Present Evidence Here II

[cabinetmaker]

Not being a researcher in the area myself, and not being a biologist of any stripe (I took bio in high school with the explicit intention of getting it over with once and for all, and that was in 1976), I conclude only that more research needs to be done so it can be understood well enough to distill it down to a level I can understand.  :)

However, that connection does make a certain amount of sense.  Love and religious belief are both powerful perception-altering mental activities; cocaine is a powerful perception alterant.  Also remember that there are only just so many neurotransmitters to work with, and only so many ccs of brain, so we shouldn't be surprised to see many things using similar areas.

If I had to hazard a guess, and it's only a guess because I'm just not au courant with the current state of consciousness research, the connection has to to with addictionâ€"to another person (love), to an idea (god) or to a chemical (cocaine).  In the absence of chemical intake, the cerebral cortex does its best to explain the underlying biochemical changes affecting it.  Emotions at that point are really just the label we apply to a set of un- or sub- or even non-consciously controlled chemical changes in the brain.

One last pointâ€"I'm familiar in outline with the research on the effects of religion on the brain.  It's worth noting that the effects appear related only to religiosity, not to the specific religion of the person under study.  This is exactly what we would expect to see if religion was a completely human-made social construct.  Otherwise, if Christianity were 'correct', we should see differences between Christians and at least non-Judeo-Christo-Islamic adherents; if Wiccans are correct, we should see differences between them and non-Wiccans; and so on.  We don't see that; we see similar activity across all believers.  Since it is not possible for all religions to be true, the only consistent result we can infer from that is that either none of them are, or that they're all wrong to precisely the same degree.

The latter is also not possible -- if there are three gods, dualist Pagans are 'more correct' than monotheists.  If there is something that exists in a non-countable state, Buddhists are 'more correct' than mono- and polytheists.

In short, the MRI data on religious thought tends to support the idea that religion is man-made and internal, rather than divinely imposed and external.

Scientific research can only take us so far.  It is not long before we enter the realm of speculation regardless of which side of the line you are on.  I speculate that the brain responds to a stimuli such as cocaine or the presence of another person.  If this is true, then could the stimuli that triggers the "religious experience response" be the presence of God in that persons experience?

[Unbeliever]

No, it couldn't be the presence of God, since no such thing exists, but it could be a hallucination or simply a delusion, or wishful thinking.

[trdsf]

Scientific research can only take us so far.  It is not long before we enter the realm of speculation regardless of which side of the line you are on.  I speculate that the brain responds to a stimuli such as cocaine or the presence of another person.  If this is true, then could the stimuli that triggers the "religious experience response" be the presence of God in that persons experience?

The determinant is not "you can't say it's not this", the determinant is "the data says this".  There is absolutely zero justification to make the assumption that any divine power was involved without evidence beforehand.

"It could be this" is not evidence, nor is it even a theory.  It's the barest speculation that lacks even the slightest independent data pointing in that direction.  All you're doing here is presupposing the result you want, and when you do that, you've abandoned the scientific method.

[Baruch]

What do you mean "faith is real"? So what? That's no indication that the object of that faith is indeed real.

Reason is a lighthouse, faith is the rocks below.

Yes, Bugs Bunny is real ... as a cartoon.

No, Bugs Bunny isn't real ... as a living person (or even formerly living person)

So this is how rhetoric works, we take a person's words, make s subtle shift in meaning, and bitch slap them.

A sentence is usually made up of a subject and a predicate.  A predicate is made up of a verb and an object.  Nut cases want to deny the existence of one or more of those things.  A materialist will emphasize the "object" over the "verb" or the "subject".  A solipsist will emphasize the "subject" over the "object" or the "verb".  The break dancer will emphasize the "verb" over the "subject" or the "object".  Balance the Force, Luke.

[Baruch]

I know I haven't done any chemical alterants other than caffeine.  And I can be drug-tested to demonstrate that I'm not high.

Obviously, the brain is going to react similarly to similar stimuli -- and that's independent of the trigger cause of the stimulus.  Kind of like how 4 is 4 whether you're getting it by multiplying 2x2 or -2x-2.

That is just the rational function of the brain.  It does more than arithmetic.  The objectivity status of arithmetic is also, very different than the objectivity status of my typing this right now.  Pythagoras didn't get that, he overgeneralized.  Aristotle developed biology, he knew more about brains than any other contemporary, being an anatomist.  And no, I don't find that the chaotic nature of humanity, to be ... reacts similar to similar stimuli.  That would be a rational system.  Since human beings do science and math, and since humans are irrational and delusional, the acme of math or science is unreachable.  We are not the species to achieve that.  We are not Vulcans.

[Baruch]

Scientific research can only take us so far.  It is not long before we enter the realm of speculation regardless of which side of the line you are on.  I speculate that the brain responds to a stimuli such as cocaine or the presence of another person.  If this is true, then could the stimuli that triggers the "religious experience response" be the presence of God in that persons experience?

Good question.  But the presence can be subjective or objective.  I would deny the objective presence of G-d, in ordinary terms.  But i don't agree with those terms, being a mystic.  I find the objective presence of G-d in everything, because I don't limit myself to self-defeating definitions or confusing notions.  And that objective presence, is something I subjectively experience.

[Blackleaf]

It would not be unreasonable to conclude that faith is as real as love and drugs.

Faith being real and God being real are two totally different things. One is a subjective experience, the other is a supposed person. If God really existed, and he were a personal god, his existence would be as plain to see as anyone here.

[Baruch]

Faith being real and God being real are two totally different things. One is a subjective experience, the other is a supposed person. If God really existed, and he were a personal god, his existence would be as plain to see as anyone here.

The Christian god isn't objective.  No religion god is.  All such gods are invisible.  And that is something hard to demonstrate.  I reject religion gods.  Humans are demigods, I accept them as real.  Faith isn't real ... it is a belief (as misdefined).  Faith is real ... it is trust between two people (at least it is real for some pairs of people).  So keep using the worthless English language, and only achieve confusion?

[Mike Cl]

Good question.  But the presence can be subjective or objective.  I would deny the objective presence of G-d, in ordinary terms.  But i don't agree with those terms, being a mystic.  I find the objective presence of G-d in everything, because I don't limit myself to self-defeating definitions or confusing notions.  And that objective presence, is something I subjectively experience.

False.  You cannot experience an objective presence when none exists.  Therefore, all you CAN experience is a subjective experience.  I'm sure your god is real to you, but not to anybody else--and you cannot demonstrate it/him or whatever to anybody else.

[Baruch]

False.  You cannot experience an objective presence when none exists.  Therefore, all you CAN experience is a subjective experience.  I'm sure your god is real to you, but not to anybody else--and you cannot demonstrate it/him or whatever to anybody else.

You misidentify your hand, you think it is something else, or that it is nothing, a figment of your imagination, for example.  Like the man who mistook his wife for a hat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat

As an antitheist, you can't admit even to the vocabulary of religion (see Wittgenstein).  You are a particular anti-logos, an embodiment or meme carrier of one part of Newspeak, who limits the OED to your cultural ideology.  In Newspeak, any words you don't like, are nonsense (as Logical Positivism claimed against metaphysics).

I can demonstrate my hand, and much more ... a whole living person.  There are many of people here and now.  You can misdefine that as ... jello.  And we all know that jello isn't alive, so therefore it is logical, that these non-people are not alive.  If we carefully misdefine natural, then all things are natural, by definition, but that is circular and thus invalid reasoning.

I recognize the whole living person, as a demigod.  This isn't G-d, it isn't the Christian god etc.  It is democratic Greco-Roman paganism.  I reject the false dichotomy of natural/supernatural as used here.  Rhetorically, being duplicitous is the whole game.  All people are rhetorical, so all people are duplicitous.  Thus there is no trustworthiness ... which means all relationships are faithless.

It has nothing to do with believing in a particular number of unicorns that can dance on the head of an angel.  That is a misdirection, which I choose to ignore.

[Hakurei Reimu]

We don't need a way to compare God to an emotion like love. We need to compare God to a fiction like Gandalf. That is the relevant comparison.

[Baruch]

We don't need a way to compare God to an emotion like love. We need to compare God to a fiction like Gandalf. That is the relevant comparison.

I would take a fictional Gandalf over any of you ;-)  Your bodies may be real, but your ideas are no less fictional.  All ideas are notional.

[Mike Cl]

You misidentify your hand, you think it is something else, or that it is nothing, a figment of your imagination, for example.  Like the man who mistook his wife for a hat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat

As an antitheist, you can't admit even to the vocabulary of religion (see Wittgenstein).  You are a particular anti-logos, an embodiment or meme carrier of one part of Newspeak, who limits the OED to your cultural ideology.  In Newspeak, any words you don't like, are nonsense (as Logical Positivism claimed against metaphysics).

I can demonstrate my hand, and much more ... a whole living person.  There are many of people here and now.  You can misdefine that as ... jello.  And we all know that jello isn't alive, so therefore it is logical, that these non-people are not alive.  If we carefully misdefine natural, then all things are natural, by definition, but that is circular and thus invalid reasoning.

I recognize the whole living person, as a demigod.  This isn't G-d, it isn't the Christian god etc.  It is democratic Greco-Roman paganism.  I reject the false dichotomy of natural/supernatural as used here.  Rhetorically, being duplicitous is the whole game.  All people are rhetorical, so all people are duplicitous.  Thus there is no trustworthiness ... which means all relationships are faithless.

It has nothing to do with believing in a particular number of unicorns that can dance on the head of an angel.  That is a misdirection, which I choose to ignore.

All of that is your opinion--The world according to Garp--or Baruch.  Yes, you can demonstrate your hand--but not your god.  You recognize people as demigods--that is simply your opinion and nothing more.  You can believe in the supernatural all you want, with the greatest of  sincerity and just is still your opinion.  Your god and demigod is still a fiction whether you chose to 'believe' that or not.

[Cavebear]

Good afternoon.  Its been a while since I've been here, a good long while.

This thread asks me to post evidence for God.  I find this an interesting request as it assumes that there must be proof for something to be real.  Can you prove to me that you love your mother?  Can you prove to me you love your significant other?  Can you prove to me that friendship is even possible?

Ah, so THIS is where you have been lurking!  I saw rumors of you elsewhere.

I had a mother and Father, and loved them as much as they deserved.  I have friends.  I can see them.  Can you see a deity in that same way?  If you can, then you need professional help...

[Baruch]

All of that is your opinion--The world according to Garp--or Baruch.  Yes, you can demonstrate your hand--but not your god.  You recognize people as demigods--that is simply your opinion and nothing more.  You can believe in the supernatural all you want, with the greatest of  sincerity and just is still your opinion.  Your god and demigod is still a fiction whether you chose to 'believe' that or not.

Yes, it is merely my deluded opinion, that Wikipedia exists, and that this forum exists.  But why do you share similar delusions with me?

Do you recognize people in the street as Americans?  How would you know?  Did you ask to see their papers?  Well I can't either, but I do know a human when I see one.  And yes, American etc are just nationalist memes, they aren't real.  So how is raising my hand to type, supernatural?  I am saying that natural/supernatural, as used here, are meaningless words used rhetorically (dishonestly?).  Raising my hand to type is artificial, not natural.  The hunger in my stomach each morning, that is natural.  But people misuse words, for many reasons?