Religious Experience and the Brain

[Lucifer]

Physiologically, the temporal lobes blank out on a CAT scan when a person has a religious experience, while brain activity in the frontal lobes increase. This means that the person loses spatial awareness and has some sort of spiritual feeling, mostly illusory. Is there any reason to believe that God experienced this way is not an illusion, or are people that suggest such things just being silly? If it is an illusion, then is that why it's considered a brain disorder? This person keeps claiming that psychological studies have shown that religious experiences lead people to better lives, though I'm certain his sources are inaccurate or unscientific.

[Enforcer Talen]

if its solely a brain activity, it means god isnt doing much, neh? no proof of his involvement, no deity.

as well, who suggests its a brain disorder? I might say fundamentalism is mental disorder, but not the brain activity that causes it.

[Lucifer]

What do you consider to be a brain disorder? Do you mean viruses and bacteria affecting brain function, or a brain shut down, like in drinking?

[General Zod]

Physiologically, the temporal lobes blank out on a CAT scan when a person has a religious experience, while brain activity in the frontal lobes increase. This means that the person loses spatial awareness and has some sort of spiritual feeling, mostly illusory. Is there any reason to believe that God experienced this way is not an illusion, or are people that suggest such things just being silly? If it is an illusion, then is that why it's considered a brain disorder? This person keeps claiming that psychological studies have shown that religious experiences lead people to better lives, though I'm certain his sources are inaccurate or unscientific.

someone can likely get the same lack of spatial awareness and increase in brain activity through large consumptions of alcohol. but that hardly means they're having a religious experience.

[Rye]

What do you consider to be a brain disorder? Do you mean viruses and bacteria affecting brain function, or a brain shut down, like in drinking?

Delusions and loss of faculties I would certainly count as a disorder, since it's not working as it should be. Even if they're fun.

There's an example of a woman who had TLE and thought her own son was God himself, I see no reason to think that similar experiences can't be seen i nthe same light; sure it's possible that a god can only communicate, or chooses to communicate with people that look like their brains are being defective, but come on.

As for religious experiences leading people to better lives, that's bollocks. Look at the hajj last year.

[Lucifer]

Yes, I think we all know that, but apparently, some people aren't willing to believe that unless you can show them some stats. I've found one, but it's too outdated. It says those that most people that score the highest grades are not religious.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

did you see this in Neurotheology? I thought that article was cool.

[Uther]

Physiologically, the temporal lobes blank out on a CAT scan when a person has a religious experience, while brain activity in the frontal lobes increase. This means that the person loses spatial awareness and has some sort of spiritual feeling, mostly illusory. Is there any reason to believe that God experienced this way is not an illusion, or are people that suggest such things just being silly? If it is an illusion, then is that why it's considered a brain disorder? This person keeps claiming that psychological studies have shown that religious experiences lead people to better lives, though I'm certain his sources are inaccurate or unscientific.

Everything that happens in the mind has a biological underpinning, why should experiencing God be any different? This doesn't prove the experience is illusory, it proves something is physically happening during a religious experience.

[Melchior]

This doesn't prove the experience is illusory, it proves something is physically happening during a religious experience.

Or when you think that you are having a religious experience.
Define "religious experience", please.

[Lucifer]

The folks that wrote the original topic at the forum did not go to define religious experience properly, but they went on to assume it meant prayers, meditation, and the like.

The person I'm arguing uses Maslow's studies as proof for his arguments, but the article he uses is unpublished, and I believe there's enough criticism on Maslow to render his studies not as accurate. Anyways, my opponent has escalated to full-blown lunacy, and waves away my logic as prejudice. But seriously, creationists and fundamentalists could stem from religious experiences, couldn't they? It makes perfect sense to me.

[General Zod]

The folks that wrote the original topic at the forum did not go to define religious experience properly, but they went on to assume it meant prayers, meditation, and the like.

The person I'm arguing uses Maslow's studies as proof for his arguments, but the article he uses is unpublished, and I believe there's enough criticism on Maslow to render his studies not as accurate. Anyways, my opponent has escalated to full-blown lunacy, and waves away my logic as prejudice. But seriously, creationists and fundamentalists could stem from religious experiences, couldn't they? It makes perfect sense to me.

without a solid definition of what counts as a religious experience any attempts at connecting biological phenomena to them is meaningless.

[Rye]

Everything that happens in the mind has a biological underpinning, why should experiencing God be any different?

It depends whether you think God is something more than your own imagination; if it is, the "biological underpinning" one would've thought, would be the same as observing something else that is real and not imaginary.

This doesn't prove the experience is illusory, it proves something is physically happening during a religious experience.

Since what you see in the experience is not real, that inherently means the experience is illusory.

[Alan Bolte]

The real trick is that you can reproduce the feelings and sensations people associate with religious experience in the lab. Take a religious person who'll say they experience such a sensation during intense prayer, or for other religious reasons, and electrically or chemically induce that same brain activity, and they'll swear God was talking to them. It's just a pity that I don't keep a list of articles and abstracts around. I should really start doing that.

If you say that God speaking to you produces that experience, and what's done in the lab is just a faking of the experience without the supernatural component, then you invalidate your reason for having faith because there's no way for the average person to tell the diference. Claiming you can tell the difference and others can't just makes you sound delusional, in part because it's easy to say it felt fake when you knew it was a lab test to begin with.

Of course, you could say that God talks to you whenever your brain is in that condition, not that God choosing to talk to you induces that brain activity. Not sure I could counter that, as long as we're allowing subjective reasons for having faith. Objectively, all you need is parsimony to cut the God out of it.

[Lucifer]

In other words, the experience of God in the brain feels so real that one is not aware that it's an illusion. Of course I've tried to say that, but my opponent just said bull to it, but since there's no good strong argument against that point, of course he's just going to say bull.

Apparently, he apologized for making a rude comment on my rebuttals, and claims to be looking at his sources again.