# God Spoke to Me: Why is this Good? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 23, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821 "2009-10-23T03:17:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/21 "2009-10-23T22:37:37Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The children of atheists grow up to be atheists. I am the child of an atheist. I did not grow up to be an atheist. > [@](#): > > Take for example [glossolalia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossolalia), as part of a person’s religious experience they spout gibberish. This gibberish just happens to be a random mix of the most prevalent sounds in that person’s native language, with the occasional foreign word thrown in. I saw a hypnotist once, and he told the people who came up on stage to talk in the language of Martians. One guy who knew some French ended up throwing a few words of French into his babble of gibberish. People who have been hypnotized will sometimes report having actually sensed and seen the things that they were told to experience. That people can self-hypnotize is also true. “Self-hypnosis”? I thought atheists had given up on that one years ago. But, nonetheless, if you have any evidence that religious experiences are self-hypnosis then why don’t you post it? > [@](#): > > Archaeological evidence shows that the Christian god started out as a minor storm god in a pantheon of deities like the Roman, Viking, or Greek mythologies. You can trace his ascendancy and the rewriting of history to show him as being the one and only. Sikhs who practice yoga report themselves to be able to hover, but admit that an outsider wouldn’t be able to see it unless the viewer “believed”. We’re currently in the process of watching Scientology go from something clearly crafted by a science fiction writer to being believed as reality, and for people to report mystical experiences when “audited”. When you make claims like this, you should probably produce cites. [Preferably not what was debunked in this thread either.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=514979) ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/22 "2009-10-23T23:01:29Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Why, in a world where it can be shown that hearing the voice of God can perfectly equate to smashing your own child’s head in with a rock, would anyone trust their personal experience over what can be demonstrated rationally to impartial observers? You could ask that about any experience. Why do I trust that my memories of getting married are valid. After all, it’s possible I could go upstairs and give my wife a friendly smooch only to be greeted with screaming and confusion from a woman that’s never met me. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/23 "2009-10-23T23:42:17Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I am the child of an atheist. I did not grow up to be an atheist. Anecdote, meet data. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/24 "2009-10-23T23:44:54Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Anecdote, meet data. Well, the anecdote has arrived. The data concerning the proposition is not yet evident in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Pray\_for\_peace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pray\_for\_peace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pray_for_peace)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2009, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/25 "2009-10-24T00:27:04Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > You could ask that about any experience. Why do I trust that my memories of getting married are valid. After all, it’s possible I could go upstairs and give my wife a friendly smooch only to be greeted with screaming and confusion from a woman that’s never met me. And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful house! And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful wife! ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2009, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/26 "2009-10-24T00:41:58Z")
God spoke to me and told me that I am the King of the World, but don’t worry, he didn’t tell me to kill any of my subjects. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2009, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/27 "2009-10-24T04:09:08Z")
I am an atheist and was raised to be a Catholic. My son went to catholic schools from 3rd grade through college and threw it off. Catholics raise atheists because their religion has so many logic holes in it . It just makes no sense at all. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2009, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/28 "2009-10-24T05:08:29Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > I am an atheist and was raised to be a Catholic. > My son went to catholic schools from 3rd grade through college and threw it off. > Catholics raise atheists because their religion has so many logic holes in it . It just makes no sense at all. Neither does any other religion. If they actually do produce more more atheists than average for a religion ( I have no idea ), then I’d tend to lay the blame on the Catholic school system. Which from what I’ve heard does a good educational job, which is in turn the sort of thing likely to create atheists even if that isn’t the intention. If you want to raise people to be believers, you’d do better to do a _ **bad** _ job of educating them. Give them a very narrow education that focuses on the absolute truth of the religion, the evils of science and outsiders, and on propaganda techniques for spreading the Word. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2009, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/29 "2009-10-24T08:15:28Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Anecdote, meet data. Ah, so now it’s: Proposition: A Scotsman never takes sugar on his porridge! Rebuttal: But McTavish takes sugar on his porridge. Retort: Anecdote, meet data. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2009, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/30 "2009-10-24T10:58:45Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The children of atheists grow up to be atheists. I’ll accept that this is true if you have statistics, but this is not to say that atheists do not indulge themselves in other unsupported/unexamined/inconsistent beliefs, or do not have a general predilection to believe in some sort of Great Cause. It might be a social cause; it might cross into paranoia; it might be a political bent; it might be a conspiracy. The predilection to Believe is, I think, an atavistic reaction programmed into all of us, and required of our species because it helps to create social order. If your belief system embraces the Supernatural, than you might interpret certain cognitions as having a supernatural origin. If it does not not include the supernatural, you are still going to have a tendency to embrace some things as Obvious Truths regardless of whether or not you have personally subjected them to a dispassioned analysis. While your source may differ, the natural predilection to accept something as Gospel does not seem to go away simply because you are an atheist. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2009, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/31 "2009-10-24T15:35:17Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I’ll accept that this is true if you have statistics, [http://books.google.com/books?id=yX3qTZUfLP4C&lpg=PA49&ots=y4PC9Sa629&dq=percent%20of%20children%20same%20religious%20belief%20parents&pg=PA49#v=onepage&q=percent%20of%20children%20same%20religious%20belief%20parents&f=false](http://books.google.com/books?id=yX3qTZUfLP4C&lpg=PA49&ots=y4PC9Sa629&dq=percent%20of%20children%20same%20religious%20belief%20parents&pg=PA49#v=onepage&q=percent%20of%20children%20same%20religious%20belief%20parents&f=false) Unfortunately, it gives rates of retention for the religious, but not the irreligious. The overall “change of religion”, as opposed to “change of denomination”, is less than 1%. I’d venture to guess that atheism and agnosticism could be considered denominations of one another. > [@](#): > > but this is not to say that atheists do not indulge themselves in other unsupported/unexamined/inconsistent beliefs, or do not have a general predilection to believe in some sort of Great Cause. It might be a social cause; it might cross into paranoia; it might be a political bent; it might be a conspiracy. Certainly, but by indulging in a wide span of irrational activities and believing and feeling it fully, that’s just more evidence of how easily humans can be lead to believe and feel wacky stuff. If you look at conspiracy theorists or scientologists, and think, “Gosh, no one could really _believe that_ could they?” Then you should be able to look at your own things you believe and go, “Wait a second…” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2009, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/32 "2009-10-28T20:06:57Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > if you have any evidence that religious experiences are self-hypnosis then why don’t you post it? I have listed a good dozen items as possible explanations for religious experiences. I have not endorsed any one of them as **the** explanation nor have I said that there is **one** explanation. Or as the guy who “disproves the God Gene” says, “the importance of the VMAT2 finding is not that it explains all spiritual or religious feelings, but rather that it points the way toward one neurobiological pathway that may be important.” The point is that all of them are fully plausible and more plausible than direct communication from a character who archaeology shows to be, probably, the fictional creation of man. If you’re jumping past them to “God did it” as your first stop, you’re failing to properly consider a practical consideration of the foibles of man. Is there any further evidence that you aren’t self-deluding yourself than your own personal conviction of the reality of it? How much money would you bet on any one person’s personal conviction on a subject when he could show no further evidence? ---
**Author:** ![NJ\_Kef](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/258eb7/32.png) [@NJ\_Kef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NJ_Kef)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2009, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/33 "2009-11-02T14:25:52Z")
For me, God is the source of meaning. I don’t assign or invent the meaningfulness of events. Meaning is discovered. The expression “God spoke to me” is a metaphorical description. God “speaks” through events because my relationship to “Him” is dialogical. When I was 11, my mother said to me, “Don’t you have a voice inside you that tells you right from wrong?” I walked away asking myself: does she really mean a voice, an actual voice, no that can’t be what she meant, if I heard an actual voice I would be scared. I decided she must have been referring to my conscience, that mysterious faculty which I now understand is the response of my entire being to the world at large. ---
**Author:** ![sqvare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@sqvare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqvare)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/34 "2009-11-11T08:31:34Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > I have always wondered why people listen to voices. If “god” told me to kill someone, I would tell the voice to fuck off And how does one _know_ it’s God talking? I knew someone who had this issue with hearing voices. He insisted he could hear people whispering about him. Apparently, this had occurred when he was on vacation two weeks earlier in another state 600km away, and he came back home to “get away from them”. But the voices “followed him home” and they were still whispering about him. He didn’t know what they were saying - couldn’t make out words - but was convinced that they were plotting against him. I asked him how he knew this, since his bedroom was a corner room three floors up and the nearest building was 60 feet away. No one could be floating in the air outside his window, and the nearest building was too far away to hear any conversations (and no, it wasn’t someone’s television!), and he couldn’t understand what was being said anyway. But he categorically would not accept the possibility that the voices may not be real, even though he couldn’t explain where they were coming from; no logic could shake his belief. His family subsequently got him psychiatric help - I think it was diagnosed as mild paranoid schizophrenia. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/35 "2009-11-11T16:00:17Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > God spoke to me and told me that I am the King of the World, but don’t worry, he didn’t tell me to kill any of my subjects. All hail the mighty **mswas** ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/36 "2009-11-11T18:41:55Z")
> [@Sage Rat](#): > > The children of atheists grow up to be atheists. That strikes me as a little broad, if intuitive. I’m not prepared, on the strength of the assertion, to accept it as an established fact. > [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I am the child of an atheist. I did not grow up to be an atheist. This, OTOH, hardly does more than provide a counterexample to prove that it’s not a 100% proposition. Possibly it doesn’t even manage that, depending upon how the arguments are parsed. A little more data, if it’s not too much trouble, **ITR champion**. Were you in fact _raised_ in an environment where your primary caregiver(s) espoused an exclusively atheistic metaphysical worldview? Because “I am the child of an atheist” can also be a true statement when spoken by someone with one atheist and one religious parent, of whom only the religious parent was involved in the raising of the offspring. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/37 "2009-11-11T18:43:32Z")
> [@chowder](#): > > All hail the mighty **mswas** What, God told _you_, too (about **mswas** being the King of the World)? ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/38 "2009-11-13T17:34:42Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I have listed a good dozen items as possible explanations for religious experiences. I have not endorsed any one of them as **the** explanation nor have I said that there is **one** explanation. Or as the guy who “disproves the God Gene” says, “the importance of the VMAT2 finding is not that it explains all spiritual or religious feelings, but rather that it points the way toward one neurobiological pathway that may be important.” > > The point is that all of them are fully plausible and more plausible than direct communication from a character who archaeology shows to be, probably, the fictional creation of man. If you’re jumping past them to “God did it” as your first stop, you’re failing to properly consider a practical consideration of the foibles of man. > > Is there any further evidence that you aren’t self-deluding yourself than your own personal conviction of the reality of it? How much money would you bet on any one person’s personal conviction on a subject when he could show no further evidence? To tackle this slightly out of order: The archaeological evidence that you refer doesn’t convince me of anything because it doesn’t exist. That was debated in another thread, which I linked to above. But since I like being helpful, [here’s the link again.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=514979) As for the “possible explanations of religious experience”, I happy to read them but first I need to know what they are. To continuously throw out link after link and then say that none is intended to be a convincing explanation but all are intended to be possible doesn’t convince. Is there somebody who’s actually taken all the possibilities from neuroscience, done a thorough study of religious experience, and shown that it’s all explained? If so, I’d love to read it. Until then, however, I’m sticking with the evidence which suggests that some religious experiences are genuine. Things like the [studies of the visionaries at Medjugorje](http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_15_2_pandarakalam.pdf), showing that their eyes, ears, and brain are processing visual and audio information in a normal matter, only the subject is not visible or audible to others. Or the [MRI analysis of Carmelite nuns](http://www.mapageweb.umontreal.ca/beauregm/Beauregard2006_CarmelitesfMRI.pdf) as they undergo a state of union with God. Lots more research could be done on this subject, of course, but I have yet to see any thorough treatment of it which backed up your argument. As your claim that mystics who claim to be interacting with God (or angels, saints, the Virgin Mary, etc…) can “show no further evidence”, I’m happy to look into that, but first let’s nail down what you mean by evidence. If a mystic made a prophecy that came true, would you consider that evidence that their vision was genuine? (I’m not asking whether you’d consider it final proof, just whether you’d consider it evidence.) If a mystic made a statement about physical fact that contradicted what was believed in his or her time, but was later shown to be correct, would that be evidence? If a mystic made a statement about something occurring a long distance away, would that be evidence? ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/39 "2009-11-13T19:05:58Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > What, God told _you_, too (about **mswas** being the King of the World)? Yes he did, last night while I was watching an old episode of _The Twilight Zone_. So it must be true, I say again, "All hail the mighty **mswas** ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821/40 "2009-11-14T18:17:21Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Things like the [studies of the visionaries at Medjugorje](http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_15_2_pandarakalam.pdf), showing that their eyes, ears, and brain are processing visual and audio information in a normal matter, only the subject is not visible or audible to others. Or the [MRI analysis of Carmelite nuns](http://www.mapageweb.umontreal.ca/beauregm/Beauregard2006_CarmelitesfMRI.pdf) as they undergo a state of union with God. Lots more research could be done on this subject, of course, but I have yet to see any thorough treatment of it which backed up your argument. I’m just going to step back and ask you to explain why evidence that humans, if trained, can self-induce euphoria and other sensation isn’t more wood for my fire. Unless someone detected beams of Godly energy radiating from some mysterious outside force to control the brain of the person in question, why are you presuming an outside force to be involved in any of this? Why is that outside force **necessary**? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-spoke-to-me-why-is-this-good/514821.md?page=3)