The Glade 4.0

I've not experienced any of that nor have I heard anyone I know state they experienced anything near (warm fuzzies). Elquent commentary about any topic can "move people" - I don't see how that is related.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Do you see the light?!?

[youtube]lX5tfRdkoY0[/youtube]

personally, if he is god (an entity or power), then his exsistence is independent of belief.

Which is exactly why when you initially stated that this proves he doesn't exist is entirely false.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Read Elmo!!!

I didnt say god didnt exsist!

I give up... I'm gonna go home and tickle you just to spite you! /huffs and puffs

It also says nothing about organized religion.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Nope the actual science doesnt, hence why I admited to the leap of logic in my post. (I first used personally, then tried to explain my logic) I even showed my working out in an attempt to get DE to give a logical written out answer as to why my logic doesnt work, instead of just saying it doesnt. (didnt work very well )

I would be nice to see an argument for where my conclusion was flawed, rather than just because.

I have to admit this thread has been especially frustrating for me cause it seems people have just been skimming my post and making up their mind on what I'm saying, rather than actually reading it >.<

It's been given. The flaw you have made is a leap in logic. That's a type of fallacious reasoning.

Actually, you've made three. 1) It does not follow that because most people have a center of the brain that is involved in spiritual experience, that the actual existance of each belief held by any given individual is necessarily equally valid. The experiment tells us only that A) the brain center exists and B) it can be stimulated by physical events. That does not say anything about the existance or non-existance of any given supernatural entity or phenomenon.

2) We do not actually know that the experiences in each case are based on the past "inputs into the computer" of the human brain because we can't (nor can the researchers) get more than a very general idea of what those might be. It is not correct to say there are no deviations; we do not and cannot know this. We can draw no conclusion that there is a universal input or no input.

3) None of this in any way relates to the "validity" of organized religion, for the same reasons cited in 1). Since organized religion is based, generally, upon the acknowledgement of some sort of supernatural phenomenon or other, the inability of this experiment to establish anything about the existance of any supernatural being means it also cannot say anything about organzied religion.

Again, the experiment only raises questions as to why humans would need a brain structure that would do things of this nature.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Once again Lydiaa you did make that argument and once again i will quote where you did:

"It would prove that god (or gods) is a human made concept"

The flaws in your reasoning have been hammered in many posts - each time you say "no I was not saying that"". We can read, we know you were. Now it might have not been what you meant to say, but you did say it, it might be what you in retrospect understand is not true, but you did say it.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

If there were evidence that human beings are genetically designed not to believe in God, yet do anyway, then this would make me believe that it's a human construct.

If we are designed to believe in God, the question is - why? So that we can better hear His word? Or is there some other biological reason why we are programmed this way?

You're missing the context of that one... I admit I thought Rynar was talking God as in the Christian god, which he then cleared up for me. I believe I apologised and stated I agree with him. I now realise I also missed the big G in that case. You also kinda missed the second half of that where I was linking it to religions.... I need to come up with a better way of distinguishing 'god', a general entity/power, and God/gods the religious belief god people. I do apologise for that mistake, it's usually so much easier when you're explaining it through speech. >.<

I realise my posts are not always perfectly set out like some of you guys cause you've been going at it for so long. I am also almost always in between emails when I type here. (Except that long one I did... that was before bed and actually had more thought). But I do try to clear things up if you guys simply told me what you don't understand or questioned something I said and I can explain better. However tellign me you know what I mean better than I know what I mean is kinda umm... yeah.

No, he is not telling you what you mean, he is telling you what you said.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Thank you DE for actually stating your reason, now I can see more clearly where you’re coming from.

1)Let me break this one in two.

I’m aware that this is the truth, thus I admit to the leap in logic in the form of religion. So technically I do agree with you, we need more research in this area. However take at look the double blind study they did on cold reading, this confirmed that it indeed exist pertaining to that specific part of the brain (Case study in the second link). How those works to gather information is still unknown but it’s a work in progress.


This part, I don’t agree with necessarily. Lets talk about another feeling which is similar, love. Most people have a part of the brain pertaining to it, it can not technically be measured, and there’s genetic defects which limit or increase your ability to feel it. I guess it’s more a philosophical question, but how could you say that the actual existence of each belief (feeling of love) held by any given individual is (not) necessarily equally valid. What backing do you have of such a statement?



It’s was easier to use the example of a computer I guess as the brain is similar in concept. Actually we do know that many of these “experiences occur during periods of rapid eye movements (dreaming), when cerebral processing shifts toward limbic sources and memory consolidation”. We also know he used a questionnaire used to determine previous experiences and the possibility of experiencing specific types of epilepsy, and many who score high on the test, were also more likely to feel these experiences.

So no, we can’t prove what each person’s past was, but we could easily make a correlation between the two. You are also correct in saying that there are deviations, this is biology, there always is. However by using a 95% confidence interval, we could at least conclude that no other single deviant is great enough to have caused considerable consideration to be included in the conclusion.

We could in this case say that there is at least 1 specific, uniform input (the electromagnetic field) which creates these sensations. As the output is consistent with the hypothesis and no other extra discrepancies are noted at the confidence interval, we could at least safely conclude that there is universal input and output. The god thing was philosophical as technically you can’t prove or disprove, however from the above it would either have to be uniform, or would cause a discrepancy high enough to be noted. I guess I could consider the possibility that religious people was a very small sample in the test subjects (less then 5%), but seeing that he quotes studies spanning 20 years, the chances of that are again low, but not impossible.



Unfortunately I don’t believe there will EVER be a way for science to measure a being that does not exist, as you can not prove a negative, let it be Greek mythology, Christian, or Wiccan. We can however measure other super natural phenomenon such as premonitions, psychics, feeling of presence etc, and explain others physical anomalies like visions, voices, feeling of warmth etc.

Many religion uses these feelings or super natural phenomenon as proof of existence of their god, they have been using it more and more as a propaganda tool. (I’m looking at those new religions who chant themselves into a frenzy in order to ‘feel’ god.) So while we can’t invalidate god the entity, we can certainly take steps to scientifically explain the tools used by many religion as a measure of control over their ‘flock’.

Anyways, I’m digressing, my disagreement with organised religion is another rant for another time =P Back to work for me

So if a word has two meanings, I meant 1, and he wants to take it as the other, I have to agree with his meaning? Alright I'll try to be more articulate and clear in the future.

So... I meant god as in "a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship", and he took it to mean "the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe". So again, he's telling me what I mean by limiting me to his definition of god.

I can barely understand what you're saying here, but I did read the second link, and the case studies there don't change anything.



I don't need any backing for it. They're not necessarily equally valid. You would need to show that they ARE necessarily equally valid; that's how Burden of Proof works. You've just assumed in your example that any given person's experience must come from their god, and that all gods must exist or that none do. In fact, it could just as easily be that any given god allows people of other beliefs to still have spiritual experience for reasons we're unaware of. You're making huge assumptions about supernatural beings that we have no way of directly observing; beings whose existence and behavior would be beyond the measurement of science since they could be observed only to the degree they wished.

Love is not necessarily a valid analogy either. Just because it is also universal does not mean it functions in the same way. The need to breathe, eat, sleep, drink, and take a leak are all universal as well but do not necessarily work the same way.



Before you claimed that this experiment identified some "program" that gives you supernatural experiences. Look at what you typed; "many" occur during REM sleep and they are "more likely" in epileptic people. But all this experiement does is identify that some things cause them some of the time. There is no discreet "program" for this in the brain; to the degree that the brain is "programed" it is by all our experiences and is changing all the time. A questionairre really can't go very far in determining that.



It's not even remotely clear what you're talking about here.



We can't even say that there is one uniform specific input that creates these things. All we can say is that there is one input that sometimes creates these experiences. We cannot conclude that there is any universal input that creates these experiences at all, nor can we say that God needs to either create a discrepancy or be uniform. You can't even try to start applying confidence intervals in the way you're talking about because all he's got is the ability to A) create experiences int he lab and B) show that they also can occur outside the lab if similar electromagnetic conditions exist. It in no way excludes other causes.

[/quote]Unfortunately I don’t believe there will EVER be a way for science to measure a being that does not exist, as you can not prove a negative, let it be Greek mythology, Christian, or Wiccan. We can however measure other super natural phenomenon such as premonitions, psychics, feeling of presence etc, and explain others physical anomalies like visions, voices, feeling of warmth etc.[/quote]

No, of course there will never be a way for science to measure whether God exists. However, it's patently obvious from your above comment that you're starting from the idea that God doesn't exist and trying to force this experiement to support that so that you can lecture people for hoe silly they are for adhereing to organized religion.

As for the other things you're measuring, those aren't supernatural phenomenon. Sound, warmth, visions etc. are natural phenomenon that may or may not have a supernatural cause or origin.



I don't see how you use a person's feelings as "propaganda", nor do I see how chanting yourself into a frenzy in any way simulates the conditions described in the experiment. Indeed, those feelings appearing under such conditions would dispel any idea of a "constant" input simulated in the experiment. You're just falling into the typical anti-religious bigotry of assuming "religion" is trying to "control its flock" and looking to this experiment to reinforce your position.


Yes yes, we've heard your pompous lectures on how silly organized religion is before.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No, but if he takes the meaning he uses fromt he context you provided you need to clarify, and in any case, this doesn't pertain to the line he cited.



In that case, it does not matter which definition you're using. His response was equally valid.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."