From: Avatar Polymorph (avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Sep 28 2002 - 11:18:00 MDT
I found the following text interesting on religious visions...
"cannot rely on any specific details of these stories because they contain
elements of drama which may or may not come from sources other than the
author's imagination, but we have so little reliable information about any
of the mass experiences we simply cannot rule out the possibility that
expectation and excitement did not play a factor, and if we cannot rule that
out, then we cannot establish a miracle as a necessary explanation. One
thing I will add: the argument that hallucinations would not inspire radical
transformations of character is absurd, since the very nature of
hallucinations is such that you rarely know you are hallucinating. Because
of its nature, a hallucinated experience will easily be believed real, and
will thus have exactly the same effect as a real experience.
As far as individual hallucinations, there are reasons for believing that
hallucination may have been a factor in the formation of the Christian
beliefs. Peter Slade and Richard Bentall, in Sensory Deception: a Scientific
Analysis of Hallucination (1988), survey the evidence for hallucination, and
examining several studies in 1894, 1948, 1968, and 1983, found hallucination
to be rather commonplace (pp. 69-71)--between 7% and 14% of those surveyed
who did not exhibit any mental illness reported having experienced
hallucinations, and this sample naturally did not record those who had
hallucinations but did not know it. Of these identified experiences, over 8%
were multi-sensory hallucinations, and 5% involved entire conversations.
Surveying this and much more evidence, the authors conclude that "many more
people at least have the capability to hallucinate than a strictly medical
model implies should be the case" (p. 76).
Moreover, social and cultural factors can increase the frequency and
acceptance of hallucinations. Of 488 societies surveyed, 62% accepted some
form of hallucinated experiences as real (such as being visited by the dead,
or talking to animals or trees), and the majority of these accepted
experiences were not induced by drugs (p. 77). In a particularly interesting
case, one study found that 40% of Hawaiian natives have reported veridical
encounters and conversations with dead people, usually after violation of a
tribal taboo (p. 78). This study was inspired by a few clinical cases of
such hauntings, which the therapists could not cure, and in seeking a cure
they investigated the cultural influences behind the experiences. After
their findings, they resolved to "cure" the problem by leading the victims
to engage in culturally-established atonements, which were "expected" to end
the visits, and they did. Habermas would have this stand as proof that the
Hawaiian native religion was genuine, but clearly he cannot have that--for
if Christianity is true, then violating Hawaiian tribal taboos could hardly
cause the dead to rise and chastise people (for why would God arrange for
such a vindication of their non-Christian beliefs?).
The survey demonstrated another important point: visual hallucinations are
rare in Western cultures, but not in many others (especially developing
countries). Moreover, "the folk theory of visions and voices adopted by a
culture may be important in determining whether a hallucination is viewed as
veridical or as evidence of insanity" (p. 80). As a historical example,
"medieval writings on insanity make few references to hallucination and
instead take overt evidence of disturbed behavior (e.g. babbling, wandering
aimlessly, thrashing, biting) as diagnostic of madness" and yet many
medieval reports of visions which were regarded as real match modern visions
reported by those with a psychotic disorder (p. 80). As the authors
conclude, "we must seek the causes of hallucination, at least in part, in
the social and historical environment of the hallucinator" (p. 81). When we
look at the cultural situation in antiquity, we see exactly the same
circumstances: hallucinations are rarely mentioned as evidence of insanity,
but visions of the deceased and of gods and all sorts of other things are
accepted as real (see my review of Beckwith for more on the cultural status
of visions in antiquity). Thus, Habermas, as a Westerner with little
acquaintance with ancient culture, finds hallucinations hard to swallow--but
this is only his own cultural bias leading him to the wrong conclusion. In
ancient times, hallucinations were readily believed as real, and were, as in
the case of the Hawaiians, far more common and culturally distinct from
hallucinations in our society today."
I'd also note the above in the context of these comments from a speech:
"Only a small class of elite well-educated men adopted more skeptical points
of view, and because they belonged to the upper class, both them and their
arrogant skepticism were scorned by the common people, rather than
respected. Plutarch laments how doctors were willing to attend to the sick
among the poor for little or no fee, but they were usually sent away, in
preference for the local wizard. By modern standards, almost no one had any
sort of education at all, and there were no mass media disseminating
scientific facts in any form.
By the estimates of William Harris, author of Ancient Literacy [1989], only
20% of the population could read anything at all, fewer than 10% could read
well, and far fewer still had any access to books. He found that in
comparative terms, even a single page of blank papyrus cost the equivalent
of fifty dollars--ink, and the labor to hand copy every word, cost many
times more. We find that books could run to the tens or even hundreds of
thousands of dollars each. Consequently, only the rich had books, and only
elite scholars had access to libraries, of which there were few.
The result was that the masses had no understanding of science or critical
thought. They were neither equipped nor skilled, nor even interested, in
challenging an inspiring story, especially a story like that of the Gospels:
utopian, wonderful, critical of upper class society--even more a story that,
if believed, secured eternal life. Who wouldn't have bought a ticket to
that lottery?
The differences between society then and now cannot be stressed enough.
There didn't exist such things as coroners, reporters, cameras, newspapers,
forensic science, or even police investigators. All the technology, all the
people we have pursuing the truth of various claims now, did not exist then.
In those days, few would even be able to check the details of a story if
they wanted to--and few wanted to. Instead, people based their judgment on
the display of sincerity by the storyteller, by his ability to impress them
with a show, and by the potential rewards his story had to offer. At the
same time, doubters didn't care to waste the time or money debunking yet
another crazy cult, of which there were hundreds then. And so it should not
surprise us that we have no writings by anyone hostile to Christianity until
a century after it began--not even slanders or lies. Clearly, no doubter
cared to check or even challenge the story in print until it was too late to
investigate the facts."
Plus of course everyone was dead by 30 on average.
All the above does not constitute my personal view on this stuff! But I do
find it interesting if not perhaps the whole picture.
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