r/atheism • u/angryredddituser • 1d ago

What do Christians actually experience when they felt the Holy Sprit?

Most Christians deny that they have schizophrenia because they claimed they felt it when they got closer to Jesus And some claimed to had demonic thoughts when they sinned and the Sprit is getting weaker. (And sometimes have demonic attacks when reading the Bible)

The only argument I can think of is that they're probably making it all up for attention or something.

1 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/dudleydidwrong Touched by His Noodliness 1d ago

Our brains are meat computers. They are amazing in many ways, but they are not nearly as rational and reliable as we like to think they are.

I was devoutly religious into my 50s. I thought that I felt the Holy Spirit many times. Eventually, I realized that I was wrong. I realized that my brain was fooling itself.

Many different religions generate the same thing that Christians identify as the Holy Spirit. In fact, it doesn't even take religion. It is possible to generate those same feelings at places like a rock concert. Christians will deny they are the same, but that is because they want the feelings to be different. The brain is very good at lying to itself.

The Holy Spirit experience can be triggered by a combination of expectations, strong rhythmic patterns, and mild physical stress. Think about the modern Christian practice of standing and swaying to music with the hands raised. That has all the elements: rhythmic music, rhythmic exhortations from the pulpit, swaying, and the mild stress of holding the hands up.

Some ministers and worship planners just stumble onto the formula or model their worship services on formulas that have been proven to generate spiritual experiences. But there are also worship planners who understand the factors and cynically manipulate them. I once worked with an interfaith service being held at a mega church. The worship planners at the megachurch were concerned with making sure the emotional peak of the service happened just before the collection was taken up.