Evolution of Religion & Nuerotheology

[Peregrine]

P.S.: Didn't Dark0ne forbid debates on religion?

 

If you people would keep your discussion on the posted article (like I told you to) it isn't another "is there a god?" debate.

 

P.P.S.: I would rather like a new debate (hopefully this time without a flame-war), since I have some new theories which I'd like to use as argument.

 

Then get Dark0ne to give permission. I'm not losing my head to let you have your debate when the admin banned the subject.

 

P.P.P.S: Just to prove you who stupid logic sometimes can be:

 

What is better: Bread without or bread with butter?

 

Answer: Well, since bread is better than nothing and nothing is better than bread with butter, it is the logical conclusion that bread without butter is better than bread with butter.

 

How is this stupid? It's not logic's fault you make the stupid assumption that having nothing is better than having bread with butter. Logic works perfectly well in this case... if bread with butter is worse than nothing, why shouldn't butterless bread be the better form?

 

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Icefiddell, nice post, but you're going way off topic there. The point of this thread is to discuss the posted article. NOT to create a general "is religion right?" debate.

[surian]

Ok, here's a thought.

 

So science has discovered that our brain is designed in a way that allows us to have "religious experiences" and that they can be caused by anything from a magnetic field to being knocked on the head too hard. Well, what if God designed us that way on purpose? It makes sence that God would do that. After all, if you believe in God you would agree that he created Man with eyes and ears to see and hear things right? What if he created our brain in a way to allow him to allow us to see and hear HIM under certain conditions?

 

Now, let's deconstruct this argument.

 

Counter point: The whole thing is dependant upon an outside force to kickstart the "experience" be it magnetic forces or whatever. There is no evidence that God himself is doing this so there is no evidence that God intended this to happen or that he exists at all.

 

Response: God is all powerful, he could have caused that outside stimulous that made you have the experience, therefor it is still God who is causing the visions.

 

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P.S. THis is how the debate will go. You can't win because the person taking the religious position is going under the asumption that God can do anything... there are no boundries to how or what God could do and therefor there are no boundries or rules that this person must follow in their arguments. You could say anything you want to disprove his point but he could turn around and make a "what if" that is equally as valid under his asumptions.

 

It's the nature of religious debates, it's impossible to argue the "facts" because the facts can be explained away so easily by the other side.

[Icefiddell]

I'm sorry i dont understand, are you saying that god (if there is such a being) created us so only people who have had a massive strike to the head or who has some sort of Lobal Epilepsy can be near him.

 

And your saying that this would make sense?

 

I'm not very big on the bible but i think i'm right when i say 'God created us in his own image' So does that mean every time he wants to see us he has to wack himself over the head or find some sort of magnetic field?

 

As for the article, it said something about Meditation, that when they do it certain parts of the brain shut down (the time and place part). So i think the Buddhist (sp?) religion are on to something because alot of their monks meditate dont they? So meditating is good for them which would make them live longer and make them healthier, which would make sense.

 

I wonder if the same thing would happen when some one is praying, not just normal praying but some one who is really religious and really getting into it if you know what i mean. Would be interesting to find out.

[Darnoc]

How is this stupid? It's not logic's fault you make the stupid assumption that having nothing is better than having bread with butter. Logic works perfectly well in this case... if bread with butter is worse than nothing, why shouldn't butterless bread be the better form?

 

Ah, Peregrine, have you become so serious that you cannot longer recognize a joke ;) It is only a wordgame.

 

Fact is that you can use the form of logic to prove the most dumbest thing. Note, I didn't say "you can use logic", but I said "you can use the form of logic" which is enterely a different thing.

 

Now we are bound of course to find out what is true logic and what only takes the form of logic. My example was only a little on the extreme side, there are a lot of other examples for this seeming logic which aren't so easy to recognize.

 

 

Back on topic:

 

It is as surian said: When a person under the influence of a magnetic field possibly receives visions, there is also the possibility that god may have put this magnetic field (or whatever caused the religious experience) there for a cause. It is also possible that this magnetic field was just there by chance.

 

But it is not possible to tell which was the case. If god exists, he is allpowerful (the definition of god includes that he is allpowerful) and therefore he may move any magnetic field (or anything else) like he wants. If he exists. Since we can neither prove his existence or his non-existence it is also not possible to prove if the magnetic field was there by chance or by cause. We can prove that it was there but not why it was there.

 

Therefore any debate concerning this matter is in vain. Because in order to debate it truly we must first have a basis. You cannot debate on something without at least one basic fact. Since the question is, if either such experiences are caused by chance or by a higher force, the basis of such a debate is clearly if such a higher force exists. We can only debate when we have either proven or disproven the existence of any higher force. As long as we cannot or don't we cannot debate. At least not really.

 

To make matters clear we try to debate the question if the causes of such experiences are happening accidentally or are driven by anything higher, by an intellect.

 

Now lets assume that we have the possibility to acctually find the answer to the question "Is there any higher force?". What happens, depends on the case.

 

1)We can prove that there is a higher force. So we can debate if any religious experience is caused by this higher force or not.

 

2)We can disprove the existence of any higher force. The question of the debate is therefore already solved. All religious experiences are subject of chance, not cause.

[DreamOfTheRood]

I just sent the link to this article to a few of my Psych professors. Hopefully, they'll give me some feedback, and we'll be able to have a discussion on this topic. Right now, though, all I can really tell you is that we're constantly around magnetic waves. Now, this guy's experiments may help us understand epilepsy more, but they don't help us understand religion.

[PeterJ]

Sorry i took so long to respond to my own thread being in year 12 term 3 it is a bit busy.

 

Can we please keep the discussion on the article at hand at not a 'all religion debated are doomed vs no theyre not'. Either start a new thread or i will ask a moderator to split it from this thread.

 

I believe we can keep this debate/discussion to a mature intelligent one and not resort to a flame war.

 

On topic now:

 

I believe we did develop this as a evolutionary tool to help us survive. But more so to help us deal with death and explain things we cannot AT THE MOMENT explain.

 

I can state a whole bunch of facts but you probably allready know them so im just gonna say this if we did evolve this trait it goes without saying that a time will come where we dont need this trait anymore and in fact it his hindering our development as a species and we will evolve it out of our system. I believe that will be the start to creating a Type 2 race i think it is called. Because by the time this happens i would hope that we are wise enough to have outgrown war, hatred and violence.

 

But anyway i probably cannot prove this or anything to a religious person because the entire basis of their argument is that god can do absolutely anything and if you actually catch them out on an argument you get the 'we cannot comprehend god as he is above us' and the 'he has a plan' arguments. But i can rant on about my facts and arguments and prove to other athiests, agnositcs, people sitting on the sideline and to myself.

 

So i think this does explain some of the reality behind what religion actually is and i believe we are starting to understand more and more.

 

So in summary i believe what the article said is true and that it does begin to disprove or at least explain religion

[DreamOfTheRood]

Occam's Razor.

[Peregrine]

Surain: Do not post in this thread again until you decide to take a position and debate it. This "you can't debate this" garbage ends right now. If you don't like the debate, don't post. Simple enough?

 

 

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Occam's Razor.

 

Do you even understand what that means? Occam's Razor would prove you wrong. We have a non-divine theory to explain religious visions, which obeys all other rules of reality. God, on the other hand, defies them. Therefore to add in the massively complicating factor of god, we must have a reason. We don't, therefore a divine origin must be rejected.

 

 

Now, this guy's experiments may help us understand epilepsy more, but they don't help us understand religion.

 

Did you even read the article? The article presents a theory for a completely non-divine origin for religious experiences. If it is shown to be right, we have just understood religion! The fact that you don't like the answer doesn't make it any less valid.

 

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It is as surian said: When a person under the influence of a magnetic field possibly receives visions, there is also the possibility that god may have put this magnetic field (or whatever caused the religious experience) there for a cause. It is also possible that this magnetic field was just there by chance.

 

Not likely. The same conditions that cause religious visions can be created by completely non-divine methods. We have clear proof that the method is not exclusively divine. Unless more proof than "I believe in god" exists, then the most likely explanation is that god has nothing to do with it.

 

But it is not possible to tell which was the case. If god exists, he is allpowerful (the definition of god includes that he is allpowerful) and therefore he may move any magnetic field (or anything else) like he wants. If he exists. Since we can neither prove his existence or his non-existence it is also not possible to prove if the magnetic field was there by chance or by cause. We can prove that it was there but not why it was there.

 

That's simply a dodge of inevitable truth. If god exists, god exists and can be proven to exist. If god can not be proven (or even close) to exist, god does not exist. Saying "god is all powerful, and can not be understood" is just evading the question.

 

And in any case, the burden of proof is always on the side attempting to prove the affirmative (since a negative can not be proven). Therefore if the side in favor of god fails to prove its case, they lose. The answer is not "maybe". It is "no proof can be found, therefore god does not exist".

 

To make matters clear we try to debate the question if the causes of such experiences are happening accidentally or are driven by anything higher, by an intellect.

 

Finally someone gets the point of the debate....

 

Now lets assume that we have the possibility to acctually find the answer to the question "Is there any higher force?". What happens, depends on the case.

 

1)We can prove that there is a higher force. So we can debate if any religious experience is caused by this higher force or not.

 

Translation: to even start to prove the article wrong, we must prove the existence of god, which can't be done. By basing the entire counter-argument on that requirement, you have just conceded the debate!

 

God can not be proven to exist, as has been found countless times. Therefore the article can not be proven wrong, since that is step one of your counter-argument. Concession accepted.

 

2)We can disprove the existence of any higher force. The question of the debate is therefore already solved. All religious experiences are subject of chance, not cause.

 

Which we already have done. Well, at least as close as you can come to proving a negative. The default assumption is the nonexistence of god, until proof is presented. The burden of proof is on YOU to produce the evidence you need to make your counter-argument vaild. Since you have not done so, as of right now, the answer to the question is "there is no god". Therefore as you say, all religious experiences are the product of chance.

 

 

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Now, let me make something absolutely clear:

 

THIS IS NOT ANOTHER GENERAL "IS THERE A GOD?" DEBATE. EITHER REPLY TO THE ARTICLE AND ATTEMPT TO PROVE IT WRONG, OR CONCEDE THE DEBATE AND DO NOT POST. DO NOT TURN THIS INTO ANOTHER GENERAL ARGUMENT ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.

[Dinin]

I'm a little confused, how can we debate on the fact that we invented God if noone is alive from when God was supposedly invented.

 

Wouldn't someone from Jeruselem during the time of Jesus be the only key to knowing if he was invented.

 

Or are you saying the belief of God is a gene that we get from our parents, or what, we just suddenly develop this belief at an early age?

 

This is odd....humans just went through life unbeknownst to God or Christianity, and then some random person gets some shock to the head and had the idea of it, and invented the idea so the person could have an answer for certain questions?.......I don't know, explain this to me, because this sounds like a load of horse crap...please try and explain your ideas so i won't think there are crazy people in these forums.

[postaldudeleo]

You know, this article makes sense but it wont win the contest on who is right. I myself am an atheist but lets get it down to one example.1 Everything cn't be created out of Nothing. Period. 2 People create a being to who to pray to and ask for miracles because your mind natualy searchs for an answer to a problem and when none cant be found, you think of, how about lets pray and ask someone else to fix that for us. it relives the depresssion and brings new hope to people. Thats how the idea of a god was thought to be invented. the earlobes thing is another fact but, many relegions in ancient times even though old ladies high on crack are prophets cause they didnt know crack causes halluicinations and that poo.

 

I know this poo, I am currently taking public speach and debate 2 and we are currently debating this god thing and will so for 2 weeks more, so this poo is researched.

 

 

Ps. peregrine, it seems like your pissed about something? Go smoke some pot to 'chill" down..................................... :construction:

 

 

 

Also, I got nothing agianst relegion. Uassaully people who belive in relegious morals are pretty much nice good people. If they want to belive it, its thier choosing. :innocent: