Theism/atheism debates

Interesting sounding book. I just got it on Amazon for US$7 as a rental.

I wasn’t aware there’s still research activity on the subject, but it was originally discovered a long time ago when US researchers had a lot more leeway to do horrible experiments on mental patients (60s-70s). Some patient had electrodes implanted in his brain for some unrelated reason (possibly epilepsy research) and the medics were poking around in there. Stimulating one particular area produced “intense religious experiences”, IIRC.

I don’t remember the precise details - I did my degree 25 years ago.

:laughing:

It’s definitely tough being a scientist, and I’m not being facetious.[/quote]

Isn’t that just kind of common sense, though? That there would be?

[quote=“triceratopses”]

I would be astonished if it did. It generally takes a high caliber person to recognize the necessity for controlling one’s senses in this day and age.

Also it’s a cliche to me to constantly watch the vapidity rise to the surface as the fire of youth fades in people. It becomes too apparent to themselves that they wasted most of their lives in nothingness.[/quote]

Wow, that’s a pretty heavy koan you got there, brother.

finley:

Let’s take a look-see, using the True Protestant version of course.

1)Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

A holdover from the henotheism of early beliefs, when Yahweh was the particular god of the Hebrews, one of the 70 sons of El; reminding the Hebrews that he is their special protector. Most local cultures were the same, worshipping one particlar god among the pantheon. If you think it refers to One and Only One God, there were of course earlier monotheisms, most notably the worship of Aten in Egypt.

2)Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Most modern scholars attribute the Decalogue to the Babylonian Exile: with the Temple destroyed and the Jews in a foreign land, they would be tempted to fall into worship of false gods. Once you set up your own idol it’s easy to see the parallels with others. Even if it started before that (though modern archeology tends to disagree) it’s largely a marker to distinguish the Israelites from their neighbors. Note as well that Atenism banned idols.

3)Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain.

The original meaning not being against swearing, but against making a false vow in the name of a god, which was a pretty standard proscription among various cultures, with thousands of folk-tales and warnings to lend credence.

4)Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Many other cultures have regular prescribed rest days; check Wiki on “Sabbath” for examples.

5)Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God gives thee.

Pretty standard in any traditional culture, and much more emphaisised in some , like Confucianism.

6) Thou shalt not kill.[ commit murder i.e. unlawful killing]
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.

These are as well standard in any society that needs to work together; basic rules of “play nice”.

Obviously, mate. You do not even know what one of the main authorities of your own school of thought asserts.

You do not even know that is it STANDARD for scientific materialists to explain that the mind is PURELY an illusion.

For a scientific materialist, it’s extremely contradictory to say that mind is the brain and yet rely on subjective experience ie. non-physical 1st person experience aka qualia to establish morality.

Which is why educated materialists say there is no morality, since morality cannot be applied to the movement of particles.

Okay. How’s the toilet doing?

Its ok seems like

BrentGolf is also completely confused on the topic, saying “if you’re one of those people that likes to talk existentially about how nothing is really real, we aren’t actually experiencing the things we think we are, then fine have fun and enjoy the circular logic that results.”

He doesn’t know that your positions assert exactly that.

Dennett denies qualia (subject awareness/experience) and says we are mechanical machines (mindless zombies) with illusions of experience. Our current actions were determined and set in motion 3/10000000 of a second after the big bang. Thats scientific materialism.

Churchland says that as neuroscience gains more data the entire concept of qualia will be discarded.

I’m not the slightest bit confused, but thank you. Showing concern for others’ well being is very moral of you and fits in nicely with the thread. :thumbsup:

As has been explained to you several different times though (hopefully you can finally absorb the simplicity of it this time) we all understand materialism. You’re not teaching anybody anything. You mentioned him so I’ll say, I much prefer to read Dennett than you, no offense.

So perhaps you’d like to constructively move the conversation forward? Where do you think your concern for my well being comes from?

I don’t believe that. Dilemma solved!

When it comes to the question of whether there is a God (which when defined for debate purposes as a creator of the universe), it seems to me that sometimes the atheist wins and other times the theist wins, precisely because I don’t think science can take us any further. The Big Bang theory tells us that the universe was created ex nihilo. There was nothing (meaning no matter, no space, no time), and in an instant everything. So what happened before there was nothing? Who knows?! It’s one philosophy against another.[/quote]

I say, 玉皇大帝,created it.

Interesting conversation between two philosophers, one being Daniel Dennett.

ricochet.com/podcasts/is-religi … sm-debate/

This book is getting a lot of press. Looks pretty interesting

Atheism has ancient roots and is not ‘modern invention’, claims new text

I wasn’t aware there’s still research activity on the subject, but it was originally discovered a long time ago when US researchers had a lot more leeway to do horrible experiments on mental patients (60s-70s). Some patient had electrodes implanted in his brain for some unrelated reason (possibly epilepsy research) and the medics were poking around in there. Stimulating one particular area produced “intense religious experiences”, IIRC.

I don’t remember the precise details - I did my degree 25 years ago.

:laughing:

It’s definitely tough being a scientist, and I’m not being facetious.[/quote]

Actually you should read the book. He doesn’t say anywhere that religion is nothing but brain impulses.

In fact he argues that religious experiences are sui generis and a fundamental part of being human as they are literally built into brain functions. It’s one reason he disagrees with people like Sam Harris who want to remove god from spirituality. Non-religious based spiritual experiences, as well as that cause by mental disease are either not as intense or as transformative.

This is a seriously well thought out book. One fasinating part is how he explains religion as useful for creating a unified highly functioning Self (which may be its evolutionary role). Despite what many atheists think, the parts of the brain where we experience religion and God are not the emotional primitive parts but those parts associated with executive function and the ability to form a coherent sense of self.

Again religioun may have evolved as a way to unify and focus the self (our sense of self is now consider a narrative we create out of possible selves; and think of how many religious figures speak of themselves as divided and conflicted before experiencing god) which would have made those early societies who were better at religion more organized and effective. Nowhere does he suggest this is always for the good: religion he states, is just as potent as helping unify a people for war as anything positive.

I’m about a third in. Brilliant book.

That’s a scientific claim, so does he provide proof of that in the book? Secondly if that’s a proven fact, does he have any proof that other powerful but non religious experiences don’t show up with similar activity in that same part of the brain?

That’s a scientific claim, so does he provide proof of that in the book? Secondly if that’s a proven fact, does he have any proof that other powerful but non religious experiences don’t show up with similar activity in that same part of the brain?[/quote]

This is a book for other scientists and religious studies academics not really a generalist tome. So yes everything is cited and he provides abundant links to other studies.

I should clarify that the limbic system is part of the whole religious brain circuit as obviously religious experiences can produce great pleasure.

As to the second question, yes. Non-religious but powerful experiences do not appear to have the same intensity and certainly not the same power to transform the Self and produce lasting changes to behavior. I haven’t got to the chapter where he fully lays out the research however.

And what would an “obviously religious” experience be?

And is he / you implying that a non religious person who has close ties with family and a strong support group of friends who experiences high levels of personal accomplishment and actively tries to understand the world around them both scientifically and ethically, they don’t have the same sense of self and behavior as the people who think God done it?

An experience where you felt the presence of god for example and were filled with intense awe, joy, peace, love and felt a great expansion of your being, especially in the presence of a religious ritual or practice.

Check out James “Variety of Religious Experiences”. Your question is frankly bizarre to me. What would be an obvious experience of falling in love? Or friendship. There are some pretty basic human experiences we take as starting points and religious feelings are one of them.

You would likely have no problem with a study on the religious experiences of epileptics, or those on the influence of lsd or peyote so why be coy now? People without mental problems have incredibly profound religious experiences. Anyone curious about the human condition should be interested to know why and how and what this says about us.

[quote]

And is he / you implying that a non religious person who has close ties with family and a strong support group of friends who experiences high levels of personal accomplishment and actively tries to understand the world around them both scientifically and ethically, they don’t have the same sense of self and behavior as the people who think God done it?[/quote]

No. And you are conflating belief in god as the originator of the universe with an experience of god. Not the same thing. I am an atheist but I have felt the profound presence of god (I mean an experience that is only adequately described in religious language and that just doesn’t feel like any other) on many occassions. It’s one of the reasons I don’t feel much affinity with the new atheism, though Sam Harris at least seems to have a fairly rich inner life.

In any case there is an interesting section in the book where he describes experiments using fMRIs to scan the brains of carmelite nuns reciting te Lords Prayer and non-believers recalling childhood rhymes and songs and memories. They aren’t even close in intensity.

This makes sense subjectively to me, but also would seem to be confirmed by literature and art. I can’t think of any writing on any human experience, outside of the early period of falling in love, that matches the intensity of recollections of religious experiences.

Parts of brain in religion circuit:

Amygdala and hippocampus and other parts of limbic system, the anterior temporal lobe, and the orbitofrontal, dorsomedial, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices.

Don’t get me wrong, I know what you would define as a religious experience. I guess I’m just asking you how on earth this was tested? The author / you are making clearly scientific claims, so are you also saying that we have hooked people up to electrodes or MRI scanners or whatever and studied them as they were “finding God” right there in the laboratory? I would imagine that is quite a rare thing indeed. Who finds themselves in the presence of God when a bunch of scientists are testing them?

How to re-create that for proper peer review I wonder… :ponder:

No I wouldn’t imagine they would be, but why does that matter to the initial claim you made?

Yes they are basic and universal, but however you define them I promise it wouldn’t repeatably happen in a laboratory. I don’t think the moment we fall in love has been scientifically tested, and I don’t think truly finding God has either.

You’re doing the same thing that others have criticized Sam Harris for. You’re using scientific words like: “Amygdala and hippocampus and other parts of limbic system, the anterior temporal lobe, and the orbitofrontal, dorsomedial, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices” and conflating that with science.

An experience where you felt the presence of god for example and were filled with intense awe, joy, peace, love and felt a great expansion of your being, especially in the presence of a religious ritual or practice.
[/quote]

That would be one type.

As would running through the streets screaming “Death to the Christ-killers”, setting off a suicide bomb in the name of Allah, or cutting out a captive’s heart at the top of a pyramid- speaking of the varieties of religious experience.

I wonder if the author has measured, for example, the feelings of someone who realises the truth of the Brotherhood of Man (or these days, the Solidarity of Humanity) after being exposed to the dream of the Great and Glorious Revolution?

Or that Hitler is the embdiment of the Volk, destined for Eternal Greatness? Or has dedicated themselves to the cause of ending the Subjugation of Women; the Liberation of Oppressed People of Color; of being willing to fight and die for the Basque Homeland; independent Kurdistan; Tamil Elam (the original suicide bombers)?

Another thing to remember about religions is that they themselves are the result of thousands of years of cultural evolution, and of constantly changing to adapt to new social, economic and political environments, with many failed varieties falling by the wayside, and the ones which survive do so by adopting new forms of belief.

And of course the side question, is any of this true?