Is there any Atheist explanation for what I felt at this one Spanish church?

Question

I went to Iglesia Pacto Con Cristo or however you spell it. Point is it's a church for Jevoah's witnesses or something and they speak the sermon in Spanish. I do not know Spanish yet the sermon affected me and I started crying and I couldn't stop smiling because I was overjoyed for some reason. And when the pastor touched people's heads sometimes they fainted or during the singing people would start shaking and crying. In fact I was TRYING to hold back my tears and I couldn't stop smiling but when my friend was singing; her sister started "shaking" as they call it; she started jumping up and down and crying and screaming. I am sure they were not acting because it had a great affect on me too I started crying out of happiness I guess because in my life when I have experienced extreme happiness I cry.

Answer 1

There is no atheist explanation for that. However there is an explanation and I don't know if you want to hear it or not but here goes anyway. That was the holy spirit aka God he touched you and thats why you couldn't stop crying. We had a guy in our church that believed in God but didn't believe he could get touched by the holy spirit until one day when it happened and he dropped to his knees and as hard as he tried to get up he couldn't then the minute he stopped trying he was able to get up. The reason you couldn't stop crying is because you were trying to you were in essence fighting God and it was he way of telling you its useless.to fight him. I cannot give a better explanation and I know for our human minds(since we were born to doubt anything that cannot be reasonable explained) that it is hard to accept as fact because we cannot see it but honey thats what happened. I can tell you that for a fact. Be blessed that God touched you because some people wait their whole lives for that moment.

Answer 2

I feel like a jerk for wanting to give you a rational answer. Powerful emotions are a wonderful experience. Yours sounds lovely and precious in many ways.

Let me be generous and simply say this: suppose there IS some kind of supernatural phenomena responsible for what you felt. Let's just stipulate that as true for the sake of argument. Now, what can we safely infer about the supernatural phenomena?

Can we infer that it proves the Bible is true? No, we can't, because other people have had similarly powerful experiences in settings where the Bible was irrelevant.

Can we infer that you were touched by a "holy spirit"? Perhaps, but if so, what can we say about the holy spirit? Is it possible that the holy spirit was just the combined emotional "energy" of the people in the room?

People justify their particular religious belief because of powerful emotional experiences all the time. But there is never (as far as i can tell) any rational reason to conclude that any emotional experience is proof of any particular religion. I personally think it is better to instead just cherish the emotional experience, to savor the mystery, and then (eventually, a few days or a few weeks later) return to your rational mind and consider all of the alternate explanations that are equally valid, but hopefully transcend beyond the beliefs that have been passed down through the ages from people who knew less about the universe than we do.

Answer 3

Humans have the capacity for an infinite variety of altered states of consciousness. Some are very positive, while some as you describe are only silly. This is possible because of the evolution of the massive thinking brain. But having witnessed many, many such situations as you are describing, you must remember that we are all embedded in a endlessly fluctuating quantum field and the emotional environment can easily influence altered states. Nevertheless it is useless nonsense - not much different than using drugs to induce it. Don't waste your time. Start doing REAL spiritual work and master your mind and your reality. Every adept has offered a path/way to accomplish this. Change your mind - change the world.

Answer 4

I went to Easter Mass in Michaelangelos home church in Florence Italy. It was something I'll never forget. It was deeply moving, although I didn't speak a word of Italian (or latin!) There was a very impressive vibe in the room, created by all those believers. I don't think it was god, but I do think human emotions in that kind of situation can create an atmosphere.

Have you ever walked into a room where a married couple had just finished an argument? There is a negative "feel" to the place.

It's like that with religion too. It doesn't make the god real, but it makes the "feeling" real.

Answer 5

I applaud your acknowledgment of what you experienced. I hope it was the Holy Spirit touching your heart and calling you into greater faith that someday you may pray the sinners prayer.

I feel it very important to warn you that make sure that you go to a Church that holds Jesus up as the Messiah. The Emmanuel. which means God with us. Jesus is God in the flesh and Jehovah's do not keep Jesus in His proper significance like in John 10:30. I and my father are ONE.

Answer 6

Ecstasy (from the Greek έκστασις, to be outside oneself (ancient Greek: εξίστημι (existimi) meaning stand outside where εξ (ex) means out as in exit)) is a category of altered states of consciousness or trancelike states in which an individual transcends ordinary consciousness and as a result has a heightened capacity for exceptional thought, intense concentration on a specific task, extraordinary physical abilities or intense emotional experience. This heightened capacity is typically accompanied by diminished awareness of some other matters. For instance, if one is concentrating on a physical task, then one might cease to be aware of any intellectual thoughts. On the other hand, making a spirit journey in an ecstatic trance involves the cessation of voluntary bodily movement. Subjective perception of time, space and/or self may strongly change or disappear during ecstasy.

Don't worry, people have felt the same thing worshiping thousands of different gods.

Answer 7

What you have described is a classic case of emotional mass hysteria.

You could recite a laundry list in spanish and it would sound beautiful. The language itself is extremely pleasing to the ear, especially sung.

As for the fainting thing, it's been well researched. It's overwhelmingly a simple case of people locking their knees and passing out because the blood pooled in their legs.

Answer 8

One answer for you, groupthink. You were not actually touched by his words, as you were touched by the feeling of those around you. There is a human need to conform to the general group around you, and this is why you felt the way you did. No need for explanation, you were just overcome by the people around you who DID understand the words of the pastor, and that's all.

Answer 9

Read Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell...

... mass "hysteria" depends on members of the mass to understand what the rest of the mass are "hysterical" about...
See: "The Hindu Milk Miracle" of Sept. 21, 1995

Answer 10

LOL...that was not a Jehovah's Wittnesses church. They are very much against the "laying on of the hands" practices...I know what church you mean, but can't think of the name.
As an Atheist, I do believe in spirituality, its my guess you were deeply moved.