Is a person that hears God insane or really hearing it?

[progressive85]

I just want to know what you all think of that.  A lot of people have claimed they have heard God... and I suppose those who are not religious may say "Nah, thats just a bunch of hogwash" -- but at what point does it become real?  I'm trying to make sense of this... I think I'm having a religious experience.

[Beet]

It's impossible to say for sure. God doesn't really seem to want to completely break the plausibility of the atheistic world, or at least He hasn't since the time of Christ. Doing so would abrogate the need for a leap of faith to believe in Him. So even if you do hear Him, He most likely will not give you any means of proving it to the rest of us.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

I wouldn't say they're necessarily insane, but I'm still an atheist and I'd need something a little more convincing than that for believing in any deity (and even more in one like the Christian God)

[pbrower2a]

God? Not likely. The Devil? I knew who it was when he told me to commit crimes and other self-destructive deeds.

...I'm thinking about making a one-entity play out of that. Title: "Speaking of the Devil"... I would need multiple characters, because the entity isn't always a white male.

Worthy revenge!

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

No, they're not insane. But they could be actually listening to the devil or their imagination. Attributing a voice in your head to God should only be done after hearing consistent messages over several separate times of prayer.

[136or142]

You must pick one or the other, though neither of them are to be what they claim.

I don't know if any person hears anything from God, but I think while some are insane, most are telling themselves things that they had no idea how they were able to figure out.

Then there are some cases where people figured out things they really did have no way to figure out, but that need not be due to God, although it would likely be from something that many people refer to as God.

My own view is that there is a creator of the universe who also created the planets including earth, but that in no way to me validates the God in the Bible (or anything in the Bible.)  After all, every civilization has some kind of creation story and most of these involve a higher power, what makes the Bible so special?

So, once you separate the idea of a universal Creator for the God of the Bible (or any God made in 'man's' image), it frees up all sorts of possibilities.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Insane.

If you take any religilous book like the Bible or Koran, and removed every copy from the Earth, it would never be re-written.

Because it was written from the imagination of extraordinary individuals.

If you took every science book and removed every copy from the Earth, it may take 100 years, but they would be re written exactly the same.

God is a concept.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

If you take any religilous book like the Bible or Koran, and removed every copy from the Earth, it would never be re-written.

This is plainly ridiculous. You probably think religion is just a cult of stupid people running around with a book, but its much more than that. While it's true that there are plenty of people who just say they're christian to "fit in" and don't actually care about religion, it's also true that there are plenty of people that are honestly devoted to their faith and would work hard to preserve it even if the costs were high. If that means rewriting the bible from memory, so be it. Obviously the wording would not be exactly the same because human memory is imperfect, but there are plenty of people who are knowledgeable enough to rewrite a part of the bible essentially accurately, and we'd just combine knowledge and we could probably get most of it down, although it might read more like an extended summary of the original text than the actual original text. And in any case, I imagine that we wouldn't be forced to search our memories, as in such a dire situation, it is perfectly plausible that god would simply choose to unilaterally create new copies of the bible.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Well, if you go by intuition, which is your subconscious, your deep thoughts, you can hear wisdom.  And a lot of wisdom can be interpreted as spiritual advise.

[DemPGH]

Delusional is a better descriptor than insane. Insane is probably to found a cult or to deny that the square root of four is two because God told you something different, so to speak.

[136or142]

Delusional is a better descriptor than insane. Insane is probably to found a cult or to deny that the square root of four is two because God told you something different, so to speak.

The leader of the cult is pretty smart. It's the followers that are insane.

[bore]

Delusional is a better descriptor than insane. Insane is probably to found a cult or to deny that the square root of four is two because God told you something different, so to speak.

2 is a square root of 4 but the square root of 4 is not 2

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Delusional is a better descriptor than insane. Insane is probably to found a cult or to deny that the square root of four is two because God told you something different, so to speak.

2 is a square root of 4 but the square root of 4 is not 2

You must be either an idiot or a mathematician (Is there really a difference?) to be that pedantic about someone referring to the principal square root as "the square root" instead of "a square root".

[DemPGH]

Delusional is a better descriptor than insane. Insane is probably to found a cult or to deny that the square root of four is two because God told you something different, so to speak.

2 is a square root of 4 but the square root of 4 is not 2

You knew what I meant. Actually, it wasn't a very good example. There are quite a few people who hoop and holler and go into a type of mania when they get in a religious environment with a large assemblage of people, but I haven't read enough about it to know what's going on in their heads when they do that.

If a person really thinks God is audibly talking to them, that's a type of schizophrenia.

The "speaking in tongues" bit I think has been pretty well roundly debunked as pious fraud. So those are probably some better examples.

I'm not sure when delusion becomes insanity or schizophrenia, that's for a psychiatrist. I'm sure there's a line somewhere.

Delusional is a better descriptor than insane. Insane is probably to found a cult or to deny that the square root of four is two because God told you something different, so to speak.

The leader of the cult is pretty smart. It's the followers that are insane.

Especially when there are so many examples of fraud right now and throughout history! i.e., doomsday talk, special relics (that was rampant in the Middle Ages), and the like.

[bore]

Delusional is a better descriptor than insane. Insane is probably to found a cult or to deny that the square root of four is two because God told you something different, so to speak.

2 is a square root of 4 but the square root of 4 is not 2

You must be either an idiot or a mathematician (Is there really a difference?) to be that pedantic about someone referring to the principal square root as "the square root" instead of "a square root".

If you want to sacrifice rigour for something ghastly like usefulness then by all means do, but I have no desire to become an engineer.

[Meclazine for Israel]

And a fine one you will make.

If someone is hearing god, then there is a chance they are suffering paranoid schizophrenia or doing LSD.

Religion is a concept. You can follow it, but you should not be hallucinating about it.

Science on the other hand is built around repeatable facts.

Stick with Engineering. You will do fine.

[Young Conservative]

It depends.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It depends.

[Meclazine for Israel]

If you take any religilous book like the Bible or Koran, and removed every copy from the Earth, it would never be re-written.

This is plainly ridiculous. You probably think religion is just a cult of stupid people running around with a book, but its much more than that. While it's true that there are plenty of people who just say they're christian to "fit in" and don't actually care about religion, it's also true that there are plenty of people that are honestly devoted to their faith and would work hard to preserve it even if the costs were high. If that means rewriting the bible from memory, so be it. Obviously the wording would not be exactly the same because human memory is imperfect, but there are plenty of people who are knowledgeable enough to rewrite a part of the bible essentially accurately, and we'd just combine knowledge and we could probably get most of it down, although it might read more like an extended summary of the original text than the actual original text. And in any case, I imagine that we wouldn't be forced to search our memories, as in such a dire situation, it is perfectly plausible that god would simply choose to unilaterally create new copies of the bible.

You missed my point.

If we remove every bible from the planet and give all the Christian knowledge time to pass away.

Then we have a new generation of people with no knowledge of Christianity. The bible cannot be rewritten from scratch.

But a science text book can.

I am not saying religion is a bad thing. But god is a concept to help deal with the fundamental lack of knowledge that humans possess in ancient times.

[136or142]

If you take any religilous book like the Bible or Koran, and removed every copy from the Earth, it would never be re-written.

This is plainly ridiculous. You probably think religion is just a cult of stupid people running around with a book, but its much more than that. While it's true that there are plenty of people who just say they're christian to "fit in" and don't actually care about religion, it's also true that there are plenty of people that are honestly devoted to their faith and would work hard to preserve it even if the costs were high. If that means rewriting the bible from memory, so be it. Obviously the wording would not be exactly the same because human memory is imperfect, but there are plenty of people who are knowledgeable enough to rewrite a part of the bible essentially accurately, and we'd just combine knowledge and we could probably get most of it down, although it might read more like an extended summary of the original text than the actual original text. And in any case, I imagine that we wouldn't be forced to search our memories, as in such a dire situation, it is perfectly plausible that god would simply choose to unilaterally create new copies of the bible.

You missed my point.

If we remove every bible from the planet and give all the Christian knowledge time to pass away.

Then we have a new generation of people with no knowledge of Christianity. The bible cannot be rewritten from scratch.

But a science text book can.

I am not saying religion is a bad thing. But god is a concept to help deal with the fundamental lack of knowledge that humans possess in ancient times.

I agree with all but the last part.  I think the more that is known, the more the idea that there was a creator of the universe makes sense.

[Meclazine for Israel]

There is a creator of the Universe. Yes.

Clearly time did not exist before the big bang or whatever theory you want to agree on for the start of the show.

Time started somewhere. Time can not be rewound infinitely backwards.

That means there was nothing, then there was a ripple in the fabric of the space time continuum and space came into being. Once you have space, then time can begin.

So yes, you are right.

Something created the Universe.

[RINO Tom]

I don't believe that God actually *speaks,* let alone to any one individual.  I have always interpreted "hearing God" as a personal revelation of what you believe (whatever) God (you believe in) would want of you.  Kind of a "I get it now" moment.