Marduk

“Are people who claim to be routinely abducted and experimented on by aliens suffering from delusional thinking (a mental illness?) I would venture to guess that most people, including the religious, would say "yes". “


That is the odd part and why some Psychologists claim the abduction experiences are real(Mack, Harvard) people who have abduction experiences are no different than anyone else on standard Psych. Profiles. Spanos et. al. Carleton University Canada.

4 groups of people were given the same battery of tests:
15 had intense UFO experiences, including abduction, 20 had non intense UFO experiences, 74 ordinary college students and 53 people from the general population.
“The most important findings indicate that neither of the UFO groups scored lower on any measures of psychological health than either of the comparison groups. Moreover both UFO groups attained higher psychological health scores than either one or both comparison groups on 5 of the psychological health variables”

Spanos et. al. 1993a, p. 628

Jinto

Technically, all that proves is that the UFOers are no more delusional than the control groups. If the control groups are also delusional however... that would explain religion.

Marduk

“Technically, all that proves is that the UFOers are no more delusional than the control groups. If the control groups are also delusional however... that would explain religion.”

IOW everyone is delusional? They are standard tests, and are supposed to measure susceptibility to delusional thinking, schizophrenia etc.

Jinto

Standard tests calibrated by studying the general public. If the general public is delusional, then the standard tests will show a certain degree of delusion as "normal." Which was my point.

Marduk

“Standard tests calibrated by studying the general public. If the general public is delusional, then the standard tests will show a certain degree of delusion as "normal." Which was my point.”

But that would only effect the baseline, some people would still be more or less delusional than others, you’d think the ‘abductees’ would still fit in the’ more’ category.

Ojuice5001

You're assuming that empiricism is true. The way I look at it, aliens are an empirical claim and gods aren't. The gods cannot be seen with the senses, and their effects on the world are empirically similar to chance. Therefore, it's more acceptable to believe in gods for nonempirical reasons than to believe in UFOs.

Unless empiricism is true. Can you prove that it is, using only empirically known premises?

Opera Nut

I woudl agree that all mental phenomena are physical/chemical/experiential phenomena. The more we learn about brain chemistry the more we learn that different chemical states are responsible for different emotional states.

If I had seen a vision of God, a subjective experience, i would believe in God. Same with ghosts, angels, or any other ephemera like that. However, I have never had what I would call a religious experience, like God talking to me, or God appearing before me in radiant light, or whatnot. Therefore I do not believe in God.

Christians insist that everyone who becomes a Christian MUST have a subjective experience called "accepting Jesus into your heart", "getting right with God", or some other phrase. However, nobody can force me to have a hallucination, vision or other psychic experience that convinces me that God or Jesus exists. That is where I part company with them.

Jinto

You'd think, but unfortunately, the baseline also contains all those people who believe in Yahweh.

Oxymoron

I'm not sure I agree. This may or may not be true from a purely philosophical perspective. From a psychological viewpoint, the reasons for believing in Gods or UFOs are, if not identical, at least closely related, and it has very little to do with the existence of empirical evidence. Indeed, it thrives on the lack of it. Such is the nature of faith.

Gemma Therese

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