Is religion inherently dangerous?

[_Ray A]

Okay, well, if I had a portion of my brain removed I wouldn't be me. Ever seen someone after a car accident where they had brain damage? They're not the same person, usually. Where do you think beliefs come from?

This is something that hasn't been answered yet, in near death studies. How some people have been literally brain dead for signficant amounts of time, yet "come back" with vivid memories and experiences while brain dead. As one scientist put it, it's like turning off a computer and pulling the plug, yet the computer still works.

It's a phenomenon no one can answer at this stage, yet reported in The Lancet article I linked in another thread.

[_Moniker]

EAllusion, the palm reading just popped into my head because I'm familiar with it. Astrology is a good example to use and I may do that in the future if I need to.

Antishock, I appreciate you appreciating me for womaning up.

Ray, can you post that link here as I'd like to read it? I've read a few articles that deal with Near Death Experiences and they all pointed to chemical changes the brain underwent as the brain died and then came back. I'm not using the correct terminology, yet you get the gist.

I won't be replying to any more replies, yet, thanks for a stimulating conversation.

[_Ray A]

Ray, can you post that link here as I'd like to read it? I've read a few articles that deal with Near Death Experiences and they all pointed to chemical changes the brain underwent as the brain died and then came back. I'm not using the correct terminology, yet you get the gist.

I won't be replying to any more replies, yet, thanks for a stimulating conversation.

Here are the two articles concerned, with some overlapping as one of the scientists also contributed to The Lancet article.

The Lancet.

Continuity of Consciousness.

One suggested theory:

Could our brain be compared to the TV set, which receives electromagnetic waves and transforms them into image and sound, as well as to the TV camera, which transforms image and sound into electromagnetic waves? This electromagnetic radiation holds the essence of all information, but is only perceivable by our senses through suitable instruments like camera and TV set.

The informational fields of our consciousness and of our memories, both evolving during our lifetime by our experiences and by the informational input from our sense organs, are present around us,and become available to our waking consciousness only through our functioning brain (and other cells of our body) in the shape of electromagnetic fields. As soon as the function of the brain has been lost, as in clinical death or brain death, memories and consciousness do still exist, but the receptivity is lost, the connection is interrupted.

[_Ray A]

Ray, can you post that link here as I'd like to read it? I've read a few articles that deal with Near Death Experiences and they all pointed to chemical changes the brain underwent as the brain died and then came back. I'm not using the correct terminology, yet you get the gist.

I won't be replying to any more replies, yet, thanks for a stimulating conversation.

You may also want to have a look at Dr. Susan Blackmore's site. She is a skeptic, yet a "memes" believer. The "chemical brain changes" you refer to were primarily promulgated by Blackmore. She retired from the field of parapsychology, in which she earned her doctorate, with this explanation:

First Person - Into the Unknown


New Scientist, 4 November 2000, p 55

At last, I've done it. I've thrown in the towel, kicked the habit and gone on the wagon. After thirty years, I have escaped from a fearsome addiction.

To be truthful, I'm not really sure I've gone cold turkey yet. Only last month I was at a psychical research conference. Only days ago, I emptied the last of those meticulously organised filing cabinets, fighting the little voice that warned: "Don't do it, you might want to read that again" with a stronger one that urged: "You've given up!" as I threw paper after paper on ESP, psychokinesis, psychic pets, aromatherapy and haunted houses into the recycling sack. If cold turkey does strike, the dustbin men will have taken away my fix.

Come to think of it, I feel slightly sad. It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena - only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud. I became a sceptic.

So why didn’t I give up then? There are lots of bad reasons. Admitting you are wrong is always hard, even though it's a skill every scientist needs to learn. And starting again as a baby in a new field is a daunting prospect. So is losing all the status and power of being an expert. I have to confess I enjoyed my hard-won knowledge. Yes, I have read Michael Faraday's 1853 report on table tipping, and the first 1930s studies in parapsychology, and the latest arguments over meta-analysis of computer-controlled ESP experiments, not to mention the infamous Scole report (Feedback, New Scientist, 22 January). Should I feel obliged to keep using this knowledge if I can? No. Enough is enough. None of it ever gets anywhere. That's a good enough reason for leaving.

But perhaps the real reason is that I am just too tired - and tired above all of working to maintain an open mind. I couldn’t dismiss all those extraordinary claims out of hand. After all, they might just be true, and if they were then swathes of science would have to be rewritten.

Another "psychic" turns up. I must devise more experiments, take these claims seriously. They fail - again. A man explains to me how alien abductors implanted something in his mouth. Tests show it's just a filling, but it might have been…

No, I don’t have to think that way. And when the psychics and clairvoyants and New Agers shout at me, as they do: "The trouble with all you scientists is you don't have an open mind", I won't be upset. I won't argue. I won't rush off and perform yet more experiments just in case. I'll simply smile sweetly and say: "I don't do that any more."

For a more detailed account, including investigations into the bio-electric shield
and alien implants see :

Blackmore,S.J. (2001) Why I have given up.
In P. Kurtz (Ed) Skeptical Odysseys: Personal Accounts by the World’s Leading Paranormal Inquirers, Amherst, New York, Prometheus Books, 85-94

(The bold portion is mine. Her critics were delighted that she made this admission, but her continuing skepticism is evident throughout this "retirement" notice.)
>
>

[_dartagnan]

Understanding how humans interact and how this changes over time strips away God being a mastermind of why humans are the way they are.

Naturally, but this doesn't explain why humans are. Evolution can only go back so far. It does nothing to explain how life came to exist, it only speaks on how life evolved.

Biological evolution strips away the God made me just the way I am argument.

Not really. All they have to do is see evolution as God's way of makng life the way it is.

I've seen people say that without God there couldn't be love, altruism, and the sort -- this can be explained by scientific theories that explore why humans interact the way they do and the benefits to these interactions in the continuation of our species.

No, not really. For example, acting in a loving way doesn't necessarily benefit a species unless said species was designed to benefit from love. In light of adaptation and ntural selection, there is no proven theory to explain the evolution of an altruistic species.

The personal experience is stated as proof of God and, yet, my understanding of cultural tendencies to assign a serotonin rush to a specific entity helps me to understand why people are swayed by personal testimony and their own experiences.

That is a very simplisitic and idiotic argument for a theist to make. Serotonin rushes prove God exists?

Essentially understanding how humans interact strips away my need for God as the one that passes down morality.

Need has nothing to do with it really. I can accept an impersonal God without needing anything from it.

Understanding how cultures evolve explains how these beliefs are passed down from generation to generation and gradually change.

But not all humans believe in God because the tradition was passed down. Cultures from all corners of the world believe in a divine source. It is universal, but not for the reasons some atheist scientists would like to assume.

So, you want to dismiss materialistic approaches that have not been shown to be valid, yet, are comfortable with going with the default of God did it?

Did what, specifically? If you're talking about the design of the universe, the materialists approach has yet to produce a theory that explains why the universal constants are that they are. So there is nothing to dismiss in this instance.
As far as why do humans tend to believe in God, I think the fact that virtually all humans do believe in God, should stand on its own merits, and should not be dismissed as simple delusion or sarotonin rushes or what not. Any other scientific study would begin with the question, why is the minority different? not the vast majority.

Scientists can study the natural world -- what would you have them study?

Not sure why you're asking that. Of course they can.

Most religions started out not worshiping a supreme entity. What religion can you reach back to in history where there was one supreme entity that has stayed the precise same way?

What does this matter? You're delving into religious practice, theological precepts, etc. All of these changethrough time, obviously. The universal constant in theism is the acceptance of a divine being, something greater than ourselves.

Didn't most religions start out with different gods and goddesses (or spirits) being responsible for aspects of the natural world? As people learned more about the natural world how did these beliefs evolve? How did the deities evolve? Did the deities morph into one grand deity that became outside the scope of what was known?

Not sure what this matters, but the major religions today are generally monotheistic. Christianity didn't "start out" polytheistic, neither did Islam or Judaism. It is a popular myth among many online atheists that there is a direct connect with all religions throughout human history, and that they began polytheistic and ended up monotheistic. There is little evidence to support this.

I said, in my opinion, that I think God belief can be explained as an innate feature, as well, as cultural.

And I'm saying that ths hasn't been shown. If you think that it is true anyway, then OK. I'm just pointing out that none of the sciences have substantiated this popular theory.

If there is something else I can add in there add it. Could there be other things? Sure. What are they? God exists? Is that the one thing it should be narrowed down to?

No, but it seems to be the one possibility some people insist on excluding.

Yet, that we're understanding that our brains are responsible for how we perceive the world is not that radical of a notion.

But the brain remains a mystery and the more scientists learn about it, the more they learn how little they really know about it. We can dissect teh brain and analyze it at the atomic level, we can monitor it and watch portions of the brain light up when we experience certain emotions, and yet we haven't the faintest understanding of it. We assume it is like a computer that processes information in some kind of language, yet the more we study the brain the more we see there isn't an observable language at work.

If we know God how do we do so, Kevin? Through our heart that beats blood?

No, through our perceptions of reality.

Why not look to the organ that is responsible for processing our perceptions of the world about us?

I'm not saying don't look at it. I'm just saying you can't analyze the brain and expect to find answers as to why humans believe in God.

I admit I haven't read much on this,yet, from what I understand the fine tuning argument rests on the idea that so many things must have come together just perfectly to allow life to form on this earth and who else but God could be responsible for this? God formed everything just so in order to create a marvelous world for us to live on and life to thrive (just the life we see here). I've read arguments that delve off into multiple universes... and it's all over my head at this point. I need to read more.

Good idea. I'd recommend John Leslie's Universes.

Okay, well, I don't see that quoting religious text can be looked to for explanations when it can be shown that there are places that religious text falls down in explaining the natural world.

That's not why I quoted it. I was simply pointing out that the anthropic principle is a very old argument. Some of the oldest religious texts explain why God is reasonable. They argue that God is perceived naturally. Most theists agree. Nobody I know says they believe in God because their Mom told them to, or because their sister is a Baptist, or whatever. Virtually all of them claim some kind of spiritual confirmation and/or experience. These are not evidences that can be transferred to other atheists, but then they're not supposed to be.

People who open their minds can maybe perceive things they otherwise wouldn't have. Atheists shut their minds off to the spiritual because they have already taken it for granted that its all a matter of emotion or brain juices gone awry due to some circumstance. So they are dimsissed before they are even acknowledged.

We know of only five or six senses in humans. If you close your mind to a spiritual sense, then you'll never experience it. The same is true for sight and smell. Wearing a blindfold enhances your sense of hearing and smell and taste. So who is to say that these theists claiming a perception of the divine, aren't really just exercising another sense that science hasn't explained because it is untestable? We know other senses exist in some animals, and since evolution says we're all related in some form or another it shouldn't be a greap leap to believe humans have another sense unknown to scientists, whether overdeveoped or underdeveloped.

It proves that if I poke you in the right place your brain detects it and lights up. It proves that this is the organ responsible for processing how we interact with the world.

And that's all it proves.

Let me assume for a moment God exists. How do people know God? Through the brain?

Maybe, maybe not. We don't know really. Some people claim out of body experiences, where presumably, their brains were left behind.

If people are saying they are experiencing a presence of God and a certain portion of their brain lights up (same portion of the brain in other subjects, as well) then we can draw a few conclusions about that, can't we?

Only that a particular area of the brain responds when the person has that experience. So? But I am skeptical of any experiment where people were tested while "experiencing God." What exactly does that entail anyway? Praying? Seeing visions? Speaking in tongues? What were these people doing while hooked up to the machine?

Okay, well, if I had a portion of my brain removed I wouldn't be me.

Why not? People who have had the entire left side of their brain removed, live perfectly normal lives after rehabilitation. Whereas, if they were shot in the left side of their brain, they would have died.

[_Ray A]

Why not? People who have had the entire left side of their brain removed, live perfectly normal lives after rehabilitation. Whereas, if they were shot in the left side of their brain, they would have died.

THE GIRL WITH HALF A BRAIN.

[Guest]

Understanding how humans interact and how this changes over time strips away God being a mastermind of why humans are the way they are.

Naturally, but this doesn't explain why humans are. Evolution can only go back so far. It does nothing to explain how life came to exist, it only speaks on how life evolved.

This is why I've said repeatedly (on this board) evolution does not deal explain abiogenesis.

Biological evolution strips away the God made me just the way I am argument.

Not really. All they have to do is see evolution as God's way of makng life the way it is.

I didn't say this necessarily convinced others (there are plenty of theists that believing in evolution), yet, it explains, for me, why we are the way we are. Also, I just don't believe God would make so many damn mistakes. We are not perfect, so, why would a creator allow evolution to run amok and allow us to be in the present state with faulty eye sight, faulty tickers, etc... -- where we are not perfectly adapted to our environment? I would imagine it's because we are just enough of what we are to survive. Maybe others believe in a God that didn't care what happened after he breathed a little life into a speck and let it go on it's merry way, yet, I can't fathom why any creator wouldn't take an interest in its creation.

I've seen people say that without God there couldn't be love, altruism, and the sort -- this can be explained by scientific theories that explore why humans interact the way they do and the benefits to these interactions in the continuation of our species.

No, not really. For example, acting in a loving way doesn't necessarily benefit a species unless said species was designed to benefit from love. In light of adaptation and ntural selection, there is no proven theory to explain the evolution of an altruistic species.

Okay, you are starting with the god made us loving. I look at behaviors that enhanced our ability to survive therefore continued in subsequent generation. You can also look at human behavior that doesn't seem to advance the idea of God such as the need to teach the parable of the good samaritan. If you look to families who are those in the family given the most physical attention and nourishment? Offspring and those in the immediate family. The farther you move away in familial ties the less resources are put into those relations. Why? Well, why would we see a stranger as less deserving of resources as a child of our own? Could it be that we have no vested interest in their genes being passed on? The farther away you get from your own clan, culture, whatever the less most people see the "other" as a human being deserving of anything, at all. Why? God made it that way? Well, obviously Jesus had an issue with that aspect of human nature because he told his followers to tend to those different than themselves.

The personal experience is stated as proof of God and, yet, my understanding of cultural tendencies to assign a serotonin rush to a specific entity helps me to understand why people are swayed by personal testimony and their own experiences.

That is a very simplisitic and idiotic argument for a theist to make. Serotonin rushes prove God exists?

Theists, all the time, point to their own feeling of God as proof of God.

Essentially understanding how humans interact strips away my need for God as the one that passes down morality.

Need has nothing to do with it really. I can accept an impersonal God without needing anything from it.

I thought that you believed morality was passed down from God. That's often stated.

Understanding how cultures evolve explains how these beliefs are passed down from generation to generation and gradually change.

But not all humans believe in God because the tradition was passed down. Cultures from all corners of the world believe in a divine source. It is universal, but not for the reasons some atheist scientists would like to assume.

The belief in a particular God is most definitely cultural. For instance, Japan was completely isolated and created the mythology of Shintoism. Buddhism was then imported and all of a sudden Buddhism was intertwined with Shinto beliefs. We can actually watch the movement of religious cultural beliefs and see how they morphed and changed over time and changed by those that held the beliefs through subsequent generations.

<snipped a bunch of stuff>

Most religions started out not worshiping a supreme entity. What religion can you reach back to in history where there was one supreme entity that has stayed the precise same way?

What does this matter? You're delving into religious practice, theological precepts, etc. All of these changethrough time, obviously. The universal constant in theism is the acceptance of a divine being, something greater than ourselves.

It does matter because you're pointing to what has always been in history to illustrate that just because it's always been there then it's true. Well, this "truth" adapts and changes radically with time and scientific advancement.

Didn't most religions start out with different gods and goddesses (or spirits) being responsible for aspects of the natural world? As people learned more about the natural world how did these beliefs evolve? How did the deities evolve? Did the deities morph into one grand deity that became outside the scope of what was known?

Not sure what this matters, but the major religions today are generally monotheistic. Christianity didn't "start out" polytheistic, neither did Islam or Judaism. It is a popular myth among many online atheists that there is a direct connect with all religions throughout human history, and that they began polytheistic and ended up monotheistic. There is little evidence to support this.

I'm not talking about the major religions today. I am talking about cultures where there were many gods/goddesses that later lost these beliefs for one supreme deity. Of course some cultures there still are remnants of polytheism.

Yet, that we're understanding that our brains are responsible for how we perceive the world is not that radical of a notion.

But the brain remains a mystery and the more scientists learn about it, the more they learn how little they really know about it. We can dissect the brain and analyze it at the atomic level, we can monitor it and watch portions of the brain light up when we experience certain emotions, and yet we haven't the faintest understanding of it. We assume it is like a computer that processes information in some kind of language, yet the more we study the brain the more we see there isn't an observable language at work.

I don't disagree that the brain remains a mystery, yet, I am pretty content with the belief I've had since junior high psychology class that the brain is the organ responsible for behaviors and processing.

If we know God how do we do so, Kevin? Through our heart that beats blood?

No, through our perceptions of reality.

Which organ of our body would be responsible for this?

Why not look to the organ that is responsible for processing our perceptions of the world about us?

I'm not saying don't look at it. I'm just saying you can't analyze the brain and expect to find answers as to why humans believe in God.

I didn't say that you could analyze the brain and see why humans believe in God. Maybe someday that will be possible. I don't know. I said that if people are undergoing a certain experience that they label a god experience and we can observe a certain portion of their brain light up that this certainly points to something
.

We know of only five or six senses in humans. If you close your mind to a spiritual sense, then you'll never experience it. The same is true for sight and smell. Wearing a blindfold enhances your sense of hearing and smell and taste. So who is to say that these theists claiming a perception of the divine, aren't really just exercising another sense that science hasn't explained because it is untestable? We know other senses exist in some animals, and since evolution says we're all related in some form or another it shouldn't be a greap leap to believe humans have another sense unknown to scientists, whether overdeveoped or underdeveloped.

I don't discount spiritual experiences! I just don't attribute them automatically to God.

Let me assume for a moment God exists. How do people know God? Through the brain?

Maybe, maybe not. We don't know really. Some people claim out of body experiences, where presumably, their brains were left behind.

I've actually had an out of body experience. A dissociative, derealization state is a normal reaction to a human being going through a traumatic event. It's a mechanism that helps us to survive. It's all explained by science and it makes perfect sense, to me.

If people are saying they are experiencing a presence of God and a certain portion of their brain lights up (same portion of the brain in other subjects, as well) then we can draw a few conclusions about that, can't we?

Only that a particular area of the brain responds when the person has that experience. So? But I am skeptical of any experiment where people were tested while "experiencing God." What exactly does that entail anyway? Praying? Seeing visions? Speaking in tongues? What were these people doing while hooked up to the machine?

I'm getting really tired. They were doing all sorts of different things. Do a search for it.

Okay, well, if I had a portion of my brain removed I wouldn't be me.

Why not? People who have had the entire left side of their brain removed, live perfectly normal lives after rehabilitation. Whereas, if they were shot in the left side of their brain, they would have died.

Some children (especially the younger they are) can actually have brain damage as they're developing and the brain may essentially rewire itself. There are others that have had half their brain removed or damaged that do not recuperate. Are you going to let your kids eat lead? Why not? Are you comfortable believing that taking a baseball bat to the side of a head doesn't really damage anything?

Why do you think people have autism? Is it because of God wanting it to be so, or could it be their neurons are not quite the same as those that are neuro-typical? So, we can see how if something is not quite typical there can be radical changes in how this person interacts with the world.

Ray, interesting link, yet, if you notice she already had damage to part of her brain. It wasn't a healthy full brain to begin with.

K, I really am bowing out of the conversation now.

~edited to add~ I did read the links you supplied, Ray. Thanks.

[_Ray A]

Ray, interesting link, yet, if you notice she already had damage to part of her brain. It wasn't a healthy full brain to begin with.

K, I really won't be replying anymore. Someone else reply.

I realise that, Mon. But some people are under the notion that you must have a "full brain" to "operate". You don't, at least if it's in the early development stage of three years.

I hope you read the two links I gave you, because most of the critiques of NDEs have come from Susan Blackmore, who like you had an OBE. There's one very important thing to understand about Blackmore, she didn't have an NDE, but an OBE. Big difference. And her OBE was while she was under the influence of marijuana. From the start, Blackmore was comparing apples with oranges.

Hope that helps.

[_dartagnan]

This is why I've said repeatedly (on this board) evolution does not deal explain abiogenesis.

Nothing explains abiogenesis because it has not been shown to exist. It is one of those things taken on blind faith within the scientific community. It is one of those doctrines of materialism.

I didn't say this necessarily convinced others (there are plenty of theists that believing in evolution), yet, it explains, for me, why we are the way we are. Also, I just don't believe God would make so many damn mistakes.

Then your argument is based on the rejecton of particular type of God.

We are not perfect, so, why would a creator allow evolution to run amok and allow us to be in the present state with faulty eye sight, faulty tickers, etc... -- where we are not perfectly adapted to our environment?

Again, yours is a theological argument dealing with particulars. But it doesn't negate the evidence that a supreme intelligence exists.

I would imagine it's because we are just enough of what we are to survive. Maybe others believe in a God that didn't care what happened after he breathed a little life into a speck and let it go on it's merry way, yet, I can't fathom why any creator wouldn't take an interest in its creation.

You're making the same mistake as other religious people by assuming God must be interested and involved in or daily lives. What if he isn't? Why must be be involved in order to exist? That's a strange excuse to prefer atheism.

Okay, you are starting with the god made us loving.

No I'm not. I'm saying "scientific" theories don't explain why there is altruism. I can't help but notice that much of your response here is verbatim, what Richard Dawkins has been arguing. Alister McGrath took him to the woodshed for many of these arguments, because he showed that hardly any of it is really science based. So calling it "scientific" is really misleading.

I look at behaviors that enhanced our ability to survive therefore continued in subsequent generation.

Which is why the theory doesn't work. Being altrusitic doesn't do anything to guarantee survival.

You can also look at human behavior that doesn't seem to advance the idea of God such as the need to teach the parable of the good samaritan

So people can be good or bad, this doesn't do anything to undermine the idea of God.

If you look to families who are those in the family given the most physical attention and nourishment? Offspring and those in the immediate family. The farther you move away in familial ties the less resources are put into those relations. Why? Well, why would we see a stranger as less deserving of resources as a child of our own? Could it be that we have no vested interest in their genes being passed on?

This is so idiotic, and know you're just relaying Dawkins. But think about it. Why look at humans as mindless animals who are subconsciously interested in producing more offspring when sociological/psychological data already explain why the above anecdotes are as they are?

I have friends I have known for more than twenty years. But I can describe my relations with various friends the same way familial ties come and go, increase and decrease. It has nothing to do with a subconscious desire to pass on genes and everything to do with proximity. You're naturally going to be closer to those you're around the most. Ths is basic sociological dat that has been known for centuries, and yet Dawkins seems confused about it and asserts the need to view it in terms of universal darwinism.

My step-father is a classic example representing the antithesis of Dawkins crazy theory. When he married my mother I was 12. He had been married previously to two different women, having children with each of them. I was 15 before I realized he had 6 children that were actually his. Yet he had hardly any relationship with any of them. Even now, he still has more to do with me and my siblings, because we live in the same city. He spends outrageous amounts of money on my neice, even though he is not really her grandfather. He has kids all over the country who will be passing on his genes, but he is more interested in "nourishing" kids who aren't even his. Why? Becuse he is around them more so a relationship is built.

The farther away you get from your own clan, culture, whatever the less most people see the "other" as a human being deserving of anything, at all. Why? God made it that way?

Well, it sure as hell has nothing to do with a subconscious desire to pass on one's genes! This is not a scientific theory and it doesn' even begin to make sense. I can understand people supposing possibilities as these among animals, but with humans? We humans communicate with one another, and finding out why people choose to be with some people and not others, is as simple as asking them. You can't ask a monkey why he is so interested in screwing anything that moves.

Think about it. Why do men have visectamies? Why do so many coples have no interest in procreating. Why do atheistic societies have fewer children? This "passing the genes" theory simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I doesn't even make it past the first round of questions.

Theists, all the time, point to their own feeling of God as proof of God.

Of course, that is the only way they can describe their perception of him, but it isn't proof to anyone except the recipient.

I thought that you believed morality was passed down from God. That's often stated.

No, but it is obvious that or modern codes of morality are based on religious principles.

The belief in a particular God is most definitely cultural.

Of corse it is. I'd venture to say that roughly half of the Mormon Church is in it for cultural reasons. Half aren't even aware of much of the heavy doctrine, but most of them really do perceive God's existence. Church is just a social construct used by humans who gather and share common values.

It does matter because you're pointing to what has always been in history to illustrate that just because it's always been there then it's true. Well, this "truth" adapts and changes radically with time and scientific advancement.

Correlation doesn't equal causation. Science progressed rapidly during medieval Islamic civilization, and yet Islam remained essentially the same. And the only fundamental truth to theism is that God exists. All the other nonsense is the stuff that makes up religious movements. That frequently changes.

I am talking about cultures where there were many gods/goddesses that later lost these beliefs for one supreme deity. Of course some cultures there still are remnants of polytheism.

Dawkins is wrong on this point too. I'll type out the relevant response from Alister McGrath, from The Dawkins Delusion?:

The main criticism of [Dawkins' argument] is the lack of serious evidence offered on its behalf. Where is the science? What's the evidence for such a belief? We find speculation and supposition taking plce of the rigorous evidence-driven and evidence-based arguments that we have a right to expect. Dawkins's theories of the biological origins of religion, though interesting, must be considered to be highly speculative. His arguments about the psychological origins of religion are littered with "maybes" and "mights," verbal signposts that there is no substantial evidence for the highly tenuous and specultive ideas he explores with his readers.

On reading this section, I felt that I was being bludgeoned into submission to his idead by teh sheer force of his assertions rather than led along willingly on account of the weight of the evidence on the one hand and Dawkins's skill in presenting it on the other. The arguments begin wth cautious "could be statements, advancing tentative hypotheses for consideration. Yet they rapidly become bold "is" statement, making assertions without the firm evidence normlly thought to be required for rigorous scientific argument...

At an early stage in The God Delusion, Dawkins represents atheism as the ultimate outcome of a process of whittling down irrational beliefs about the superntural. You begin with polytheism - believing in lots of gods. Then as time progresses and your thinking becomes more sophisticated, you move on to monotheism - belief in only one God. Atheism just takes this one step further. As Dawkins playfully remarks, it just involves believing in one less god than before. Yet the history of religion obliges us to speak about the diversification, not the progression, of religion. The evidence simply isn't there to allow us to speak about any kind of ntural progression from polytheism to monotheism - and thence to atheism.

In other words, Dawkins hasn't the faintest clue what he's talking about. Hes just peddling his anti-relgion theories and presenting them as science.

I am pretty content with the belief I've had since junior high psychology class that the brain is the organ responsible for behaviors and processing.

And it is, but the question is about preceptions of the divine. If such perceptions were possible, then we'd expect them to be processed in the same way our brain processes sound waves as it enters out ears. Specific areas of the brain will light up too, but what came first, the brain lighting up or the horn honking? Obviously the horn, so it cannot be argued that the brain produced these sounds anymore than it can be said the brain produces "God feelings." Watching neurons fire in the brain doesn't answer anything really anymore than it tells us where sound or smell comes from. This is really just a smoke and mirror argument by atheists who like to point out "scientific" experiments and illicitly leap to unscientific conclusions.

I said that if people are undergoing a certain experience that they label a god experience and we can observe a certain portion of their brain light up that this certainly points to something

Sure, but it only points to the area of the brain that processes that experience. It doesn't tel us wuether that experience is received or self-induced. It doesn't prove the brain is responsible for producing it, anymore than the brain is responsible for producing what we smell, hear or see.

I've actually had an out of body experience. A dissociative, derealization state is a normal reaction to a human being going through a traumatic event. It's a mechanism that helps us to survive. It's all explained by science and it makes perfect sense, to me.

Science doesn't explain it and the experience doesn't help us survive. How in the hell does it help us survive? Survive what?

Are you comfortable believing that taking a baseball bat to the side of a head doesn't really damage anything?

What the F---?

Where did I say that?

[_EAllusion]

My scientific explanation for altruism is that there exist invisible altruism faries who sprinkle altruism dust on humans from time to time causing them to behave such that they help others to the detriment of themselves. Can you explain altruism? Didn't think so. Yet my theory clearly accounts for it. Looks like it must be right.

QED mo-fos.

...

http://philosophy.wisc.edu/sober/Simpso ... 08%202.pdf