Brain Surgery Linked To Sensation of Spirituality 380
the3stars writes "'Removing part of the brain can induce inner peace, according to researchers from Italy. Their study provides the strongest evidence to date that spiritual thinking arises in, or is limited by, specific brain areas. This raises a number of interesting issues about spirituality, among them whether or not people can be born with a strong propensity towards spirituality and also whether it can be acquired through head trauma."
One critic's quoted response: "It's important to recognize that the whole study is based on changes in one self-report measure, which is a coarse measure that includes some strange items."
Frist (Score:4, Funny)
Frist ... where was I? ... my brain has disapno carrier
This is my favourite (Score:5, Funny)
I need spirituality like I need a hole in my head!
Weeellll... that's one way to get it I guess.
Re:This is my favourite (Score:5, Interesting)
people can be born with a strong propensity towards spirituality and also whether it can be acquired through head trauma
Weeellll... that's one way to get it I guess.
Definitely adds a very interesting potential to the story of Saul (St. Paul) who was famous for persecuting the Christians before he was thrown from his horse on the road to Damascus, and saw "a light from heaven", after which he heard Jesus speak to him and was converted. The official story [wikipedia.org] is that he saw the light first, and was then thrown from his horse - but head trauma has a funny way of messing with the memory of the sequence of events...
Re:This is my favourite (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is an interesting lecture by Robert Sapolsky, "Evolution, religion, schizophrenia and the schizotypal personality", http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/06/evolution-religion-s.html [boingboing.net]
It's an interesting talk about how while schizophrenia may be the result of a full expression of a recessive gene, the schizotypal may be a mild expression of the same gene, leading to people like shamans. That would tend to support your "born with a strong propensity"...
His recent graduation day talk at Stanford was, while not related (on the uniqueness of humans), even more interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrCVu25wQ5s [youtube.com]
Re:This is my favourite (Score:4, Informative)
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Reminds me of my favorite misunderstood song lyric: "I can see clearly now my brain is gone."
Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, you can make someone a lot happier with a lobotomy too. And stupid people who don't *use* their brains are often amused by the human equivalent of shiny keys (aka "reality television"). And people who drug themselves into a brainless stupor are are often in a complete euphoria (even a rat-infested, filthy trailer becomes paradise with just a little dab of meth).
But the rest of us, stuck with all of our fully-functional brains, are forced to sometimes contemplate serious matters that aren't so happy. Sure, we sometimes get depressed. But humanity probably wouldn't make much scientific, intellectual, or cultural progress if everyone was walking around every day drugged-up and lobotomized, with stupid goddamn grins on their faces.
Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not quite so simple. Remember that Newton was highly religious. It would be hard to describe him as not having a fully functional brain.
Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would that be hard to do? Geniuses often have brain abnormalities leading to schitzophrenia, paranoia, depression, or autism. Why would religion be any different?
Also, it would be a mistake to confuse tendancies with hard-fast rules. That a part of the brain affects congnative decisions doesn't remove the role of cognition.
Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's very true however FWIW I read somewhere that Newton had claimed he'd gained many of his initial insights about physics and mathematics while in process of re-translating the bible to English. Only having read a couple recent popular English translations myself, it seems a bit strange as a source for that type of inspiration but I'd also read that he was not the only huge figure in science that claimed this.
I think maybe it is possible that there are times in human history when in certain societies b
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He even published some religious writings along with his scientific work.
Let me rephrase it. Newton's scientific work included religion, since it was an integral part of the world at his time.
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Newton certainly didn't have your average brain. Abnormalities which, in connection to his enviroment, made him the father of classical mechanics...could as well contribute to his religious state.
Also, remember that in his times being highly non-religions still wasn't exactly the safest thing to do...
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He took holy orders because it was a requirement for his job, but he also dabbled in atheism.
And despite being brilliant, he was in many ways flawed.
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You must consider the times in which he lived. Other people have mentioned that not being Christian was rather dangerous, but I think it's even simpler than that.
Newton was on the search for truth. He was also quite interested in the occult. He didn't know where the truth lay, so he searched everywhere until he found it.
Of course, now we can stand on his shoulders and see further than he did but no-one should forget that he was the one laying the foundations for what we take for granted today.
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> It's not quite so simple. Remember that Newton was highly religious. It would be hard to describe him as not having a fully functional brain.
An overclocked processor can be spectacularly fast, and spectacularly wrong.
Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
Newton was also known for his work in alchemy. He enjoyed his share of share of toxins (like mercury). Don't get me wrong, Newton was sheer brilliance. I'm able to be taught calculus, but to make that leap intuitively is absolutely amazing. That doesn't mean he wasn't damaged.
I saw a video by Neil deGrasse Tyson called "God of the Gaps" [youtube.com], highly recommended. He points out that even the most incredibly brilliant people invoke God add the edge of their intelligence. For Newton, he managed to come out with incredible breakthroughs in motion, energy, gravitation, and math. But when Newton couldn't mathematically balance the "6 planets" in stable orbits, he decides it must be God. He quits trying to understand and explore it after that, as do a great many intelligent people in history. The disturbing thing is that it means that that once "God" is accepted as an answer, they are either unable or unwilling to explore that subject further. God is the antithesis of discovery.
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Back in those days, to be taken seriously at all, one had to claim strong religious affiliation and belief. Hell, even today a person cannot become president of the U.S. without being Christian and attending a particular church. (Yeah, I know Jefferson was supposedly an atheist or agnostic, but some of his most famous quotes contain references to god which is kind of my point. He may have been atheist, but had to speak of god to people would accept him.)
And we all know what happens to people who cross th
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GP simply knows nothing about psychology/neurology. Religion is literally what one could call a simple form of... well... “schizophrenia”. Now this might leave some people insulted. But you have to know, that that is actually a useful tool, to keep us surviving. So if you call it “bad” depends on your point of view. (Like everything in psychology and every mutation.)
You see, humans MUST at all times have a working inner model of the outer world. Or else we are unable to predict any r
Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:5, Funny)
So I'm really suspicious of a test that says one person is "feeling" more spiritual than another person since that isn't even how it works.
Wow, a religious person having a hard time believing something that can be scientifically proven that contradicts their own personal views that cannot be scientifically proven. There's a first.
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I do have problems when you start defining "warm fuzzy feelings" as spirituality because spirituality is not a feeling.
Lol. YOU just defined it as a feeling yourself - "you realize he is there and strive to live differently as a result?"
You can disclaim that as a feeling all you want, but "realizing" something that is intangible is pretty much by definition nothing more than a feeling.
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Alcohol does not give you the same effect as deep spiritual practice, at least for most people. I'm assuming you are not referring to the card game here. And religion is not the same as spirituality. You sir sound like you might be ignorant of a very important and beneficial part of life. I say this as an atheist.
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Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:5, Funny)
You are right. Alcohol is not the same as Spirituality. The differences:
- Alcohol is cheaper than religion
- Alcohol will get you laid
- Alcohol lets you sleep late on sundays
- Alcohol doesn't judge you, your condom, or your abortion.
- You don't have to wear ridiculous hats to drink Alcohol.
- Alcohol produces less brain damage than religion.
Thank you, I'm here all week.
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But you're right, in part, in that this does not invalidate spirituality. But it does explain spirituality. It's an attempt to accurately define what spirituality is. And it appears that it's chemicals in your head. It does not invalidate it any more then lightning is invalidated by knowing that it's a transfer of electrons.
Not that any of the grandparents implied that spirituality isn't real. Just your personal view of spirituality
Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
or do you realize [God] is there and strive to live differently as a result?
Sometimes living differently isn't better, especially for those around you.
Put another way: don't make me strive to live differently; you wouldn't like me when I live differently.
I profess nothing more than what Jesus did: Love everyone even if they hate you.
Have you tried professing it without name-dropping Jesus?
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Religion is not exactly about individual spirituality; it's an organisation of many people (if I have to state the obvious...)
The sensible thing to do is not judging religions on the basis of what they (or their vocal speakers specifically) claim to represent, but by their actions - and if some pitiful affairs are a consistant element of given religion, then that is also what this religion represents deep down.
So one might say you, even when doing righteous things, are captured by colaterall damage of disho
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Spirituality is something hijacked by religion in order to control and manipulate people.
Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's still hijacking. "A loving environment to practice kindness and support for each other" is family, often quite extended. And that's governed by more basic instincts. On the "loving" level, the succesful religions are mostly tapping what's already there. It's getting a bit fuzzy on the level of tribe; religion certainly can help it to be somewhat bigger and more stable, hence giving bonuses when competing (OTOH it also gave certain level of religious tolerance when larger loose society did form - "our g
Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:4, Insightful)
Again. No universal definition of "spiritual" exists. An australian abo, a Buddhist, or a Muslim Sufi all see it differently.
I, and probably most of the people on Digg or Reddit, don't hate religious people OR Christians. I suspect that they DO hate it when small groups of "spiritual people" of sect X decide to legislate political matters based on unprovable, mythologically based views of the world. This affects everyone directly and has provably cause great harm to gays, jews, puritans and anabaptists.
Whether the universe was created by an omniscient superbeing(s) or not, does it matter? None of them have shown up this morning offering to help me with anything, any more than I would show up at an anthill 100 miles north and offer to help ant number 3432. Besides, if they DO exist, all bets are off. They can effect your memory and make you believe anything they want.
Spirituality can well be a "feeling." There's no commonly accepted criterion. Many of my spiritual moments have include "feelings."
Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally I'd like to conclude that spirituality is not a "feeling". I don't wake up one day and say I feel more spiritual than another day. Spirituality is your relationship with God. Do you dismiss God and go about your way, or do you realize he is there and strive to live differently as a result?
It absolutely is a feeling. People don't arrive at faith in god through logic. They may employ post hoc rationalization to obfuscate the issue and try to convince themselves and others that they did, but "realizing God is there" is a spiritual feeling, not an intellectual deduction.
I'm reminded of the study in skeptic magazine that, to paraphrase, found that people who believed in god tended to claim that they arrived at their belief in rational ways, but that they think others arrived at their faith through feelings and a desire for comfort and a sense of purpose. I thought that was interesting. It indicates that people recognize feelings as a big motivator for belief in god, but that they are also uncomfortable with admitting to being anything less than perfectly rational. Your denial of spirituality being a feeling coupled with your focus on god defining your life and how you should live it indicates to me that you're the kind of person who needs that comfort and purpose from an outside source, but is uncomfortable admitting to it.
Re:Not quite precise... (Score:5, Informative)
You're thinking of Blaise Pascal.
Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, you can make someone a lot happier with a lobotomy too.
Not me. I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
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Just different ways to kill the pain the same.
W
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Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, a lobotomy reduces the patient's capacity for introspection and self-consciousness. So what you write is true of lobotomies.
That said, it's premature to characterize these results as "blissful ignorance". In fact the researchers pinpoint two areas: the right angular gyrus and left inferior parietal lobe. It's intriguing that both of these areas are related to arithmetic abilities, but that's all the result is -- intriguing. We don't know whether it's the same thing going on in both cases, or whether either case is related it any way to what we think of as "spirituality".
You can look at the things these areas of the brain are supposed to do and make all kinds of interesting conjectures, but it could be something as simple as some of these patients not being able to understand the sense of the questions being put the them, or others not being able to monitor the kinds of emotional sensations they're being asked to report on. One area is believed to be used in the understanding of metaphors, the other in terms of bodily awareness.
Picture = 1000 words (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance (Score:4, Insightful)
The church (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The church (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The church (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, but there was always the question of whether it inspired true spirituality rather than simply aping it just to avoid the hammer.
Now we know there's no worries on that account, so let the hammering continue!
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More news from the Vatican, "spreading the word of Christ" now involves a sledge hammer...
Not a sledge hammer. An orbitoclast [wikipedia.org].
Re:The church (Score:5, Informative)
Some people around here seem to think the Pope is in charge of all of the Christian world. A post like that getting modded insightful shows the audiences ignorance in this regard. The truth of the matter is that the most fervent bible bashing, science hating, ultra-conservatives come from the ranks of American new age evangelicals.
The Catholic Church does not preach creationism. I went to Catholic schools and there was no blurring of the line between religion and science education.
I too am worried when people start giving scientific reasoning and religious dogma equal weight. I hate when people think they can solve their problems just by saying a prayer. Worst of all is when people look to trivial tricks and oddities and claim they are miracles as though the universe around them isn't miraculous enough as it is. I am not however too worried about the Catholic Church trying to take down science and reasoning as it doesn't have a recent history of doing so and even if it did most Catholics would resist that because they haven't been brought up that way.
Flamebait (Score:2, Insightful)
So, this is proof that religious people aren't using their whole brain then?
To be less inflammatory, this doesn't really change anything. For a religious person, they would accept that God created the brain in such a way that makes the spiritual experience possible. Why would there not be a physical substrate for that experience?
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I'm guessing it's more of a "lighted, windowed room at night" effect. Sit in a lighted room at night, and you can't see out the windows, because the information you're receiving is much more effective. Turn out the lights, and you can begin to see what's outside of your windows (perhaps a whole city). Perhaps our kinetics and structure (the part of the brain they were cutting up) keep us more grounded i
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If somebody would look up similar effect in animals - that would get fun.
Sometimes I do have the impression that my cat has a form of what we call spiritual life; certainly some occasional behaviours are difficult to explain only by higher specced hearing apparatus.
Re:Flamebait (Score:4, Informative)
It's just a metaphor.
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It begs the question anyway: which brain is right?
Does the theist have an underactive brain portion, or does the atheist have an overactive one? It's subjective.
Re:Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a predisposition to religion so much as it is predisposition to zeal.
Obvious (Score:2)
There is no "right" or "wrong"...there's just survival. Fact is, a certain level of spirituality was beneficial for most of organisms with complex neural system - oversensitive alertness helps survive. False positives in noticing things end up better than false negatives.
There was always a sweet spot of course - too much "internal stimuli" and the organism also was less succesfull in passing its traits. On human level you have complications with fullblown religions and societal dynamics, but it's still esse
Re:Flamebait (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus it would help with the prejudice that religious people have against atheists.
Take a look at the comments for this article, keeping in mind that the article points out that its definition of "Spirituality" is neurologically different from "Religious" and let me know what the atheist club looks like.
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you seem to be confusing atheism with anti-theism.
Similarly to the difference between immoral (not moral) and amoral (unrelated to morals), atheism is not "a belief that there is no god", it is "a lack of belief that there is a god" (plural included).
That's a crock of hope and change.
Atheism is the beli
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Then I will say, "these people do not speak for me; I do NOT consider them to be rational freethinkers." Do you have the have the same integrity to speak against those who identify themselves as religious and spew forth hate?
Re:Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
So, this is proof that religious people aren't using their whole brain then?
You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
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So, this is proof that religious people aren't using their whole brain then?
It would explain Mac users...
Kooky (Score:2, Interesting)
>>So, this is proof that religious people aren't using their whole brain then?
Err, no.
If there's a part of our brain devoted to religion/spirituality (and since it's such a large part of human experience, I wouldn't be surprised by it), then it means that *atheists* are not using their whole brain.
In fact, over time, the neural map for this region in strict atheists ought to atrophy, making them incapable of being spiritual. Which may or more may not be a good thing, depending on your perspective. But
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But I'd bet that in most atheists this region would start getting used for religious-ish things that aren't precisely religions, like belief in ghosts or aliens (more atheists believe in alien abductions and ghosts than Christians), or Gaia ("The earthquake in Haiti was Mother Nature's way of punishing us for global warming!" --Danny Glover) or any one of a number of other ideas that are much less likely to be true than Christianity.
Whoa... you think Christianity's mystical claims are more likely than the e
An Ig Nobel Prize candidate? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ragu Soul (Score:5, Funny)
Did you mean Prego? (Score:2)
Yes, Prego (Score:2)
Car Analogy (Score:2)
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The soul is dead? Pontiac shut its doors recently. And their cars were almost never "exciting", they were crap.
What conflict? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are a thing. A Marvelous machine. If you are poked and prodded we can illicit love, hunger, fear...why NOT spirituality? It does not make the phenomena any less real, you've just figured out how to manipulate the machine to do it on command.
Re:What conflict? (Score:4, Insightful)
Simply because we've found the switch to turn it on doesn't lessen it's meaning. It puts a damper on the whole mind-body-soul trifecta, but that's been a wash for a while now. People are a sub-set of animals, your mind exists as a configuration of your brain, and those warm fuzzies you get from spiritual enlightenment will one day be regulated with a drug. The original purpose and meaning of spiritual enlightenment remains, just without the mysticism. Kind of like sex after it was discovered that it makes babies.
Of course, I'm a little worried about the day that religious nuts can literally over dose on god.
You're missing some awesome footage. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, I'm a little worried about the day that religious nuts can literally over dose on god.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STFT0C5Hu8M [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2STDH14aJVk [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjMRgT5o-Ig [youtube.com]
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No one said spirituality is not real.
Spirits are not real.. There's a difference.
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I'll take it a step further. We can manipulate people's ability to see better or worse by messing with their eyes, optical nerves, and occipital lobes. Certainly no one would contend that the "real" world therefore doesn't exist.
Not a new idea (Score:5, Informative)
You can find the guy in NOVA (secrets of the mind). He also gave a talk or two on www.TED.com .
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And then there's the God Helmet [wikipedia.org]...
Re:Not a new idea (Score:5, Interesting)
I can certainly vouch for this.
In my early teen years I was diagnosed with a form of this epilepsy. The thing not mentioned in the post above is that such form of spirituality goes away somewhat if the condition is dealt with quickly, as happened in my case. Few years later I stumbled upon some info and came to realize that I'm almost a textbook example (for short summary, see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschwind_syndrome [wikipedia.org] )
What many of you can't really grasp, without experiencing it, is how real it feels - basically the question about existence of spiritual part of reality doesn't come into it at all; it's just present, that's...obvious. Only after it lessens the grip, you might ask yourself "what was that all about"?
The thing that it's often exploited by religious "guidance" certainly doesn't help to escape. And with TLE being one of more underdiagnosed forms of epilepsy (heck, it was almost a chance in my case), I wouldn't be surpised if statistically significant number of deeply religious people had a mild form. In case of such, you end up arguing against what is...very much real.
Try LSD (Score:5, Informative)
It does the same thing.
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I think most intelligent people who have used psychedelic drugs would attest to this. There's definitely certain things hardwired into our brains, and certain drugs can open up those areas for exploration. LSD and psilocybin both induce a predisposition for religious and spiritual thoughts, as well as many of the patterns and images found in the earliest of art.
Do you see God? (Score:4, Funny)
*whack*
How about now?
Well, duh (Score:2, Funny)
TED Talk Covers Similar Case with Stroke (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
Backward... (Score:2)
Removing part of the brain can induce inner peace, according to researchers from Italy.
That sounds a lot more interesting when you say it like this:
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If there was a definition of spirituality .... (Score:2)
One that everyone could agree on, I might take this study seriously.
But the quote in the article "It's important to recognize that the whole study is based on changes in one self-report measure" is quite telling. We see a change in a trait, commonly associated in some religions traditions as "spiritual." Interesting, certainly. Meaningful? Probably not.
Protesters (Score:2)
I can see the picket signs over this now: "God is Not a Tumah!"
New Westboro Baptist Church sign (Score:3, Funny)
GOD HATES BRAINS!
"Spiritual" (Score:3, Interesting)
They use the term "spirituality" like its a defined psychological term. They just chose some arbitrary ideas and declared them to be a measurement of spirituality. Perhaps the worst is "belief in a higher power". If "spiritual" is a basic mental state, then whether or not one agrees with the proposition that X exists is hardly a measure of that state. It would make more sense, but still be utterly bogus, to take belief in angels and an invisible man in the sky as a measure of psychosis.
Robert Sapolsky on Religion (Score:3, Informative)
Religious epiphanies from temporal lobe seizures (Score:5, Informative)
It's pretty well known that religious epiphanies and other feelings of religiosity, spirituality, or sensations of a "presence" can sometimes be linked to neurological events such as some temporal lobe seizures. (Wasn't this the plot for an episode of House?) It's common enough that there's a section on religious and paranormal experiences [wikipedia.org] in the temporal lobe epilepsy Wikipedia page. There was a good BBC documentary a few years ago on this called "God on the Brain" [bbc.co.uk] (here's a transcript [bbc.co.uk]).
Reverse Phrenology (Score:3, Funny)
So Terry Pratchett was on to something when he invented the concept of reverse phrenology. Hitting someone in the head enough times will change their personality.
A Slanted Conclusion (Score:2)
Does it not occur to them that a lack of ability to be spiritual can be due to injury, birth defect, or illness? They are seeing the problem in reverse due to bias.
Good to know... (Score:4, Funny)
Good to know that I might finally reach Zen nirvana, at least for a moment, as the zombies gnaw through my brain.
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No, but it gives religious people the chance to say that atheists love to jump to conclusions
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I suppose, if you're that sort of Atheist. But some of us think there is something psychologically valuable in practices like meditation, even if we think it's silly to believe in gods or adopt ideologies centered around gobbledygook.
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I can see you're frustrated, I also agree that this thread is a bit more bold than usual, but do you realize you just sunk to their level?
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(sorry, but he does exist and only a fool would attempt to "prove" otherwise)
Alright, I'll accept that he exists. Now, what does he want? When does he want it? How do you know this? Why should I trust your hearsay over the hearsay of others?
The existence of God is the beginning of your problems, not the end. Now you have to prove that he approves of you, and the only thing separating you from a lunatic on the street is hygiene, and the willingness to keep your unfounded beliefs to yourself, at least for most of the time.
Unless we all want to be assaulted with the crackpot theories o
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Actually, we now know that homosexuality is attributable to differences in the amygdala, and that those differences are developed while in the womb. Homosexual men tend to have amygdalas that resemble those of straight women, while homosexual women tend to have amygdalas that resemble those of straight men.
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Since a majority of humans believe a creator, or some entity/force outside of humanity(essentially, the spirituality this study links to), then I would tend to believe that the minority is missing something.
Excellent! So in theory, all we have to do to make something true is convince a majority of humans that it is true! I think the easiest way to do this is to kill people who disagree with you. Before long, you'll have a majority, and you can change the fundamental nature of the universe!
Re:Enough of the faith bashing (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow.
While I do not look for opportunities to attack people who do not believe in God, I have had enough of this shit.
So you don't look for such opportunities, yet are making one right now.
Just because people believe in God(sorry, but he does exist and only a fool would attempt to "prove" otherwise), it does not mean they have an "altered mental status".
Are you sure? What is 'altered' to you? Just different from what you believe?
What you feel you believe does not change reality.
When doctors poke a piece of brain and consistently get the same reaction, it doesn't at all matter what you 'feel'. Either you agree with reality and are called 'right', or you state that what is happening in front of your eyes is not actually happening, and people call you 'wrong' (Among other bad names no doubt)
This sounds like someone's attempt to demean a group of people.
Well, sorry you read it that way, but it is not. "Action A gets reaction B" is all it is attempting to say.
And really not even that, only that in their very small sample and crude methods this can be inferred but is not enough to be considered 'proof'
Far from demeaning anyone, they are stating the results of a freaking survey!
Would you prefer they LIE about what their subjects told them to say?
What if I decided to go out and prove that homosexuality was from brain trauma? I will guarantee that people would ask for my head on a plate.
Actually almost every church in America would be behind you 110% and even help you try to prove that.
Since a majority of humans believe a creator, or some entity/force outside of humanity(essentially, the spirituality this study links to), then I would tend to believe that the minority is missing something.
Well, the majority of humans also felt slavery was perfectly OK. Guess the majority is right.
Another majority of people felt before that a specific minority shouldn't even exist, and began rounding them up for mass extinctions. You feel that is OK too since the majority must be right?
Most people also thought the sun orbits the earth. Guess since the majority thinks it, reality will bend to make it true.
As you admit to being one of those types who feels the mob is always correct no matter if they actually are or not, that says way more about you than if you believe in a god or not.
You are a horrible human being, and it has nothing to do with your belief in god, but how little you care about your fellow man.
Now go ahead and mod this as the flame it is (Because just like you, I've had enough of this shit as well)
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I concur!
Re: (Score:2)
Buddhism uses the word "illusion" in English, it's true, but not in the sense we usually mean it. In the Buddhist sense a spiritual high - or any other experience - is not so much an "illusion" as it is just another conditioned sensory phenomenon, and it's the qualities of sensory phenomena that are risky to get attached to.
Closer to what you're talking about is what Zen refers to as "makyo" that arise in meditation practice. These are considered hallucinations that should not be pursued.