VOICES FROM HEAVEN AND JESUS' IRRESPONSIBLE ATTITUDE TO THOSE WHO THINK THEY HEAR THEM
Richard Dawkins pointed out that supernatural answers are not answers which is why saying God or magic did or may have done x is laziness and stops you from understanding if the real truth is different.
Now we are thinking here of some wonder science cannot replicate as far as we know. It cannot make life - yet. We can see how saying only magic or the supernatural can do it is virtually telling the scientist there are more important things to investigate and to attempt than creating even a basic form of life. That science will not be told what to keep out of shows that even if there is a God it is against him.
That is that one done. But what if we think of some wonder science can do such as cure some kind of cancer?
The first is obviously trying to fall back on God when there is no explanation.
The second actually does the same thing but it is harder to see. Here is how.
A magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat by trickery. But there is no reason why he cannot simulate the mundane with trickery too. Perhaps the hat itself is put on the table by sleight-of-hand though we see nothing out of the ordinary. And what if he were using a miracle power or occult ability to do either? What if it is half deception and half miracle? Perhaps a miracle is doing something with the lighting so that you cannot see the rabbit under the table?
See the point? If you assume the supernatural happens, then just because something looks and acts ordinary does not mean it is ordinary at all. Just because a miracle looks ordinary does not mean it cannot be the most deserving wonder of all time that merits unimaginable amazement. For that reason people telling us to be awestruck at how Jesus died and came back in three days are being manipulative whether they realise it or not.
Something that to us needs no obvious divine or paranormal agency to explain it happening may still need one. It is about what it needs not us.
The distinction between events that we attribute to God because we cannot explain them naturally and ones that we say we can explain is arbitrary.
Dawkins was half right. The problem he identified is worse than he said.
We have found that assuming there is a God or higher supernatural power is a threat to the validity of our explanations. They are turned into guesses and guesses do not count. A good and adequate explanation should be a strong thing and not weakened like that. People lose their love of curiosity in time if explanations are devalued.
All that paves the way for blocking you from understanding yourself.
We have seen that God undermines our senses and our reasoning and if that is not enough the view that he communicates with us comes along to do more destruction.
Lending credence to how God supposedly sends coded messages in your life and plants ideas in your head stops you understanding your psychology. If you theorise that God is putting thoughts in your head or speaking to you through events or whatever, then that means you do not realise that all that is really you. You do not realise what potential you have and how faith can make your inner world think it is a divine one when it is not. It can simulate a God whether there is one or not and often does. Even atheists at times go by a feeling, a hunch they treat as sort of divine. It is dangerous to start thinking your own subjective notions are coming from a God. That means you practically speaking are claiming to be a sort of God. Just because you don't kill and harm over it does not mean your thinking is the reason why others may do so. In other words, if you are that careless you cannot complain if others are careless and go out and commit religious genocide for they think it is God's will.
People are going to think they are getting communications from God in their hearts anyway. Sadly. But the likes of creatures like Jesus who are made to look plausible and be an inspiration that draws you to faith encourages that and feeds the already bad trait. Anything that claims to be a good justification for faith in this God who works within you and outside you to teach you will only make you too confident. It is only luck and by accident that many believers do not go too far.
Jesus is indirectly but truly to blame if a parent, thinking they have a divine warning from God, drowns their child in a bath to save them from Satan's wiles. Proof and evidence alone can put the brakes on an irresponsible outlook. But here there is not one thing can say if somebody claims it is a necessary evil that another must be put in the grave for their own good.
This thread of mental disturbance and religious manipulation comes from Jesus. Is it a mental contagion? Was Jesus himself disturbed?
Telling signs of a mental problem include disowning one’s family for no
proper reason. That is a big one and it gets bigger if it is known that the
family try publicly to try in some way to section the person. And it is
particularly big with Jesus for his family tried to contain him when they risked
the wrath of the public and his followers.
Jesus wouldn’t do anything for his mother and called her woman not mother. And
he would not go out to her or his brothers when they came to where he was,
saying he was not right in the head. It is interesting that they said that about
him not that he was possessed or brainwashed or something. In those
superstitious times when demons got the blame for mental problems they were sure
he was just a crank. That might indicate they knew of a sly side to him.
You are less likely to be considered insane if there is a method in your
madness. In the Sermon on the
Mount Jesus said that there is no reward for loving anybody that loves you back
so that is clearly anti-family.
Jesus said he was sure his teaching came directly from the Father, God, implying
he was hearing voices. He would have met people making similar claims and
attracted them. There is no evidence that he told them they were wrong. There is
no evidence that he warned against thinking that the voices were there and real
even if they were not from God. Usually the likes of him object to the content
of the message that is heard not the hearing of the voices. He did not object to
such claims as far as we know. None of his alleged exorcisms involve somebody
hearing voices. None. That is important.
Mental illness was considered to be demonic possession in Jesus'
day and he thought the same thing. Someone like him who
exorcises on request and tells his disciples to do the same is
irresponsible. Some would think that if he were crazy himself it is
no wonder he thought many others were the same.
It is only in recent decades that we assume mental illness when somebody reports
audible voices that nobody else can hear. What is more recent than that is the
including of the audible voice of God. Not long ago, people had more suspicions
about one reporting that the local ghost was giving them information through a
voice in their head than one saying the voice was God. If people decided it was
not God, they said it must be Satan. But they agreed the voice was really coming
from a supernatural person.
The danger of such beliefs and assumptions is compounded by the fact that if
the supernatural is real, then knowing somebody has an illness like
schizophrenia, does not give you the green light to say all the voices are in
their heads. Some might not be.
Is this voice thing from God thing really crazier than thinking that God speaks
not audibly to you but through manipulating events? In principle no. But think
on this. Saying he wants you to treat what may not be signs from him as a message is in
fact very very stupid. It is worse to think that the water pipe bursting is an
invitation to organise your baptism at the local Church, than to think you have
heard a voice. It is easy enough to be sane and imagine you hear a yes. That is
all it takes. And suffering and extremism take root.
