I have an OCD for coincidences in that my mind likes to attribute significance or simply extra attention to mere coincidental events that naturally occur and are completely rationally explicable. I searched this on the Internet and I've seen it called "Magical Thinking" or Apophenia. An example of coincidences I would notice, this being a real one I experienced, are as follows; I'm driving and listening to music on the radio. The singer says on the radio, for example, the number 70. The car in front of me at that exact moment has a license plate that has the number 70 on it. These are interesting little coincidences that I tend to not make much of. However, when unlikely coincidences like these come about that have to do with religion, my mind goes into an irrational overdrive.
Keeping the above in mind, here's the situation I find myself in: so I was browsing through a social network and went into the profile of an athlete. Looking through recent pictures, I clicked on one of him and his son (note that this has absolutely nothing to do with religion). In the comments section, I run into an extremely random 30 week old comment that reads "Why do not you accept Islam??" With it's glorious grammatical errors and all. I just looked at it. Like "Wut?". Something completely unrelated to religion of any sort gets a random comment like that, and I happen to open it up and look at it. So now, the unlikelihood of such a thing occurring has had me overthinking...'Is this some sort of sign?' And things like that...Yes, I know this is bizarre and irrational, but I guess that's what indoctrination does to a person. I've kind of reasoned as to why such a person would comment; the athlete is a mixed martial arts athlete and a lot of fighters come from Caucasian regions (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.) There is a large amount of Islamic fanaticism (Note the threats to the Russian Olympics for example) and a lot of youth ascribe to semi-radicalism in that they see it as more of a community/cult/gang. I'm just postulating that he's one of these and wants to bring one of his favorite athletes to the "dark side". And that's about as close to rationalizing it as I can get.
I'd like to ask if any of you have ever come across something like this? Especially in relation with another religion? Any input would be great!
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Thanks for your reply! I'm glad you found my post relatable! These things are very taxing on the mind so it becomes very helpful when you can relate with others and know your not the only experiencing it. I look forward to your follow up post Smiley
No worries man. I'll try to be as honest as possible with myself when I type this, in case the fear of coming across as a complete lunatic makes me omit some key information.
The first thing you touched upon (hearing, thinking or seeing a certain thing simultanesouly) happens to me from time to time. I used to find it quite strange until I realised that view itself is derived from the fact that I overrate how common it seems to be. I don't know what this phenomenon is called, but it seems somewhat similar to the concept of 'ideas of reference' (not only creating patterns that don't exist, but thinking those patterns were somehow 'created' for you specifically).
I apply this same idea to religious pareidolia. I'll give you an example - a few weeks ago I was sitting in my room, reading something on my laptop. All 3 of my flatmates were watching TV shows, either in their bedrooms or in the living room. The living room is further away from my bedroom, however one of my flatemate's doors right next to mine, at a right angle. I could hear what was happening in whatever he was watching, but it wasn't overly loud or disruptive.
All of a sudden, from outside my door, I hear a sort of high pitched buzzing - the kind you sometimes get in your ear or when around certain machines. Only, it was quite dramatic and exaggerated, like the sort of sound you hear in Call of Duty when a flashbang goes off next to you. I say 'outside my door' because my door was closed, so I couldn't say with 100% certainty that it was coming from my flatemate's room.
Now, here's where I start to sound delusional. About a week or two prior to this, I saw something mentioned in a hadith where Mo describes a 'bell' noise he hears which usually indicates he's about to receive a revelation. Through some kind of mental gymnastics, I had a moment of panic where I assumed this high-pitched, textbook hollywood sound effect that in all likelihood did come from my flatmate's bedroom, was in fact some kind of 'sign'.
In hindsight, the latter explanation was a completely insane and irrational conclusion to jump to, given that the former was several orders of magnitude more feasible and chalking it up as a 'sign' is incredibly vague and a testament to my own ignorance more than anything else. But under that cloak of panic it didn't seem like an irrational conclusion to reach at the time. If God is going to 'test' me in that way, why give me such a vague sign, upon which my belief is contingent upon believing my own bullshit, flawed way of thinking and gullibility?
My memory is a little hazy and this is the most recent example I can think of. It's worth mentioning that, if I wasn't currently suffering a mini existential crisis stemming from my irrational doubts about what I know and believe, and hadn't been researching the apologist arguments regarding Islam and weighing them up against the skeptic counterarguments in the weeks prior to that night, then I wouldn't have considered the event to even be peculiar or some kind of indication of the supernatural.
I hope this makes sense. I imagine you're either nodding in agreement right now or shaking your head in disbelief at how I'm not posting this from a mental institution.
Topic: Subjective Obsession