I was speaking with someone about all the biblical characters who hear god talking to them. They were believed to be prophets. Nowadays when we hear god is talking to someone, we believe they are insane.
Why the change in opinion? Were the people in the bible actually insane, and not prophets, or are the people today prophets, and not insane? Just curious.
Depends when you were born, pre 19th century you were possibly a prophet, when we realised all sorts of mental disorders can cause hallucinations we kinda thought the whole God talking thing was kinda nuts.
Its like how we marvel at the effort that went into building the pyramids, not realizing that they had nothing better to do, no TV shows to catch up on.
And so, anybody with something interesting to say would be the equivalent of a celebrity today. The way stories were passed on verbally was more powerful and reputations turned into mythic legend.
We here someone say they hear God talking to them and we wonder how many people have said that before, and yet to be the first few people to do that must have spiced life up. True or not.
OP, we don’t tend to use the word “prophet” anymore because the term is a relic from the old paradigm (it predates science). Today we tend to use “genius” and “visionary.”
“Insane” strikes me as a ridiculously relative term. I mean, I think war is pretty insane. I think believing in a system that presupposes infinite growth and infinite resources (the modern economy) is pretty insane. And, to be perfectly frank, I think giving a rat’s ass about “the people in the Bible” is pretty insane, unless you’re using that information to gain a better understanding of your own world and life.
So, were they insane? It think most of human history has been an exercise in insanity, so yeah, I’m sure they were; and certainly by today’s standards (that is, today’s language) they were. But the idea of a “prophet” is about someone coming along with a real, genuine fruit to share, a message that can potentially save the fate of the human race, for instance, or at the least can change the course of history toward a positive end. Those people are the sane ones if they’re doing (or trying to do) that. Everyone else are the nutsos, the “sheep,” the “problem.”
If someone today actually spoke to an unseen entity that is trying to help humans, I think that entity would tell that human to keep it quiet, just spread the message, the words alone will sway the ones paying attention. The entity would know about voices and sanity.
IMH/SO, there are 4 thoughts to consider regarding the OP;
If God can’t reveal something to you, nothing can.
A person has limited means for anything to be revealed to them and all require usage of the mind (there is no such thing as direct perception).
As in the case of a dream, the subconscious mind can be exceedingly clever at relaying thoughts through sensations. If the conscious is rendered half-asleep, whether while walking around seemingly awake or laying in bed seemingly asleep, parts of the mind still attempt to communicate sometimes extremely significant thoughts to the conscious, especially if seemingly awake yet not awake enough.
You have to know God (at least by definition) in order to reason what God might or might not do
IMH/SO, so if an audible voice is heard with the impression that it is God, unfortunately it isn’t so black and white as to merely claim that it isn’t God. The truth is that no truth comes to anyone without God’s participation (but remember item 4). If a voice is being heard, it is certain that the brain is not functioning exactly properly (half asleep), but I have yet to meet anyone who’s brain really is.
IMH/SO, if the message happens to be something profoundly true, then certainly God was a participant as well as a subconscious part of the mind attempting to communicate with a half asleep conscious.
IMH/SO, The term “insane” doesn’t actually apply regardless of the message or means. The term “prophet” could well apply, but would be hard to discern. An idiot can possibly prophesy once or twice very accurately. Socially speaking if the person has not been ordained by the social monarchy, then he isn’t to be listened to regardless of anything he says because that would usurp their authority in speaking for God.
IMH/SO, The intent of the term “prophet” is to point out someone with reliable revelations (whether ordained or not) but such things would be very difficult to discern for individuals or governing monarchies.
I agree with Julian Jaynes on this. The human brain continues to evolve. It has mostly evolved past the eras in which the left brain thought all right brain influences came from outside the organism, The gods no longer speak to us.