doppelgänger;1062005 said:
What of those followers of
Marshall Applewhite who committed mass suicide because they expected their souls would meet "Jesus" riding in a spacecraft behind the Comet Hale-Bopp as it was passing through our solar system . . . .
Were they delusional?
Yes, I think so.
doppelgänger;1062005 said:
Lack of internal consistency in the claim, for one thing. Like Kirk said in Star Trek V, "why does God need a starship?" (or space craft)... I'd add to that other questions:
- why does Jesus need you to die to 'beam you up' to his space craft?
- why is Jesus' space craft hiding behind a comet?
I think, though, that a lot of the test of whether a belief constitutes a delusion lies in reasonableness of that belief... and reasonableness can be a tricky thing to pin down. In the end, my judgement of why these particular people were delusional comes down to my opinion that the entire idea they were convinced of makes no sense at all. I can cite other things like
cult/dangerous group warning signs that I assume would have been present, but really, it just comes down to the fact that the sum total of my knowledge and experience tells me that these sort of beliefs are
obviously completely nutty.
Of course, the fact that a significant number of people found these ideas so convincing that they'd willingly wager their own lives on the truth of them tells me that my definition of "obvious" isn't universal.