How does one distinguish faith from delusion?

The 5 senses do not provide us with any direct sensation of numerous phenomena that have clearly been proven to exist (ultraviolet and infrared light, non-luminous radioactive decay, ... I'm sure the physicists here can enumerate many examples, more coherently than I can).It seems safe to take as a given that there are additional phenomena, some of which may have a direct impact on our day-to-day existence, that have yet to be observed, because we haven't figured out yet how to observe them in a reliable, replicable, objective manner.Meanwhile, I wonder if anyone among the faithful will come forward to respond (from first-hand experience) to the OP's question. When someone asserts that he or she has personally undergone a profound, transforming experience, which includes perceiving the voice or presence of a divine being, what basis is there for the further assertion that this is not some form of delusion, hallucination, dream-state or other purely neurological "event"?From the point of view of the community at large, the distinction seems to be a matter of value judgment: if a person professes that he/she experienced God, his/her experience is accepted as "religious" if the person's subsequent behavior is "good", and it's labeled as delusional if the behavior turns out "bad". (And of course, to the extent that several "communities" with different value systems coexist within a single society, there will be conflicting judgments.)It would be especially interesting to hear from anyone who feels that their experience (direct perception) of a divine presence is recurrent or continuous, as opposed to being an isolated event at some point in the past. The continuity of the "contact" tends to sustain and amplify the direction of judgment by others: the person is seen as "really good" (religious) or "really bad" (delusional).I suppose it would be a separate thread to explore the "non-religious" correlate of the "religious experience": those of us who never perceive God and don't accept the concept of a deity can still have a sense of wonder and devotion...

---

autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

Replying to both Theodoric and Taz:It appears that I must have taken LindaLou's remark differently than you did -- and perhaps I took her remark the wrong way. I was responding to the notion of limiting our perspectives to what "the 5 senses can detect" (currently, that is). Such a notion is too limiting, because it has been amply demonstrated that we are able to expand the range of what we can perceive physically, and we will continue to do that.Of course, LindaLou was apparently trying to say something about "having faith" (holding some belief in the absence of both positive and negative evidence), whereas my reaction was more concerned with "using imagination" (viewing some phenomenon, whether mysterious or mundane, in some novel way that leads to a better understanding based on objectivity).My point was simply that there are still many notions that can only be beliefs today, but could be understood objectively in the future, as we continue to expand our ability to perceive (however, this might not have been LindaLou's point).My apologies for having gotten things mixed up like that.

---

autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.