... that's Delusions of Grandeur. When someone claims God speaks to them, they are simply interpreting voices in their head as coming from God. Atheists may interpret voices as coming from aliens, spooks, or even the Internet.
This is pretty common, over 1% of people have Schizophrenia or Bipolar. The origins of religion are well understood but psychologists don't want to talk about it!
Well you would say that wouldn't you...
hmmm idk about that.
not saying there wasn't schizophrenic or delusional or mentally ill people who contributed to religion without a doubt they were.
but the best explanation I have seen is our belief in religion was accidentally genetically coded into us through evolution.
the theory is this. an old homo sapient or ancestor hears a noise in the bush.the person who hears a bush russle and thinks well it could be the wind, will die if it was a lion.meanwhile the person who thinks that means there is something there, some agency, an animal. they are likely to flee and survive.
so basically the idea is it was more passed down to us to naturally "believe" there is agency in things, even non living ones, because it can save us.
When someone claims that God speaks to them they are pretending that their own thought are God’s words. When you are under the psychological pressure of HERD BEHAVIOR, you do a lot of pretending in order to belong in your social group.
It’s an interesting human behavior where you do something because everyone is also doing it, to the point where you do it without any clear reason. Some Morally corrupt people do it knowingly to manipulate others, others delude themselves it’s true in order to feel special, included and superior to others who may not be able to delude themselves as easily.
It’s not actual mental illness.