http://www.newsweek.com/id/62337
I have only just started reading it. I'll come back tomorrow having read it all, and I'm hoping we can have a conversation about it. It looks like it'll be a good article.
The ghosts we think we see...
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_Sethbag
- _Emeritus
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- Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:52 am
The ghosts we think we see...
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
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_Zoidberg
- _Emeritus
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- Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2007 2:42 am
ludwigm wrote:OK, we have it!
L-dopa! It is better than Prozac! From now on! Only for You!
Have You doubts? L-dopa!
Don't You believe the 19th version of the First Vision? L-dopa, and You see it, hear it, touch it!
Haven't You a testimony? Don't You feel the B in Your B? L-dopa helps!
Increase Your dopamine, and Your skeptical threshold will fell.
I was going to say the same thing, but you've beat me to it.
To paraphrase Huxley:
"Half a gramme for a testimony, a gramme for the veil to be lifted, two grammes for a trip to the throne of God, three for a light eternity in the Celestial Kingdom..."
I'll be the first in line for the L-dopa holiday.
Perhaps a new revelation will come that L-dopa is to replace bread in the sacrament. Or water, depends on whether it comes in liquid form or as a pill
"reason and religion are friends and allies" - Mitt Romney
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_Dr. Shades
- _Emeritus
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- Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:07 pm
FROM THE ARTICLE:
Chiasmus, anyone?In one study, two groups of people, either believers in the supernatural or skeptics, looked at quickly displayed images of faces and scrambled faces, real words and nonwords. The goal was to pick out the real ones. Skeptics called more real faces nonfaces, and real words nonwords, than did believers, who happily saw faces and words even in gibberish.
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"
--Louis Midgley
--Louis Midgley
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_Some Schmo
- _Emeritus
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_Sethbag
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- Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:52 am
I've read the article now, and one of my very first thoughts was about how this might help explain Nehor and his claimed visitations by God and various evil spirits and whatnot.
Also, this helps explain why some people believe that they see evil spirits sitting on them when they wake up with sleep paralysis, or aliens abducting them, or succubi or incubi molesting them, or whatever. They are in a semi-conscious state and perceive something which is very real, and unknown to them, and their pattern-matching software in their brains misfires and they fill in the blanks with things they expect to see.
So in my case, having grown up within Mormonism and believing that evil spirits were very real, and that they sometimes attack people, my pattern-matching software came up with "evil spirit" when I woke up suffering from sleep paralysis in my dorm room at BYU and couldn't move or talk (and other physical perceptions). My brain filled in the blanks, as it were, and the perception of an evil spirit pinning me to my bed became very vivid, and very real.
Also, this helps explain why some people believe that they see evil spirits sitting on them when they wake up with sleep paralysis, or aliens abducting them, or succubi or incubi molesting them, or whatever. They are in a semi-conscious state and perceive something which is very real, and unknown to them, and their pattern-matching software in their brains misfires and they fill in the blanks with things they expect to see.
So in my case, having grown up within Mormonism and believing that evil spirits were very real, and that they sometimes attack people, my pattern-matching software came up with "evil spirit" when I woke up suffering from sleep paralysis in my dorm room at BYU and couldn't move or talk (and other physical perceptions). My brain filled in the blanks, as it were, and the perception of an evil spirit pinning me to my bed became very vivid, and very real.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
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_huckelberry
- _Emeritus
- Posts: 4559
- Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 2:29 am
We see patterns in uncertain or random situations. We also like to personalize things we do not quite understand. I can certainly see these observations as clearly part of how we work. I do not have to look far to see sprititual phenomena which look like they are simply a result of these habits. Mary appearing in a potatoe etc.
But these might seem a pretty narrow selection of examples. There is a huge variety of experiences which people relate that are sort of connected to the catagory spriitual experiences. What likelyhood is there for a single explanation for all of them. I would not jump to an absolute declaration they could not all have the same source but I would consider it quite possible that a variety of mind process and perceptions could lie behind events in the catagory.
Seth you relate the sleep paralysis example. I did not see it in the article but have read about it elsewhere. It certainly sounds like a good explanation of some experiences people have. My brother has related such a story to me. I do not remember such a thing in my experience. Even so I think I will keep the explanation in mind just in case I have the experience. It seems a good idea to have some defense against fears of devils jumping you in the night.
But there is all sorts of spiritual experiences. Many years ago I remember waking and looking across my room in daylight(I worked night) and saw a semitransparent glowing geometrical formation floating across the room and moving toward me. For some reason I conceived that this was a personal phenomena and gestured for it to leave my room, You do not belong here. It left. I was in no sort of sleep paralysis but it is certainly possible that a spillover from sleep imagination into waking imagination was taking place. I was willing to figure it so. However a couple of days later a paperback book was left on my doorstep origin unknown. It was about how to do astra projection. I am perfectly willing to hold on to coincidence as an alternative to thinking the book was a little explanation from somebody saying sorry for barging in.
It is a bit hard to analyse the coincidence probablity. I can remember only one instance of books being left on my doorstep. But it is a basic part of coincidence that we only notice when they happen so they might be extremely unlikely but happen as coincidence anyway.(the event of boy finding some sort of metal plates in the woods and that boy being imaginative storytello with religious concerns could be coincidence even if unlikely)
There is a good bit of halloween imagination which fits into these observations. Still the subjects apearance on a message board associates the question with peoples religous experiences as well as halloween imagination. I have read a few discussions trying to tie all religous experiences up into on natural explanation. Intereseting to try yet even my limited religous experiences list out into a variety of things which could possibly have different sources.
Despite my willingness to debunk spritual stories ( I wouldn't mind the debunking of the astra projection story, I havnt tried running bodiless about the world) I do believe that experience resulting from our spritual dimension is common. I think all humans are spritual beings and in various situations that quality can touch and influence us beyond the circle of physical or sybolic communication. It is in that context I reflect on experience that I understand as being spritual, divine origin. communication. I value experence which had the quality of personal communication for the substance of what was communicated. I guess I could say I value the communication when what I received as communicated was valuable.
I might add that I have had experience of strong feelings that seemed spritual in a religous context which instead of communicative seems smothering and controlling in a sort of sweet way. I do not really know what that is but I do not feel comfortable with it.
But these might seem a pretty narrow selection of examples. There is a huge variety of experiences which people relate that are sort of connected to the catagory spriitual experiences. What likelyhood is there for a single explanation for all of them. I would not jump to an absolute declaration they could not all have the same source but I would consider it quite possible that a variety of mind process and perceptions could lie behind events in the catagory.
Seth you relate the sleep paralysis example. I did not see it in the article but have read about it elsewhere. It certainly sounds like a good explanation of some experiences people have. My brother has related such a story to me. I do not remember such a thing in my experience. Even so I think I will keep the explanation in mind just in case I have the experience. It seems a good idea to have some defense against fears of devils jumping you in the night.
But there is all sorts of spiritual experiences. Many years ago I remember waking and looking across my room in daylight(I worked night) and saw a semitransparent glowing geometrical formation floating across the room and moving toward me. For some reason I conceived that this was a personal phenomena and gestured for it to leave my room, You do not belong here. It left. I was in no sort of sleep paralysis but it is certainly possible that a spillover from sleep imagination into waking imagination was taking place. I was willing to figure it so. However a couple of days later a paperback book was left on my doorstep origin unknown. It was about how to do astra projection. I am perfectly willing to hold on to coincidence as an alternative to thinking the book was a little explanation from somebody saying sorry for barging in.
It is a bit hard to analyse the coincidence probablity. I can remember only one instance of books being left on my doorstep. But it is a basic part of coincidence that we only notice when they happen so they might be extremely unlikely but happen as coincidence anyway.(the event of boy finding some sort of metal plates in the woods and that boy being imaginative storytello with religious concerns could be coincidence even if unlikely)
There is a good bit of halloween imagination which fits into these observations. Still the subjects apearance on a message board associates the question with peoples religous experiences as well as halloween imagination. I have read a few discussions trying to tie all religous experiences up into on natural explanation. Intereseting to try yet even my limited religous experiences list out into a variety of things which could possibly have different sources.
Despite my willingness to debunk spritual stories ( I wouldn't mind the debunking of the astra projection story, I havnt tried running bodiless about the world) I do believe that experience resulting from our spritual dimension is common. I think all humans are spritual beings and in various situations that quality can touch and influence us beyond the circle of physical or sybolic communication. It is in that context I reflect on experience that I understand as being spritual, divine origin. communication. I value experence which had the quality of personal communication for the substance of what was communicated. I guess I could say I value the communication when what I received as communicated was valuable.
I might add that I have had experience of strong feelings that seemed spritual in a religous context which instead of communicative seems smothering and controlling in a sort of sweet way. I do not really know what that is but I do not feel comfortable with it.