Drawing The Line Between Religious Inspiration And Insanity

[pert -5]

Here is an article that may be of interest to those in the mental health fields.  It's probably old hat, but here it is nonetheless.  I'll post the beginning of the article here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/13/drawing-the-line-between-_n_796114.html
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A teenager says God and Jesus appeared to him in a grove and told him to start a new Christian church. Another person claims the Almighty talks to him through the radio.

A French girl gets messages from heaven to lead an army against the British, while a Utah woman thinks she is meant to have Jesus' baby and 12 husbands.

Some of these figures were considered prophets and saints, while others were judged insane. The question is: How do you tell which is which?

[gone]

The answer is simple. If you don't believe in god you know they are deluded (I wouldn't say insane) or out to better themselves. Making those claims is a way to attract attention and (insane) followers.

The question should be 'which are deluded and which are manipulative'..
And the answer is simple if you know how people work.

[SWM]

St Francis and Joan D Arc are a great inspiration for me and an example of the personal achievement that can come out of spiritual crisis. We currently use the degree of distress or the risk to self or others to determine if someone is ill. under our current criteria Joan would definitely have been classed as dangerous.

although she would not have got much passed the anti terror squad anyway.

[Enigma]

Religious people doing crazy shit??? This is unprecedented!

[voodoo scientist]

It's a much better question if you broaden it a bit to get out of the religious connotations: how does one tell a good expert from a bad expert?

[S. Earl Martin]

As far as a Christian perspective goes. If someone prophesizes. What they say should be supported by scripture. The same should hold true for "experts" in general. Whatever they say should be supported by documentation.
There is several sayings that come to mind.

" If you can't dazel them with brilliance. Baffel them with bull shit"

" There is one born every miniute."

I see a lot of people in the church being fooled today. False prophets telling people what they want to hear and taking their money. Then blameing them saying the didn't pray enough or have enough faith. Then doing it again. The sad part is the people don't see that the prophecies were lies. They think they are suffering for Jesus. When I have tried to point out that they are being fooled. They attack me as trying to destroy their faith. 

This basically the same con used by all these investment scammers etc. They tell people what they want to hear and if anything goes wrong they blame someone else.
If it seems to good to be true it usually is.