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I tried to start a thread about this and it told me this one existed...so my apologies for digging up an old thread but it seems appropriate since I have some input and this one already exists. (Redundant, sorry. )
Aaaaaaaaaanyway. I just recently caught this show. I can't see why it wouldn't make sense from both a scientific and religious POV. From a religious POV, maybe the brain is required in order to understand God; that doesn't mean God doesn't exist. From a scientific one, we all know stimulating various parts of the brain creates certain "experiences" the subject believes 100% to be real. Why is that weird? :?: It takes certain parts of our brains to react and interact in certain ways to believe in math, right? If I were missing any or all of that chain of links I might think anyone who said 2 plus 2 equals 4 is crazy and I might not even think numbers exist, and/or I might think people were making it all up. If that makes sense.
I thought this was really interesting. If it really is a portion of the brain that just physically can't respond in a certain way, then it does little good to tell us non-believers that it's the devil misleading us, that we "refuse" to believe, etc., etc. Correct?
I tried to start a thread about this and it told me this one existed...so my apologies for digging up an old thread but it seems appropriate since I have some input and this one already exists. (Redundant, sorry. )
Aaaaaaaaaanyway. I just recently caught this show. I can't see why it wouldn't make sense from both a scientific and religious POV. From a religious POV, maybe the brain is required in order to understand God; that doesn't mean God doesn't exist. From a scientific one, we all know stimulating various parts of the brain creates certain "experiences" the subject believes 100% to be real. Why is that weird? :?: It takes certain parts of our brains to react and interact in certain ways to believe in math, right? If I were missing any or all of that chain of links I might think anyone who said 2 plus 2 equals 4 is crazy and I might not even think numbers exist, and/or I might think people were making it all up. If that makes sense.
I thought this was really interesting. If it really is a portion of the brain that just physically can't respond in a certain way, then it does little good to tell us non-believers that it's the devil misleading us, that we "refuse" to believe, etc., etc. Correct?
We definitely differ in our temporal lobe sensitivity (right brain) . . . but a lot of the difference is also attributable to the dominance of left brain thinking in our educational system. We engage in extensive training in left brain disciplines, language, logic and mathematics . . . but spend minimal time on the right brain disciplines involving meditation, intuitive and creative thinking, etc. To answer the question, though . . . the existence of brain processes devoted to certain interpretations (photon impacts to vision, sonic vibrations to auditory phenomena, etc.) is how everything is experienced. It is all interpreted from stimulated sections of the brain. When we artificially stimulate these sections we get the corresponding interpretations we would get if there were real sources in our reality. Just because we have identified the brain sections that when artificially stimulated produce interpretations for things we cannot readily identify with any conceivable inputs does not mean there are no existing sources of such stimulation in our reality. In fact . . . to assume that these regions exist without anything within our reality to which to respond is hardly reasonable.
Just because we have identified the brain sections that when artificially stimulated produce interpretations for things we cannot readily identify with any conceivable inputs does not mean there are no existing sources of such stimulation in our reality. In fact . . . to assume that these regions exist without anything within our reality to which to respond is hardly reasonable.
Yuppers, that is exactly my thought on the matter too. I don't see how this could be threatening to those who believe in God, nor do I see how it could seem impossible/silly to those who don't believe in God.
I think from either POV, it's quite possible that a certain part of the brain needs to be stimulated in order to experience "God."
Again, this is why I feel it's condescending and probably very inaccurate for some people to tell others they "just don't want to" believe or that they "just haven't let Christ in" yet, etc.
Despite the calls of junk science on the thread, generally this field of research is quite interesting and very informative. Essentially what the research of this type is doing is delving into how the brain operates and how abnormal states in the brain can lead to abnormal subjective experiences.
Through such research we have learned how things like Out of Body Experiences work and have shown them to be very real and natural phenomena and not the mystical and magical nonsense people have thus far been ascribing to them.
Also because of the power of reverse engineering and debugging by observing brains in abnormal states and documenting the effects, we can use this information to learn what each part of the brain actually DOES do. If, for example, there is a part in a machine that you have no idea what it does, then removing it, breaking it or blocking it will quickly tell you by observing what has changed.
Research like this really does put a nail in the coffin of those who insert their God Of The Gaps in places where we have previously had unexplained experiences in people, such as those spoken about in relation to things like Near Death Experience and the like. It shows that all these magical experiences people had are not only not magical, but perfectly natural, easily explained and even repeatable.
Belief in gods really is a game of Jenga and science is, one piece at a time, removing the blocks that that Jenga tower needs to stand on.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
to assume that these regions exist without anything within our reality to which to respond is hardly reasonable.
Actually it is perfectly reasonable because evolution does not plan for extreme or unprecedented conditions. Our senses (of which we have many, you erroneously claimed in another thread we only had 5) evolve in relation to the normal inputs those sensory organs receive. Our brains evolve in relation to the normal inputs it receives from those organs and from other parts of the body, brain and nervous system.
However in the situation of abnormal and unexpected inputs and states, the brain acts in abnormal and unexpected ways. That is all. It does not help to pretend that the brain was designed to respond in those ways because there are some corresponding real world events which it has evolved to deal with.
In short just because regions of the brain act odd in odd situations does not mean we have regions of the brain specifically designed to act like that in those situations.
Yuppers, that is exactly my thought on the matter too. I don't see how this could be threatening to those who believe in God, nor do I see how it could seem impossible/silly to those who don't believe in God.
I think from either POV, it's quite possible that a certain part of the brain needs to be stimulated in order to experience "God."
More importantly . . . brain function designed to experience God implies that there is a God to experience. With 95+% of our reality beyond the reach of our current science . . . it requires immense arrogance and hubris to assert that there is no such thing as a God to respond to with our brain. It is a sad denialism that pretends it is just an odd reaction of our brain for no reason at all . . . based entirely on our puny knowledge about the less than 5% of reality to which our science applies.
More importantly . . . brain function designed to experience God implies that there is a God to experience.
Not at all. Evolution/natural selection throw genes in there to account for any possible survival need, including emotional ones. If terror over the realization of our own mortality is going to render us incapable, or even simply less capable, of functioning toward survival, it needs to go.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
With 95+% of our reality beyond the reach of our current science . . . it requires immense arrogance and hubris to assert that there is no such thing as a God to respond to with our brain. It is a sad denialism that pretends it is just an odd reaction of our brain for no reason at all . . . based entirely on our puny knowledge about the less than 5% of reality to which our science applies.
Who said that? Not I. Not even the scientist who created the God Helmet either, AFAIK. Also, where do you get your 95% assertion from? Just curious.
Not at all. Evolution/natural selection throw genes in there to account for any possible survival need, including emotional ones. If terror over the realization of our own mortality is going to render us incapable, or even simply less capable, of functioning toward survival, it needs to go.
The notion of natural selection throwing anything in there is simply not scientific. We should not let our increased understanding of the physical correlates of gene sequences outstrip our understanding of the brain and its corresponding fold-ups directed by DNA gene sequences and RNA activations. Naturally if you are going to apriori eliminate God as a source for the sequences . . . your conclusion will be biased in that direction. Nevertheless, this is a brain area that responds to artificial stimulation with a "built-in" interpretation. To assume that there is nothing in our reality that is capable of stimulating that area naturally (a real source) is just not logical.
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Who said that? Not I. Not even the scientist who created the God Helmet either, AFAIK. Also, where do you get your 95% assertion from? Just curious.
It is implied in the article. Our cosmos is comprised of 95+% dark energy and dark matter that is currently beyond the reach of science to measure directly (we have no idea what they are comprised of) . . . except that we can detect their effects on the less than 5% we can measure.
The notion of natural selection throwing anything in there is simply not scientific. We should not let our increased understanding of the physical correlates of gene sequences outstrip our understanding of the brain and its corresponding fold-ups directed by DNA gene sequences and RNA activations.
The way I stated it was metaphorical; I didn't know how to say that "genes mutate continuously and most probably over the course of any species' existence cover virtually any survivalist possibility, physical, mental and emotional, over time, and more than once, but obviously without conscious choice nor a specific agenda to the moment" without it sounding...well, like that. Totally unwieldy.
I don't think the implication is there in the article. I think you wanted it to be there in order to fit your own truth, but that's okay, we all do that to an extent.
Emotions and interaction are definitely tied into survival; witness infants who are not held, touched and spoken to and how much higher their morbidity and mortality rates are. Absolutely if we have a huge degree of anxiety about something (say, death) OR a disregard for life believing nothing comes after (this given that humans have an awareness of death; we don't know if other animals do) it can impact whether that individual survives or not. And this in turn will almost certainly impact others in the individual's group.
(Of course, at this stage atheism doesn't imply a disregard for life; but with a little less intellect and ability to foresee, and perhaps a less evolved empathy, it could have been a bad thing and probably was in certain instances.)
A belief in something "after" keeps (or kept) us superconscious (in some ways) humans from either having a total disregard for life, including the lives of others, or going the other way and panicking to the extent that we're not a positive part of our clan and aren't helping it to grow and thrive. You notice that as we intellectually mature, we're relying less on belief in a God somewhere; that too could be a genetic evolution or it may just be straight-out education over time.
Belief in "something after that you can't see" absolutely makes sense, biologically, in an animal that has the intellect to realize its own mortality, envision it, and wonder about it.
The way I stated it was metaphorical; I didn't know how to say that "genes mutate continuously and most probably over the course of any species' existence cover virtually any survivalist possibility, physical, mental and emotional, over time, and more than once, but obviously without conscious choice nor a specific agenda to the moment" without it sounding...well, like that. Totally unwieldy.
I don't think the implication is there in the article. I think you wanted it to be there in order to fit your own truth, but that's okay, we all do that to an extent.
Emotions and interaction are definitely tied into survival; witness infants who are not held, touched and spoken to and how much higher their morbidity and mortality rates are. Absolutely if we have a huge degree of anxiety about something (say, death) OR a disregard for life believing nothing comes after (this given that humans have an awareness of death; we don't know if other animals do) it can impact whether that individual survives or not. And this in turn will almost certainly impact others in the individual's group.
(Of course, at this stage atheism doesn't imply a disregard for life; but with a little less intellect and ability to foresee, and perhaps a less evolved empathy, it could have been a bad thing and probably was in certain instances.)
A belief in something "after" keeps (or kept) us superconscious (in some ways) humans from either having a total disregard for life, including the lives of others, or going the other way and panicking to the extent that we're not a positive part of our clan and aren't helping it to grow and thrive. You notice that as we intellectually mature, we're relying less on belief in a God somewhere; that too could be a genetic evolution or it may just be straight-out education over time.
Belief in "something after that you can't see" absolutely makes sense, biologically, in an animal that has the intellect to realize its own mortality, envision it, and wonder about it.
And this explains why we would sense a oneness and presence when in an altered brain state . . . How? What possible connection would an altered brain state have with survival issues? It seems to occur as the body nears death for some, . . . can be evoked during devout prayer or deep meditation . . . or activated by drugs or mushrooms, etc. I just don't see the survival connection.
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If I were missing any or all of that chain of links I might think anyone who said 2 plus 2 equals 4 is crazy and I might not even think numbers exist, and/or I might think people were making it all up. If that makes sense.
