I don't know why this crossed my mind recently - oh yeah, I do remember now, but the story is too long to relate here - but I thought "Isn't it odd that generally speaking, it seems Muslims faith does not involve the idea of God ever 'talking' directly into the mind of the believer, it's more about listening to what God wants as teachings mediated via your Imam. Christians, on the other hand, and especially fundamentalist (and American) Christians, are all about thinking that God is causing them directly to think or feel something in their head. One would think that the latter might be potentially more dangerous for society, and the Christian Nationalism movement in the US is full of highly armed people who seem to want to fantasise about killing the evil for God; but on the other hand, Muslim terrorist attacks have obviously been a thing. It's a bit complicated..."
On the issue of "does God talk directly to believers", I thought I would Google it, and came up with this rather handy column from (of all places) the Reno Gazette Journal, which quotes people pretty much confirming my understanding:
Sherif A. Elfass, Northern Nevada Muslim Community president
In Islam, the means of communication that can take place between God and human beings are described by God in the Quran: “And it is not for any human being that Allah should speak to him except by revelation or from behind a partition or that He sends a messenger to reveal, by His permission, what He wills. Indeed, He is Most High and Wise.” (42:51). Islam teaches us Allah (SWT) spoke directly to Prophets Adam, Moses and Muhammad (PBUT) only without ever revealing Himself (from behind a partition). Allah (SWT) spoke to some of the prophets, like Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH), through revelation that came as dreams. However, the most common method Allah (SWT) used to communicate to His prophets is through angels sent as messengers. Since no prophets will come after Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the communication between Allah (SWT) and human beings is limited to revelations through dreams.
As for one of the Christians represented in the column, he's a bit cautious:
Steve Bond, lead pastor, Summit Christian Church, Sparks
Yes … God speaks directly to humans. Over 2,000 times in the Old Testament there are phrases such as, "And God spoke to Moses" or "the word of the Lord came to Jonah" or "God said." We see an example of this in Jeremiah 1:9. "The LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, 'Now I have put my words in your mouth.'" Jeremiah claims to speak specific words God had put into his mouth.
During the birth of Jesus, God spoke to Mary through an angel; he spoke to Joseph through a dream; he spoke to the shepherds through an angel and he spoke to the Magi through a dream. Yes, God speaks!
But now that the Scriptures are complete, any word from God must be corroborated by the Bible. God’s Word is the plumb-line against which all new revelation is measured.
In fact the Catholic representative sounds a bit more into affirming the direct line from God to the brain:
Monique Jacobs, director of faith formation, Roman Catholic Diocese of Reno
God has a long history of speaking directly to humans. In Scripture — Old and New Testaments — you will see God has made it a priority to communicate directly with us over the centuries. If you love someone, you find every opportunity to communicate — it’s no different for God. Though you may not have experienced this (yet) God doesn’t reserve this loving, intimate conversation for saints alone. There is a lot of competition in our lives for the voice of God; the trick is to make time for quiet: intervals of solitude, hiking or running without earphones, sitting beside a candle trusting your presence is enough. Breathe. God is patient, so must we be. We cannot make these encounters happen by willpower; it is all God’s initiative — our part is the response. Our heart should be open, expectant; don’t worry about “doing it” right or imagining the whisper.
The Buddhist rep sounds a bit trippy:
Matthew T. Fisher, Reno Buddhist Center resident priest
Buddhism is a non-theistic world view, so this is not a central question. But we can ask if the Light of the universe can be heard? After the Buddha was enlightened he described a vibrant scene — more beautiful than any he had ever seen. He called this “being awake,” deeply hearing the world around him. All sentient beings can reach this state, but we are limited by biases and narrow habits of thought. This deep hearing of the light is joyous appreciation of the wondrous gifts the universe offers. Does the universe talk? Only if we listen.
Conversations do happen. Just after the Buddha was enlightened, the highest of Hindu gods, Brahma, encouraged Buddha to go forth and teach. Though Buddha was reluctant, he was swayed by Brahma’s request. And sutras recount many gods listening with interest to the Buddha’s important discourses like the Lotus Sutra.
Just wait until Elon Musk gets to put in brain implants: maybe that will increase the efficiency of communication...
4 comments:
I have an interest in this issue because the experience of God broadly and God speaking to a person specifically may have something to do with cerebral lateralization and left hemispheric dominance. Some who take DMT are convinced aliens are speaking to them. Psychedelics generally create hallucinations, as does temporal lobe epilepsy. Persinger's God Helmet concept was originally designed to suppress left hemispheric dominance. There is also evidence that some psychopathologies involved a failure of inter-hemispheric co-operation.
In cognitive neuroscience cerebral lateralization has been ignored. Iain McGilchrist, reader in English, philosopher, psychiatrist, and neuroscientist, has published a huge tome on the subject which has ignited interest in hemispheric differences. I've read The Master and His Emissary. He raises some interesting ideas but when I checked some of footnotes it seemed he was being rather loose with his interpretations. However I certainly wasn't rigourous in my analysis and believe his ideas deserve more attention.
I raised the issue of psychedelics on the Cat only to have Dover Beach engage in his usual dishonest rhetoric. He even equated the experience of fire with the experience of psychedelic drugs, an analogy so stupid I was mystified as to why he wanted to defend that. Typical of him though, very dishonest at times. Of course he had no insight into the relevance of hemispheric co-operation in relation to psychedelics, religious experience, and hallucinations. At a guess I think his refusal to acknowledge the linkage arises from the fact that suppression of left side experience can give rise to religious concepts like life after death and God speaking to the person. He may find that a threat to his religiousity because there is an obvious psychopathic association with a loss of interhemispheric co-operation.
I saw some of your back and forth with Dover at Catallaxy, but not all of it. He is terrible to argue with - like his hero Feser, he actually prefers the fog of words to clarity, I'm sure. Also, seems genuinely uninterested in ever reaching a friendly consensus on an issue - seems to never want to concede on anything.
Your talk of McGilchrist, who I hadn't heard of before, reminds me a bit of Julian Jayne's ideas, but I'm not sure if Jaynes thought cerebral lateralization was behind his theory - oh yes, I see from a quick look at Wikipedia and it was relevant...
McGilchrist is an updated version of Jaynes with a mountain of data. The chapter dealing with hemispheric research has 500 footnotes. His follow up work, a decade later, is "The Matter of Things". You can find him on youtube but the discussions are rather long and tedious. He thinks our culture has become to left side dominated. There might be something to that. As I wrote before Steve, I'm not inclined to fully investigate his ideas. It took him several years to develop the model and I'm not into cognitive neuroscience enough to dig deeper.
You're right about DB. When cornered he starts obfuscating, erecting straw men, and raising red herrings. There are plenty of intelligent and honest theists around. He and Feser are not in that category.
you would have to be sceptical whether it was god talking to you ( afterall what is he going to say that is not in the bible) but as the man says if what is said is consistent with the bible then you know it is him. If it isn't it is the other bloke
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