Interesting book

[billvon 3,132]

Just read an interesting book:

Why God won't go away
Brain science and the biology of belief
Newberg-D'Aquill-Rause

It's a treatise on how our brains work when it comes to belief in God, and how they evolved to be that way. They support their work with some interesting experiments. In one, they essentially monitor brain activity in a subject who attains what he describes as a 'deeper state of consciousness', one in which he feels connected to the 'oneness of the universe.' (The description he uses isn't that important; the issue is that he attains an altered state of consciousness in which he feels connected to something much larger.)

During the brain scan, they noted that the 'orientation association area', or the area responsible for our sense of self (the automatic recognition that our arm is different than a tree branch) was unusually active in this state; at the same time the areas that normally feed that area (proprioception, tactile senses) are supressed. In other words, the area that makes us feel like we have boundaries is working overtime but being given nothing to work with. They hypothesize that this is similar to closing your eyes and trying very hard to see something, or going into a completely silent room and listening very hard. After a while your visual/auditory areas start trying to make patterns out of the lack of data (the white noise, for lack of a better term) and hallucinations can result. In the orientation association area, this can have the effect of having an erroneous sense of body boundaries i.e. a feeling that one is much larger or smaller. A subject could interpret this as a 'feeling of oneness' with the universe.

That's just one example. They also go into the evolutionary advantages of religion and why the tendency to believe would be propagated. They go off the rails a little in the last chapter (they get very heavily into their Absolute Unitary Being thing, which I don't think is supported by the evidence) but it's an interesting read for people interested in mankind's belief in religions.

Note to religious fundamentalists who are even now bending their noses - the idea that people can effectively hallucinate religious experiences, and that our brains are somewhat prone to this, is NOT evidence that there is no such thing as god. We can hallucinate ice cream sundaes when we are hungry; they are still real. Consider that if you believe that God created us as-is, he may well have put in the circuitry to get us to believe in him.

[karenmeal 0]

Nuh-Uh!

God designed us that way to test our faith!

Silly scientists.

-Karen

That does sound like a cool read by the way.. good birthday present for my Boyfriend!

"Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

[Shotgun 1]

And another interesting read is "Magic, Science and Religion" by Bronislaw Malinowski...

[Lindsey 0]

Another ploy by the non-believers in the scientific community to undermine the authority of the Almighty God.

linz

--
A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[MC208B 0]

best read is "Sirens of Titan" by Vonnegutt

[TheAnvil 0]

I think I read an article about that one time. Very interesting. MIght pick that up.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[karenmeal 0]

Wait...

I have to ask..

Is that an implied sarcastic or serious tone?

"Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

[Lindsey 0]

How could one joke about something so....h e a v y.

I like in Illusions when Donald goes alone into the mountains to pray, and God told him, "Not my will, but thine be done, for what is thy will is mine for thee. Go thy way as other men, and be thou happy on the earth."

--
A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[lawrocket 3]

It goes in the same lines as my post last week about the reasoning portion of men's brains shutting off due to political ideology.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2076083;

My wife is hotter than your wife.