Roam Around the World

Despite the criticism, Phillips doubled down on his supernatural account this week, claiming that the incident occurred while he was “heavily medicated” and that the incident was a “miracle” performed by God.
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For most people, something like being "translated" or "transported" while "heavily medicated," would be chalked up to the effects of said medication on memory. Which may be who driving while under the influence of certain types of medication is a bad idea. But I suppose that this is what a need to believe does to people.

I don't need to join the chorus of people who think that Mr. Phillips may be lying or insane; it's plenty loud enough without me. Instead, I'm reminded of Ross Douthat's Believe; specifically Chapter 3 "The Myth of Disenchantment." To be sure, my world is thoroughly disenchanted; magic, miracles and mystical experiences are fine for other people, but I see no evidence of them, but, perhaps more importantly, lie outside of my needs. I'm okay with a world in which there are explanations for things that no-one, including myself, is aware of. Rather than having an aversion to mystery, I'm quite comfortable with it. And this allows me to go through the world without needing to ascribe reasons for everything.

Or needing to find more examples to ascribe to a given reason, in order to justify my belief in that reason. One of the things about American Christianity, at least as I encounter it my day-to-day life, is the idea that God has to maintain a certain amount of activity in the otherwise mundane world. In other words, miracles are something of a necessary component of many Christians' faith, so it's not surprising that people chalk up otherwise strange experiences to them. Gregg Phillips snaps out of a medication-induced haze in the parking lot of a Waffle House, and given a choice between deciding that maybe he shouldn't be behind the wheel and an act of divine intervention, he opts for the latter because living in a disenchanted world is at odds with his  belief system.

The fact that the debate over what may have happened with Mr. Phillips has become partisan touches on this; while most Democrats are still believers, their faith doesn't require, or expect, the same level of enchantment in their world. The more Conservative Republican view, on the other hand, demands a more interventionist spiritual realm.