(October 12, 2014 at 3:03 pm)Brian37 Wrote: What causes religious feelings is the same intense feelings a gullible child has Christmas eve. The same intense feelings an insecure boy has pining after a girl from afar. The same intense feelings when someone has a baby.I think it's fair to say that the feelings you are speaking about are in some cases so powerful that they're what I'd refer to as religious experiences. And I agree that it's probably hormones and evolved brain activities that cause us to have such experiences.
The question is whether the strength of these experiences represents a malfunctioning brain, or whether they represent a motivational mechanism that goes to the core of the human experience. I think the latter is true; and because the strength of the motivating experience is so overwhelming and indescribable, it's not surprising that attempts to describe them (or ritual behaviors developed to reproduce them) end up in a big mess of superstition and mythology.
Quote:Religion is our species literal ignorance of their own flawed perceptions. It boils down to "If you want to believe something badly enough you will", and our species hormones and chemical brain activity can very powerful in allowing us to gap fill with falsehoods.I don't know if this is all that religion is, but I think it is not. I think there are some experiences which are very powerful, and which reveal to oneself an idea or value which is at the core of the human experience. I'd say a religious experience is more an issue of revealing what one is than a chemically malfunctioning brain causes one to accept self-delusion.
