So I’ve decided to bring the “Kathy” series to an end. However, we’ve had some fun in those threads when the conversation has gone off into interesting tangents, so I’d like to keep that part of it going for anyone who’s interested. These new threads will no longer focus on Kathy or the things we were discussing with her. So thanks for your time, Kathy! Take care.
There are no real rules for these threads. But to kick off the conversation, I’ll go back to the discussion on Paul that a few of us were having. Laurie views Deut 13 as a prophecy about Paul, so why don’t we take a quick look at it?
“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.
12 “If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you to dwell there, 13 that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, 14 then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you, 15 you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. 16 You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again. 17 None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers, 18 if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.
I can see how one could apply this to Paul. However, I can also see how Jews could have applied it to Jesus as well, especially if he was claiming divinity for himself. And I’m sure this could have applied to lots of people during Israel’s history. Why should we think it’s pointing to Paul specifically, and why wouldn’t it also apply to Jesus?
Finding Truth 
Neuro,
Thanks. That reminds me of one of the books my girls had when they were little, Scuppers, The Sailor Dog. It began something like this, “Born at sea, in the teeth of a gale, Scuppers was a dog.” The cover showed Scuppers, some kind of scruffy terrier, in a yellow raincoat in the prow of a boat. I am a bit like Scuppers.
Even though I do get seasick and one of my biggest fears is being alone at sea, I will jump in the boat and ride in the prow into whatever weather may come. Ear patches, and good company, are most welcome. : )
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@Brandon,
Another thing to remember with this is that spiritual experience is not in any way universal, including feelings of dualism or existence of gods. I have never had any real “spiritual experience”. My Christian experience was intellectual belief along with a comforting feeling that there was an objective ultimate truth out there which gave purpose and meaning. But when it came to some (not all) of my other Christian friends who would express some feelings of “spiritual” experiences some more intense than others I always felt “why was I left out of the party?”
My wife is even less “spiritual” minded – she was raised buddhist but has all her life thought that all religious ideas are complete bunk. My brother is the same way (although raised Jewish). Surely you know people like this. So clearly this is not in any way a universal thing. I believe that really does make these “senses” more questionable than our other experiences (proprioception as you say as well as our other empirical senses).
In fact, now that I know where a lot of these experiences come from I’m relieved that I’ve never experienced them because to be honest I think it may actually be that they are psychologically and even physically unhealthy. In the past few months I have been researching more of some of the things Victoria has been saying, and I have also found through other sources that there is some good level of confidence among researchers that these “spiritual experiences” that people speak of, especially the intense ones may be related to brain abnormalities, most usually epileptic seizures. Again, I think this puts further question on these experiences.
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“We’re not born with our beliefs.. so we have to make a choice..” – would you have chosen Christianity, Kathy, if you had been born into a Muslim Buddhist, or Hindu family? I think not.
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Re: Michael Shermer’s mysterious radio — maybe the “percussive maintenance” just took awhile to work. 😉
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This is rather interesting — not so much the actual photos or video, but the comments.
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I like you Portal, I’m not going to argue with you – all I can say, is watch and see how the next 25 years flavors your life. As Neuro/Victoria would say, wubbles —
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Hey Arch, fair enough. Thanks for being the bigger man… if in the next 25 years I’m in the neighbourhood, I’ll let you know how I’m going 🙂
Although by that time we’ll probably all have hover boards and self tying Nike shoes. Plus instead of blogging there will be the Internet 9.0, where all you do is put on some goggles and a small red hat… and Google will then cook us dinner, discreetly bring in the morning paper and give us tips on growing beans…
🙂
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Not only beans, we’ll all also have the option of downloading ourselves into the beans we could grow, so we would then have the insight of percieving the world through the perspective of green beans. Imagine the possibilities!
Which is actually not as exciting as it sounds. Anyway that’s the future…all fun and games until Google precedes to download our brains into garden variety vegetables.
Go figure
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Portal, you have quite the imagination. Does that come from playing video games? 😉
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Victoria and Howie,
I must not be expressing my question well enough. I’m not talking about an experience as in a set of odd events that someone might explain as supernatural. Nor am I talking about any sort of “hemispheric intrusion” phenomenon. The way you describe this sounds like mental illness, but it wasn’t taught in medical school nor do I recall this being in the DSM. Anyhow, I’m just talking about something very simple, just a belief. It requires no such spiritual experience or mental illness.
I’m basically asking why is belief in gods or afterlife necessarily a delusion since it is generated by the brain and other functions of the brain do not generate delusions? I’m assuming that you wouldn’t just arbitrarily pick what functions are trustworthy and what functions are not. And, hopefully you don’t think that the majority of humanity is mentally ill. And, worst of all, if you really did think that it was due to mental illness, you would have a circular argument. “This is normal because this is normal”. OK, why is it normal and the other a disease state?
The reason I’m asking you is because I think it’s a very difficult question. I didn’t read the Shermer article, but I recall his opinion on this matter. He thinks that religious belief is a “false positive” resulting from evolution. To that I say, the proximate causes like evolution are totally irrelevant. How does Shermer figure that it’s a “false positive” as opposed to a “true positive”. Again, that is a circular argument. “Well, it’s a false positive because it’s not a true positive.”
I can only think of one viable response, but I’ll hold back and wait to see what you think!
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“if in the next 25 years I’m in the neighbourhood, I’ll let you know how I’m going 🙂” – you should probably bring a shovel —
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Howie, to your last comment, if these spiritual experiences tend to only be experienced by a minority of people, that may also explain why medicine men, shamans, priests, clerics, and clergy were a minority within their societies and everyone else tended to just follow their lead. “Listen to the experts,” so to speak.
I have no idea if there’s anything to that, but it’s what came to mind when I was reading your comment.
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Nan,
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that I’d have about 5 dollars.
Or maybe less, maybe four dollars. Or one….
I think really it stems from the time I was ran into a parked juice trick. Just joking…but I seriously did ride into a parked juice truck during a school bike camp 🙂 well, it was a truck of some sort.. maybe my dna somehow fused with the van to produce creative or gave me mild brain damage….who knows 🙂
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And, I know Shermer’s argument is more in depth than this, I should be more careful to give him criticism. He says that having certain false positive beliefs is adaptive, such as believing that the rustling in the bush is a predator would benefit survival thus be naturally selected. But, what about dualism and afterlife beliefs? Are these really adaptive? Actually, I would be OK with that. It still gets nowhere towards knowing if we should trust our brains. Because in theory ALL brain function is the result of adaptation over time, including our rational faculties and so on.
We would still need a test to say that this adapted function produces truth and this adapted function produces falsity.
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Hi Brandon,
Ultimately, I don’t know the answer to your question, but I think the ubiquity of belief I a spiritual realm is a combination of Shermer’s idea and our knowledge of our own mortality. It’s preferable to think that no one ever really ceases to exist, especially when we lose loved ones to soon. Add to that the occasional dream of a dead loved one, and an assumption that complexity needs a designer, and I think it’s easy to see how belief in a spiritual existence could occur and catch on.
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It’s the future though Arch, by that time you may be a head in a jar…like Nixon…..
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Nate: … an assumption that complexity needs a designer (emphasis mine). So true and so evident in the beliefs of so many.
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“The way you describe this sounds like mental illness, but it wasn’t taught in medical school nor do I recall this being in the DSM.”
Brandon, it’s not in the DSM because it’s not a mental disorder. Experienced meditator, especially in mindfulness meditation, have experienced this brain phenomena. But I’m aware of people who have experienced this and automatically assumed it was “spiritual”.
“I’m basically asking why is belief in gods or afterlife necessarily a delusion since it is generated by the brain and other functions of the brain do not generate delusions?”
I don’t think that belief in gods or an afterlife is necessarily a delusion. However, based on what we’ve learn about how plastic (malleable) the brain is (subject to indoctrination), death anxiety, and humans propensity to cave to others opinions even when evidence to the contrary is right before their eyes, I think we really need to take these and other behavioral and neurological studies into consideration, not to mention environmental and geophysical factors that affect the brain.
My best friend is from Denmark. Born into an atheist family. He was not exposed to church or religious indoctrination. He has never had a desire to know a god — never prayed a day in his life. I feel certain that had I never been exposed to a religious culture (reinforced by my parents and Catholic teachers), I doubt very seriously that I would have become a believer.
Hope that helps answer your question.
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If this is a repeat, Nate, delete one of them, but the first one didn’t show up:
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Modernism vs. Postmodernism
The Self
Modernism: Existence of stable, coherent “self”, independent of culture and society.
Postmodernism: The “self” is a myth and largely a composite of one’s social experiences and cultural contexts. The “self” is an Ideology.
Reason
Modernism: Reason and science provide accurate, objective, reliable foundation of “knowledge”.
Postmodernism: Reason and science are Ideologies in the Marxist sense; myths created by man.
Feminism
Modernism: Women are oppressed by patriarchy and can use Reason to achieve both independence and regain their “authentic selves”.
Postmodernism: The categories male/female, masculine/feminine are themselves culturally constructed and/or Ideology. Gender roles are culturally relative in all cultures and contexts.
Objective Truth
Modernism: Reason transcends and exists independently of our existential, historical, cultural contexts; it is universal and “true”.
Postmodernism: There is no universal, objective means of judging any given concept as “true”; all judgements of truth exist within a cultural context (cultural relativism).
Freedom
Modernism: Reason and human independence/freedom are inherently linked; just laws conform to the dictates of Reason.
Postmodernism: The application of pure Reason (predicated Cartesian Radical Skepticism) disproves the universal nature of a priori human freedom. Independence/Freedom are Western Ideologies used to colonize foreign cultures (i.e. Belgian Congo, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan).
Universal Truth
Modernism: Because it is universal, Reason can help us overcome all conflicts. Reason will lead to universal truths all cultures will embrace.
Postmodernism: Reason is no more universal than is any other culture’s definition of “truth”.
Science
Modernism: Science is the paradigm of all true knowledge.
Postmodernism: Science is Ideology.
Language
Modernism: Language is transparent; a one to one relationship between signifier (word) and signified (thing or concept).
Postmodernism: Language is fluid and arbitrary and/or rooted in Power/Knowledge relations. Meaning is fluid and arbitrary. Meaning is “messy”.
Connotations
Modernism: The application of Reason leads to a progressive movement toward civilization, democracy, freedom, scientific advancement. The Enlightenment is prescriptive: a means of building a better society.
Postmodernism: There is no objective means upon which to predicate morality and right/just governance. Postmodern theory is descriptive of the human condition; it describes an impasse in philosophy and social relations.
In Sum
Modernism: Truth exists independent of human consciousness and can be known through the application of Reason. All Enlightenment conclusions lead from this assumption.
Postmodernism: Truth may exist independent of human consciousness but there is no objective means of nailing it down. All Postmodern conclusions lead from this assumption.
The Knowledge Guild
The Daily Knowledgeable Post
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Arch, to add to your excellent video, behavioral neuroscientist Todd Murphy writes:
“Now, gurus (or masters or satgurus, sufus, tzaddiks, roshis, growth group or workshop leaders, priests, or a ministers) often don’t like to be ‘defined’ or ‘labeled’ or ‘categorized’, but there a category that seems to invite them in. Its a term from primatology, the study of our evolutionary cousins, the so-called lower primates. You know. Monkeys and chimpanzees. Gurus are dominant or alpha individuals.
Within their community, the guru is the boss. He (forgive the sexist pronoun) usually calls the shots. He disperses the donates resources, and if the tradition doesn’t include celibacy, to be his romantic partner is a ‘position’ of some prestige. All other conditions being equal, the guru will be more successful at passing on his genetic material than the disciple. If you become a guru, your self-esteem will automatically rise. You’ve become the alpha person.
In one study of dopamine levels in monkeys, it was found that the dopamine level of the alpha male in the troupe was higher than that of the betas. When he was removed from the group, one of the betas took his place. When his dopamine levels were taken again, it was found that they had risen to the level of the previous alpha. Becoming a guru works against low self-esteem, just as becoming a leader of any kind will bring a person ‘up’.
We’ve been talking about gurus and ‘wannabe’ gurus. Another type we need to look at is the ‘perfect disciple’.”
Continue next comment.
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Murphy continues:
“Another way of responding to low-self esteem is to lower your self. The perfect disciple will always see the guru as being higher. Devotion to the guru allows a context where low-self esteem can be acted out in a constructive way. Being subordinate is rewarded in communities gathered around a spiritual master. The Buddhist and Hindu practice of prostrations or pranam allows a person to behave submissively without actually taking on a position of inferiority for those around them.
Only the master (and the ‘inner circle’ of senior disciples) is worthy of these gestures. For day-to-day living in the ashram, the slogan seems to be ‘we’re all bozos on this bus’. Outside of their community, their having found the path allows them to discount what others say. They don’t know the truth. Such a believer need not pay any heed to slights or challenging remarks from others.
Its no wonder that so many cults, religions, and spiritual traditions are so ready to embrace those in a state of sadness or despair. They will usually claim to have the answer. And they do. It actually works. Its an effective coping strategy that people have been using for millennia. As such, it has stood the test of time far longer than any kind of psychotherapy.
It doesn’t matter whether a person experiences altered states spontaneously (as in TL epilepsy) or through spiritual practice. The results are the same: these people have something they need to respond to. When I consider that 60% (according to one reckoning) of all TL epileptics are mis-diagnosed as schizophrenics or as having bipolar disorder, I cannot, in good conscience, suggest that those who are ‘processing’ the psychological effects of intense spiritual experiences see a mainstream therapist.
Religion and spirituality are still the most effective methods known for coping with the emergence of a new sense of self or with spiritual transformation.”
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Nate and Victoria,
I do not prima facie disagree with anything you’ve said. There’s the deprivation theory of religion and the undisputed principle of inheriting one’s culture. The problem is that it’s not enough to offer mechanisms. I can say all day that smoking cigarettes mutates genes of alveolar epithelial cells eventually leading to cancer, but that doesn’t tell you why cancer is bad. Cancer is bad because of it’s morbidity and mortality. Similarly with religious beliefs, we can describe a mechanism for how they might come to be, but that doesn’t tell us whether they are true or false.
Even if the mechanism is entirely natural, that doesn’t rule out the supernatural. Like if the Christian God exists, then everything that is natural is designed and that would include the brain’s functions and how certain religious innovations were attractive.
So, I’ll give you my opinion. You’re going to have to draw the line at hard evidence. You’re going to have to differentiate between believing in your own vision and rejecting any sort of god-sense or tendency to believe in afterlife on grounds that we don’t have hard evidence for it.
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“A study published in Current Biology describes how primates will “pay” a cherry juice reward in order to view images of dominant specie members . This appears to be a form of hero worship. [ S.V Shepherd, R.O. Deaner and M.L. Platt, 2006, Social Status Gates Social Attention in Monkeys, Current Biology 16(4):119-20.]
The satisfaction of reward is clearly evident simply through the viewing of these images of the dominant members. This study helps us to understand humans’ propensity to worship celebrities like religious figures. It also strengthens the concept that hero worship is rewarding – therefore dopaminergic. Added to this is our psychological drive to be acknowledged. For example, to feel well acknowledged activates reward dopamine.
The smoking gun for the evolution of religion is that it rewards believers. And nature rewards adaptive behavior for a reason.” Source
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The explanations offered by neuroscience are interesting, but they fail to address what we really want to know.
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