations.
If they are "feeling" snakes or bugs creeping over them, & there isn't any snakes or bugs present, they are having "tactile" hallucinations.
Smelling? tasting? Same idea!
Now- do you want to continue to play out the difference between whether an Atheist & a Christian has any of those hallucinations? ;D
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Post by dmmichgood on Mar 31, 2013 21:28:47 GMT -5
your previous quote: "If you take out the sociopathic atheists with a chip on their shoulder who are only out to bash Christians..." So, are now trying to equate,"sociopath" Jim Jones with "sociopath" atheists? No. I am not talking about ALL atheists. I am just suggesting that there are just as many sociopathic atheists as those you associate with being Christians. There are people in both groups only interested in themselves who are intelligent and manipulative and have a selfish agenda. I am eliminating them from the discussion for the sake of keeping the discussion from going to extremes in a straw man kind of way. ts, It is also about time that we define "sociopath." Do you want to take try at defining what you mean by "sociopathic"?
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Post by ts on Mar 31, 2013 22:01:27 GMT -5
It just seemed like, from the OP, that rational was lumping all Christians into the same category as someone like Jim Jones or the lady who was "hearing God's voice" and killed her children. That was not the intent of the OP. The discussion was raised in another thread about someone those that followed God's voice to kill, and the courts have in many cases declared those people insane. In the Andrea Yates case- SHE DID have a long history of mental illness and was advised by her doctors not to be left alone. What you (or some other Christians) would call faith, others would call irrational. I did not see the other discussion. It seems like in the other discussion there was some suggestion that everyone who hears God's voice is the same as the Yates lady who was mentally disturbed. That is a strawman argument. Clearly there are preachers out there who have heard God's voice and would not be urged to kill anyone. Andrea Yates' situation is more like someone who is demon possessed. I do agree with you, Sacerdotal. There are some things about God's work that are considered irrational. The disciples in Acts 2 were accused of being drunk on new wine. However, that does not mean that everything that is irrational is God's work. That is the logical fallacy that rational seems to be making.
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Post by ts on Mar 31, 2013 22:08:03 GMT -5
No. I am not talking about ALL atheists. I am just suggesting that there are just as many sociopathic atheists as those you associate with being Christians. There are people in both groups only interested in themselves who are intelligent and manipulative and have a selfish agenda. I am eliminating them from the discussion for the sake of keeping the discussion from going to extremes in a straw man kind of way. Your arguments here are all straw men. As I have pointed out in the past - the difference between atheists and theists is that atheists believe in one less god. Otherwise they have the same traits the probability of them being sociopaths is the same. They are humans. Right, and if an atheist hears God's voice, there is a good chance that he will believe in one more God than he did before and perhaps even stop at one God. At any rate, an atheist would be very illogical if he were to say that he does not believe in God but hears God's voice. If that voice were God specifically convicting him of his unbelief, he would have a real conundrum. I wonder if an atheist in that situation would care if it were an atheist doctor or a Christian doctor who treated him. Recon the Christian doctor would prescribe going to church? ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png)
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Post by ts on Mar 31, 2013 22:13:08 GMT -5
An atheist would likely NOT attribute a voice to the voice of God. However, we are not talking about an atheist. We are talking about a delusional atheist. The question is, why is it impossible for a delusional atheist to hear a voice and attribute it to God? If this delusion is a mental illness, you would find proportionally just as many atheists experiencing it as Christians. If an atheist DOES hear God's voice and KNOWS it is God's voice, you might well expect him to lose his atheist membership and join the Christians. The atheists should be glad for that because it would keep their gene pool clean. The Christians would be glad because they would have an otherwise rational convert except for the fact that he is hearing God's voice, which is not a problem for many Christians. It is a win win situation. ts, schizophrenia is treatable. When they are taking their medications they do not hear voices. If an atheist becomes delusional he would not become a Christian, he would hopefully be taken to a doctor and get meds that would correct the issue. My experience with schizophrenics is they only 'regress' when they are feeling good again and think they don't need their medications and slowly they go back to their delusional states. I don't blame them really because there are unpleasant side effects to the medications, but after this has happened several times and it's caused problems for them, they slowly realize they need these meds for life. Then they have a chance of a normal life. DMG is right in her post. These people have a serious disease that is no different than heart trouble or high blood pressure. It is a disease. The only thing that stigmatizes these people over people with heart disease is that their illness can sometimes cause them to harm others or at the very least frighten others. But it is one of the mental illnesses that medications can control. Bi polar is more challenging and the drugs used for these people are not pleasant and they aren't always as effective as the medications for schizophrenics. My heart goes out to these people. Life is hard enough without having a brain that makes life harder to interpret. There are many many Christians who do hear God's voice who are clearly not schizophrenic. They are not a threat to society and they do not need medication. They are simply men who have a relationship with a very real God who speaks to them. I know plenty of people like that. They are rational, sane people who are respectable in the community and some even work with police and civic leaders. They are respected for their relationship with God.
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Post by ts on Mar 31, 2013 22:18:14 GMT -5
An atheist would likely NOT attribute a voice to the voice of God. However, we are not talking about an atheist. We are talking about a delusional atheist. The question is, why is it impossible for a delusional atheist to hear a voice and attribute it to God? If this delusion is a mental illness, you would find proportionally just as many atheists experiencing it as Christians. If an atheist DOES hear God's voice and KNOWS it is God's voice, you might well expect him to lose his atheist membership and join the Christians. The atheists should be glad for that because it would keep their gene pool clean. The Christians would be glad because they would have an otherwise rational convert except for the fact that he is hearing God's voice, which is not a problem for many Christians. It is a win win situation. I wonder if you have ever really been listening to why I'm an atheist.
It has nothing to do with my "gene" pool! ;DI know. I just used that term. I thought it sounded humorous. I was mainly pointing out how the statistics get messed up because of the possibility of an atheist becoming Christian upon hearing the voice of God convicting him of his unbelief. Then he can be considered "irrational" or "delusional" as a Christian rather than an atheist.
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Post by ts on Mar 31, 2013 22:29:46 GMT -5
ts, schizophrenia is treatable. When they are taking their medications they do not hear voices. If an atheist becomes delusional he would not become a Christian, he would hopefully be taken to a doctor and get meds that would correct the issue. My experience with schizophrenics is they only 'regress' when they are feeling good again and think they don't need their medications and slowly they go back to their delusional states. I don't blame them really because there are unpleasant side effects to the medications, but after this has happened several times and it's caused problems for them, they slowly realize they need these meds for life. Then they have a chance of a normal life. DMG is right in her post. These people have a serious disease that is no different than heart trouble or high blood pressure. It is a disease. The only thing that stigmatizes these people over people with heart disease is that their illness can sometimes cause them to harm others or at the very least frighten others. But it is one of the mental illnesses that medications can control. Bi polar is more challenging and the drugs used for these people are not pleasant and they aren't always as effective as the medications for schizophrenics. My heart goes out to these people. Life is hard enough without having a brain that makes life harder to interpret. Good post! TS, seriously, I think the delusional person who hears God telling him to fly to Israel without having means to do so is only a couple steps from the one who hears God saying to kill (or do harm to) someone. Do you have an anecdote for that Israel scenario? Yes, that is a real story about being told to go to Israel. It is just as believable as what my companion in Mexico told me about casting out a demon and the overseer not really believing it until he and another older worker checked it out for themselves. but it was still "hush hush" after that about the situation. From my experience in the work, I can say that the friends and workers do not tend to believe in the supernatural miracles of the Bible being for today. Sure, here and there are some stories. Especially regarding the early workers and how God worked and moved for them and led them. But they tend not to believe that things like were happening in Acts or in Jesus' day are for them. They tend to side with the more "rational" crowd when it comes to healing, casting out demons and miracles and hearing God's voice. That is, even though they pray that they could "hear His voice" very often in meeting. It is ironic that some of the friends would recommend a person taking medication if someone actually got their prayers answered and God started talking to them. ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png) I know people who have had many experiences of being told to do "irrational" things by God. They were obedient and God was able to use them to open doors for people to know Him. To feed those hungering and thirsting for righteousness. I think we are often going to look ridiculous and irrational when we step out in faith to do what God has said. For example, selling all and preaching the gospel. The workers preach that sort of thing all the time. I do think they have gotten into a comfort zone that does not require as much faith as they think they are proving. It is to the point when someone steps out of that comfort zone in faith, the workers shun and condemn them...sorta like the pharisees did to Jesus and his disciples and the man born blind that was healed.
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