JCC Arena The Theist/Atheist Thunderdome™

They typically don't. It's more typically either: A)religious fanatics that are perfectly sane or B)people who are verifiably insane and acting under the direction of hallucinations that they would have given alternative names.

Also, a huge part of this is being familiar with the vernacular of Christian evangelicals. He says he felt a voice "in his heart." That is to say, he had a thought. There's a vast gulf between that and hearing audible voices talking to you that no one else in the room can hear. One is entirely normal, and the latter is a symptom of mental illness.

 

The heart pumps blood and oxygen. It is not involved in hearing voices, whether imagined or otherwise.

 

He heard the voice... he experienced a hallucination when he was in a moment of intense emotion... it wasn't just a feeling. It was something he thought he was actually witnessing.

 

What does that have to do with anything? Having a tone doesn't imply anything about whether it was audible or not. It's about a broader feeling or sentiment that's implicit in whatever the actual message is. That's why, for instance, a written, non-audible post can have a tone. Or a thought can have a tone. The two aren't necessarily related. Especially when he characterizes the voice as being "in his heart" (which, in answer to timmoishere, is a term that the Bible often uses for what we would call the mind.).

Ultimately, we'll have to let him speak for himself to clarify the details of the experience. But I'd be extremely surprised if what your interpretation is correct. I have been hearing this sort of thing multiple times weekly for years. It's never meant an audible voice. That leads me to very seriously doubt it does here, either. Your best, bet, otherwise, is to get someone similarly steeped in that sort of cultural context, like SkywalkerNumbers, to comment. I suspect she'd tell you the same thing I just have.

 

He described the tone of the voice, dude. He said it was "a literal vision."

Anyway... I'm not passing judgment. I'm just saying, I think he could possibly benefit from talking to somebody, besides us, about this.

 

Evangelicals indeed frequently describe what they are feeling as anything from the voice of God to being led by God. You will not typically hear that they had a feeling on their own in these situations, but rather that it was impressed upon them in some fashion. If you have a feeling that is entirely opposite to a decision you've just made to harm yourself, you might find yourself thinking that it wasn't actually you the thought originated from.

And I don't think the "vision" he saw is indicative of being especially unbalanced--or some form of psychosis. Certainly the suicidal ideations and depression are something worth talking to someone else about, but that's definitely more concerning than "seeing" something brought on by guilt about trying to kill yourself. Especially considering how faulty memory is, and how much more vivid the "vision" probably was in retrospect.

 

Well that explains it.

 

Harpuah, we all agree he could benefit from seeking mental health assistance, but think about what you're arguing. Your putting your personal interpretation of two sentences over what is now multiple users that have far more direct experience with his style of speaking and thinking than do you. If someone was dropping lingo from the Phish concert circuit, I would trust your life experience over mine. But this is a situation where someone else has the more relevant memories. Why not trust them?

 

Agreed... that's really what I was addressing when I originally suggested talking to somebody. Like I said earlier, there's nothing wrong with utilizing faith in order to cope, but looking at the suicidal ideation, and the fact that this particular relationship is something he still talks about today (he's mentioned it in several threads), combining his personal faith with professional assistance couldn't hurt

 

Wocky, there is significant research in the fields of both psychology and neuroscience which speak to this in detail. It would seem prudent to not disregard that.

 

Also, it would be prudent to not post about people's experience and familiarity in certain areas without knowing a thing about them.

 

And all of that research has, as a starting point, the self-report of subjects. They define and describe what components their experience did or did not have. They select the vocabulary that they are comfortable with in describing those components. Scientists then analyze the information they are given.

What are you suggesting is precisely backwards: that we ignore what Moviefan might have actually meant in favor of what we would mean if we used those words. Guess what? You would never say that at all. How an atheist Australian financier who spent time in China would describe it is wildly irrelevant to how an American evangelical would describe his religious experience.

 

Well, that's what this thread is for.

 

It's come to my attention that my penultimate post can be pretty easily read as dismissive of some other posters. That wasn't at all my intention. I would like to offer a sincere apology for the miscommunication. My intention was to discuss how easy it is to say something we don't mean, often because we're coming from a different background than the person we are speaking to. It was supposed to be detailing how that happened with Moviefan, but I guess I've unwittingly demonstrated it myself.

Regardless, though, I do want to clarify one final time. I absolutely do not dispute the relevant neuroscience or psychology here, either in terms of the general academic literature or anyone's professional (or even personal) experience. What I am saying is that Moviefan is using some pretty specific evangelical "in-crowd" vocabulary, and what you guys seem to think he's saying may not actually be what he was trying to say. Keep that possibility open in your minds.

 

It's cool.... religion is a hot-button topic, and this is the thunderdome... butthurt is to be expected.

 

Well, no. Psychology does involve a degree of self-report, but neuroscience?

 

Yes.

A fair amount of it is correlating brain activity (recorded by various means) to specific activities or thought patterns. But, again, it is the subject that has to tell them what their thought pattern or activity is. Take, for instance, all the studies about the neural basis for religiosity and deeply spiritual experiences. The subjects had to ring a bell to say when they were feeling a deeply spiritual moment so the scientists would know what to record.

Why? Because the scientists have no idea what some random person is feeling as deeply spiritual or not.

 

Yes, but with enough testing they eventually will likely be able to.

Now... no amount of testing or reporting will ever be able to tell us whether gods exist(ed).

... and we've come full circle, or something.

 

I'm going to attempt to play devil's advocate and say that some scientists have theorized that there is potentially a "god particle" that keeps atoms and molecules structured.

 

Paging Ramza Lord Vivec

 

Short version:

1. It's a name

2. Religious people aren't trying to worship a subatomic particle

 

It's not even a name, it's a silly nickname given to the perfectly sound Higgs boson by Dr. Leon M. Lederman to help sell copies of his book. His self-admitted rationale was that they couldn't call it the "Goddamn Particle" and that it's fundamental to matter sticking together. No model is purporting it has some kind of will of its own, or taps into some omnipresent consciousness, or anything you'd associate with a traditional religious figure.

The Higgs boson doesn't have anything to do with religion, its discovery furthered no religions, and its model has no religious implications. Its existence - which is basically confirmed, incidentally, though they're doing more testing - does not settle any religious questions one way or the other. It is thoroughly and completely independent of any and all theological discussions. Should we become totally aware of everything related to the Higgs, the problems of religious reality or lack thereof will not have been settled one iota more.

Now stop using that goddamn nickname.

 

That's the god argument...

 

The Higgs Boson has been discovered. It gives mass to elementary particles. The strong and weak nuclear forces are what keeps atoms structured. The electromagnetic force keeps molecules structured.