Sheshbazzar

Being immersed into a cultural/religious milieu that has certain social/spiritual "expectations" can provide an impetus to "hear His voice", and to seek out and observe that "spiritual warfare" struggle that is supposedly going on between good and evil, and between "light" and "darkness" in every otherwise mundane social interaction.
An "atmosphere" extremely conducive to, and encouraging of, a public manifestation of such mental aberrations as publicly testifying to hearing the voices of angels and gods, and/or having received "visions", "prophecies" or "messages".
Such being so indoctrinated into strong overbearing social requirements and expectations of a personal "witnessing" and participation in "religious experiences" become totally duped into an internally sincere beliefe even in the most fantastic things that they might claim while "testifying".
Ask any Fundie "True Believer" to tell you all about how he got "saved", and all about whom "he walks with, and talks with."

Under the intense religious/cultural influences of the time, Joseph Smith may not have had any awareness at all that he was "lying" or "making up" an outrageous claim.
It is entirely possible that he was fully convinced in his own mind, that he was "seeing" those things and was "hearing" those voices.
And of course he had little trouble in finding companions who were more than glad to both confirm, encourage, and take part in his "spiritual experience".

Then again there are all of those pseudo-messiahs which have continuously popped up in history, usually having attained to their lofty status by what I would refer to as the "Chauncy Gardener" syndrome, sounding and seeming unusual and eccentric, soon their "disciples" are out falling all over themselves in efforts to ascribe, and to defend, the fantastic religious claims that they have made for him.
And "cults" being what "cults" are, it is not at all unusual for both the "believers" and the one that they believe in, to become fully convinced of the "truth" of their beliefs, and ready and willing even to die for their convictions. David Koresh managed to brain-wash himself, even while his "disciples" encouraged,fed, and reinforced his queer theology and the mental aberrations of his paranoia and neurosis.

It is my opinion that most of these pathetic religious figures either believed in their delusions, or at very least hoped that their particular line would ultimately prove to be the "truth" that would both justify and vindicate them.
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for....."

fatpie42

Isn't Dionysus quite a strong parallel? He pre-dates Christianity, he was (like many others) a 'son of God', he performed miracles (e.g. turning people in dolphins), he was killed and resurrected. I'm quite confused as to what evidence might be missing....

andrewcriddle

Dionysus-Zagreus (Dionysus the child) is killed and is reborn as Dionysus proper, the wild God of wine and drunken ecstasy, the worker of (sometimes cruel) miracles.

This is not IMO death and resurrection as normally understood, more death and reincarnation.

Andrew Criddle

gurugeorge

There's nothing particularly outrageous about the claim that he "spoke to an angel". (i.e. that he seemed to himself to have spoken to an angel - the rest of the stuff like the "golden tablets" is obvious con-jobbery, although I'd finger his father rather than him).

It's about as difficult to get to "speak to angels" as it is to learn a skill like macrame (i.e. it requires a bit of effort and dedication but it's not that difficult), and just as with any other skill, some people have natural aptitude for it. A few weeks of "fervent prayer" or practice of "astral projection" techniques, and then you'll be able to see what these founders of religions were talking about.

As I've said elsewhere, it's probably something like this: the mechanism in the brain that produces dream imagery and dream experiences can under certain circumstances (i.e. certain kinds of brain dysfunction or certain kinds of religious exercises, or even sleep deprivation) irrupt into waking consciousness, to produce real-seeming experiences of "communication with angels/spirits/demons/gods". It's really not that big of a deal.

What is a big deal is that rationalists investigating religions have got to get their heads straight that this kind of experience is at the centre of religion - it's the driving force of it. Rationalists, having no predisposition to these kinds of experiences, nor even any predisposition to seeking them out, will always have a peculiar "blind spot" about religion if they don't understand this, and their analysis of the phenomenon of religion will be lop-sided (concentrating on religion only as a historical/sociological/cultural phenomenon, or as part of the history of ideas).

Once again, think about it: the origins of the vast bulk of religions in this world involve people having (what seem to them to be real) experiences of communicating with gods/spirits/demons/etc., and bringing back to their people the "wisdom" of these gods/spirits/demons/etc.

If these are all con-jobs, across the whole bulk of time and space when people have had religion, then one has to explain why the con-jobs take this particular form - why all this talk of gods/spirits/demons, etc.? (The anthropomorphism angle is good, but that just as equally applies to the genuine case of seeming "talking to angels".)

danatbradlaughdotcom

I like Crossan. Particularly, for the type of person he argues his "historical Jesus" might have been. Secular, iconoclastic, and ultra-radical. That's more interesting to me, actually, than the arguments about historicism. Here's a guy trying to take the religion he's been a part of all his life in a radically new direction. Has this been discussed at all elsewhere? (I'm new here, and haven't found it yet, if it has)?

Solo

I think there is ample evidence in the NT itself that the "death" relating to the "rising from" was not meant literally, i.e. having to do with physical decease. There is the "Q" saying of Jesus "let the dead bury their dead" which necessarily assumes some are more dead then others. Revelation 2:11 actually spells out the semantics: 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.' And if that still does not convince you that in the Non-Pauline traditions, Jesus used "resurrection" that way (in the traditions of Jonah recovery and Hosea 6:2 revival), take a look at Luke's interpretation of the Jesus reply to the Saducees (20:33-36). ...and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection.. In this teaching, the sexlessness evidently did not mean post-mortem purity, as Luke's semantics indicate "equivalence" to angels, (not "transformation" into angels), and immunity from death, which would be pleonasm if "resurrection" in the context referred to the Pauline model of a spiritual survival after physical death.

Dionysius-Zagreus fits into this gnostic "death" and spiritual revival of (what was probably) the (original) Jesus teaching. Evidently the early Christian mystics (especially those competing with Paul) were intrigued by the similarities of the effect of the Spirit to that of wine or alcohol. Hence the frequent paralleling: e.g. Luke 1:15, Acts 2:14-17, Eph 5:18, GoT 13 & 108. The turning of water into wine in the marriage of Cana appears to be conscious paralleling of Jesus Spirit "power" to that of Dionysus.

For a classical psychological view of the phenomena of religious/mystical peaks, little death, and relationships between 'peakers' and 'non-peakers' see: Abraham Maslow, Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Jiri

gurugeorge

Yes, "resurrection" is a code term for an experience on the more mystical side of things as I was defining it above - i.e. it's not an example of seeing entities and speaking to them (visionary experience, parallel to schizophrenia when dysfunctional), it's an example of coming to a kind of ego-death and realization of God (mystical experience, parallel to depersonalization when dysfunctional). It's only when you get "chinese whispers" down a few generations that people start arguing about puerile inanities like literal resurrection after death.

aa5874

It is really a big deal to me. People do not have religous dream experiences continuously for their entire lifetime. There will be times when a person making claims about unknown spiritual beings would realise that they are basically conning their converts or deceiving themselves.



Maybe because it has been found to be probably the most successful con-job.

People who claim to believe in and talk about gods/spirits/demons, etc with authority are generally treated with respect, and have at times thousands or millions of people who believe they represent or at least get messages from this unknown God.

Eternal life after death is still selling.
.

Sheshbazzar

Some people apparently do go through their entire lives wholly immersed within, and founded and bounded by their religious relationships, experiences and convictions, ever expecting that either tomorrow, or in a short time, that all those ideas that they have accepted, will be shown to have been correct . (I am personally aquainted with some such, and was held in such state myself for over 3 decades)
Such might never consider that what they were "selling" was a "con job" at all, and even if, for a few moments, or for a day, they might entertain some such doubt, a big wheel once rolling gains momentum, and usually requires a much greater effort to bring to a stop than it did to get it moving, and all of that "momentum" is almost always sufficient to "roll on through" those rare small interludes of rationality or doubt.

The most successful con-job is when the seller, is suckered into the "buying" of his own line, and this has happened over and over in religion.

Zeichman

I like the fact that everyone other than contemporary atheists are lying, conniving, evil individuals who do their best to manipulate others.