The problem is that people with serious psychotic disorders, the type of people who have this kind of hallucinations while not on drugs, are not just “hearing voices” and “seeing things” as if somebody hacked into their auditory and optical nerves and inserted extraneous signals. These people are really incapable of thinking clearly and rationally evaluating evidence. It is probably like they are living in a dream-like state while they are awake.
Yeah, what I didn’t say is, “If I became psychotic, and had a hallucination of god, I would probably not long-term believe it.” There are other reasons people can arrive at a state where they have hallucinations. If you break my critical faculties, then I’m far less likely to reason well.
I was able to find numbers suggesting that perhaps 1⁄4 people with schizophrenia have religious hallucinations, but I was unable to find out what percentage of people who report religious hallucinations serious suffer psychotic disorders. I do know that religious visions are widely claimed within certain communities, that various drugs, sleep depression, stress, are all things that raise the odds of having hallucinations, and there are perhaps 3% schizotypal folks out there, who are somewhat likely to be hallucinators but may not meet your bar for “serious psychotic disorder”.
I’ve sort of been assuming that while hallucinations are fairly a strong predictor of, say, “schizophrenia”, that other factors than serious-brain-whammy drive the bulk of religious hallucinations.
The problem is that people with serious psychotic disorders, the type of people who have this kind of hallucinations while not on drugs, are not just “hearing voices” and “seeing things” as if somebody hacked into their auditory and optical nerves and inserted extraneous signals. These people are really incapable of thinking clearly and rationally evaluating evidence.
It is probably like they are living in a dream-like state while they are awake.
Yeah, what I didn’t say is, “If I became psychotic, and had a hallucination of god, I would probably not long-term believe it.” There are other reasons people can arrive at a state where they have hallucinations. If you break my critical faculties, then I’m far less likely to reason well.
I was able to find numbers suggesting that perhaps 1⁄4 people with schizophrenia have religious hallucinations, but I was unable to find out what percentage of people who report religious hallucinations serious suffer psychotic disorders. I do know that religious visions are widely claimed within certain communities, that various drugs, sleep depression, stress, are all things that raise the odds of having hallucinations, and there are perhaps 3% schizotypal folks out there, who are somewhat likely to be hallucinators but may not meet your bar for “serious psychotic disorder”.
I’ve sort of been assuming that while hallucinations are fairly a strong predictor of, say, “schizophrenia”, that other factors than serious-brain-whammy drive the bulk of religious hallucinations.