Good Dan demolishes DCP’s favorite apologetic tactic

[huckelberry]

Drumdude, I think schizophrenia is a wide ranging pattern of perceptions that involve a whole large part of a person.

I'm not sure what you're asking about the person claiming the devil made him do it. If he did it, he's guilty as a criminal act. I don't think it matters legally if the devil got him up to it. Well, unless we are speaking of a person with schizophrenia which would be a legal defense.

[Moksha]

The Church tends to leave people like McClellan alone.

It's like the Sterling McMurrin effect. Only those truly wrong want to attack.

[msnobody]

Interesting topic. I think Dan is right that there is no scientific data to prove the existence of angels and demons, or what I would call elohim or non-embodied spirits, yet I have experienced four times what I would call the sometimes seen realm. I saw, what I saw, period, and nothing can change that fact. Just because no one else was there to see it, or I was not toting around a camera in hopes of capturing on film something I in no way expected to see, does not change the fact that I saw what I saw. Yes, I interpret what I saw either by the interpretation being revealed to me (this is where my strongest belief lies, as the interpretation was immediate without my having time to think about it, or reason it in my mind), or through what I know from the Bible (my belief that this explanation is in hindsight from having it revealed to me).

Nevertheless, I saw what I saw. I suppose one would be left to rationalize it in anyway one saw fit, or suppress what they saw as maybe not having happened.

My thought process is now interrupted due to honking geese that just splashed down.

[sock puppet]

Interesting topic. I think Dan is right that there is no scientific data to prove the existence of angels and demons, or what I would call elohim or non-embodied spirits, yet I have experienced four times what I would call the sometimes seen realm. I saw, what I saw, period, and nothing can change that fact. Just because no one else was there to see it, or I was not toting around a camera in hopes of capturing on film something I in no way expected to see, does not change the fact that I saw what I saw. Yes, I interpret what I saw either by the interpretation being revealed to me (this is where my strongest belief lies, as the interpretation was immediate without my having time to think about it, or reason it in my mind), or through what I know from the Bible (my belief that this explanation is in hindsight from having it revealed to me).

Nevertheless, I saw what I saw. I suppose one would be left to rationalize it in anyway one saw fit, or suppress what they saw as maybe not having happened.

My thought process is now interrupted due to honking geese that just splashed down.

I have no doubt you experienced something four times. Many images in the mind are from visual stimuli to the eyes, activating cones and rods and then transmitting the 'signals' to the conscious part of the brain. A physical visualization. There are also images that occur in the mind due to misinterpretations of visual stimuli, imagination (the root of which is image) and halucinations. As you point out, you alone had these experiences. The subconscious mind is very quick and your understanding or interpretation did not rely upon contemplation--"think about it, or reason it in the [conscious] mind." You ascribe your interpretation of what you 'saw' in your experiences as being either revealed to you or through what you know from the Bible. Have you considered other possibilities?

In cognitive psychology, many experiences have been studied. For example, deja vu was long held to have been the eventualization of a premonition. One had previously been given a glimpse of the future. It was supernatural. However, a much simpler explanation is that the conscious center of the mind receives data from two main sources: current sensory transmissions to that conscious center and also when call upon some from our past, from memory. Current sensory data is transmitted both to the conscious center and the memory. The conscious center processes the data and interprets it in real time so that we use it at the moment, and the interpretation is also saved into memory. Each of these transmissions happens through miniscule electrical impulses along different synapses routes in the brain. Deja vu, it is explained, is when the conscious center is in the same moment receiving the current sensory data not only directly but also indirectly, via the memory. So the conscious mind is thinking that data is both current and past (the past part being a 'memory').

Again, you alone have had the experience which you relate. I do not doubt it, but it is possible that there are explanations for the experiences that go beyond revelation or the Bible.