I guess some of you know me by now as the fundamental Atheist here.
I would like to go a little further and share some of my thoughts and research into origins of religious thought.
Having given up religion at around 21 or 22 years of age or so (13-14 years ago), I became intrigued with the mechanics of religion. Basically when I use the term mechanics, I mean "how and where did this pattern of thought come from?"
I actually went through a phase where I believed the answer lay in psychology, and although there are certain patterns and traits of human psycology to be found there, I found no real breakthroughs, and honestly, I found it quite boring and best left to councillors and therapists.
Then came my philosophy phase, both religious and not. I found that what people thought about our existance throughout the ages has changed many times over, especially religious thought.
Next I became interested in prophecies from the past, and found reference to The Oracle at Delphi which was located in Greece, somewhere around 1400 BC and earlier. Although my link does not describe it in detail, the oracle sat in a small enclosure, and people asked her questions. Some accounts of her speaking said it was most times unintelligable. At first thought you would think her just some crazy fool, but apparently there had been more than one, and they only started babbling at this spot, after being there for a period of time.
It had been thought that there was an emmission source near where she sat, and that she was actually high on natural gas fumes. This was not believed to be true until a fairly recent geological examination of the site:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010807075959.htm
Whether it is true that she was high, I can`t say for sure, I never researched very much beyond that point, and cared not to dig further, see, I had a new idea for this great fun I have at being a skeptic.
I decided to look into altered states of consciousness, and research what effects, either natural, or induced, could cause people to predict the future, see God, see angels, or otherwise produce an account of a supernatural occurance through which no other explanation is possible.
Obviously inhalation of gas fumes will cause hallucinations, I won`t dwell on that.
This is neat stuff, I`m gunna take a break, and start on the next post, so sit tight.