saw the movie A Beautiful Mind in my psychology class last week and I was just thinking what if a non-believer of any religion developed schizophrenia and started having delusions of a supernatural and higher being. like voices, then possibly visual occurances. would he be turned or maintain a mindset that he has a mental problem (or would he even consider that a possibility?) you could go deep into as to say that if it turns him, he could eventually be convinced that he himself is a prophet or something, that is to say if his delusions don't make him paranoid. this idea can go to controversal ground I guess so I was debating myself hardcore on whether or not I sohuld have posted this here or pandora's box. so i dunno
I have! I was atheist most my life, seen godlike beings, but I can say whatever you know gets visually brought up when high.
An old poster here was banned, but he was an atheist who felt he was a prophet. He believed in God for some time. But eventually he was able to see past his delusions because he had a strong mind and accepted that they were just delusions. Kind of like John Nash did. If the delusions stayed with him, then his mind was not strong enough to see past the delusions, and he would forever remain ill/paranoid. The delusions would never completely disappear and they would always believe they were special, but would be able to accept that it wasn't God and was just their mind that made them think that way. Maybe prophets are born through delusional thinkers who happen to be smart, or whatever, at the same time, and are able to survive past the illness? If that makes sense. I think only people who have survived this would truly be able to understand this though.
I guess it has to do with the way you percept it. If youre a stringent atheist you might think of it as a part of your imagination. However, I've also heard of atheist scientist who had a near death experience where he was clinically dead, and it changed his perception on life apparently. At the end i guess it all depends on what you chose to mark it as
I think it would depend if that person was exposed to some sort of religious figure before hand. Even subliminally. Hmm.
Well it'd be silly to assume because nobody knows what godlike figures look like. However if someone feels like a voice is guiding them in their head...and they like what it's telling them, then they may think it was God, especially if they have a ton of self doubt and don't consider themselves capable of coming up with such ideas, when in reality they probably are and they may believe they are a prophet being lead by God. I think I underestimated some people in my last post.