(Listening to the audio version. Excellent!)
(Very interesting, quite different. Written by Carl Sagan's son, Nick)
(my favorite atheist book so far)
(It made me LOL)
(It sucked me in. Fun and funny.)
(movie was much better)
(best trilogy I've ever read!)
(very clever satire from the headlines. cynical but funny)
(gritty, violent, excellent retribution!)
(BBC series. Good acting, 80's low budget effects)
(good movie, much better than the book)
It seems that all major religions share the experience of transcendence. Personally in my religious indoctrination as a child, I never felt it. But lots of people have. It’s a feeling of being one with god where you lose your sense of self. I would guess if you ever felt like you were one with your god, that would strongly increase your faith. Right?
Well, now scientists at the University of Missouri have shown what happens during such experiences. When a person experiences transcendence, there is decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain. This area has to do with your senses, such as orienting yourself in space.
Note that people who have injuries to the right parietal lobe also report increased levels of spiritual experiences, which would further substantiate the findings of this study.
So, what does this mean? Of course, more studies should be done to further the research. But if parts of the brain shut down to give you that feeling of “old time religion”, that means it’s all in your head.
Science again proves that there is no such thing as the supernatural. (Of course there’s not. By the very definition of the word, it’s impossible. If something supernatural actually existed, it would be natural, by definition!)
Oh, I almost forgot some other stuff I learned! This part of the brain is also important for being able to do math. So I guess that’s why some religious folks can’t tell the difference between 4.5 billion and about 6,000? HA!
Well, what a great way to start the xmas holiday celebration. Now I’m off to eat spaghetti with fish sauce (some weird catholic thing, I have no idea why they do that) and drink eggnog, and watch people pray to their god. Let’s see if they provoke me to bring this study up over dessert.
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u cant know if there is a god or not ..
u cant explain some events happening with the known science and this is called supernatural (and of course they r natural indeed ) ..
to be relegius or ateist ,one must have an ugly pride i think ..
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GMNightmare Reply:
June 19th, 2009 at 2:27 am
You know, that was a despicable post. You either don’t have a belief in god, or you do. There is no in between. Not knowing is simply saying you don’t have a belief in god in a fluffy I don’t what to come out and say it kind of way. Therefore, everybody is either religious or an atheist (if I defined religious as having a belief in god, as you were meaning it to be). It’s a sham to think that atheism means knowing that there is no god either. ATHEISM IS NOT HAVING A BELIEF IN GOD. Not that you know there is no god. You are therefore including everybody having an ugly pride, yourself including. Of course, as I’ll take it you consider yourself “agnostic”, it takes an ugly pride to think everybody else has and ugly pride.
Second, events that don’t happen with the known science is not called supernatural. I don’t understand where you got this idea. I’ll take this up, what events do you think happen without known science?
And something I’ve just drawn up…
god is generally defined as supernatural.
Supernatural happens outside of our known reality.
If it’s outside of our known reality, it has no basis in this reality.
Therefore it doesn’t exist in this reality.
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Neece Reply:
June 20th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Nice one, GMN.
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Neece Reply:
June 20th, 2009 at 7:39 am
I can say that in this year, 2009, there is not one iota of evidence for anything supernatural or godlike anywhere. Not one tiny speck of evidence for a god of any sort or anything supernatural. Do you understand that? How is that having an ugly pride?
And how ugly are you who can’t type or spell, going about defending your despicable faith in such poor form?
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