@Void I agree that personal experience alone is completely insufficient for reaching a conclusion, which is why God reveals himself to us personally. That's his demonstration. That's why I don't fault non believers for not believing. It would be irrational to expect you to believe without him first demonstrating himself to you. My perspective though is a world view (such as materialism) that doesn't allow any possibility for the intangible to exist is a bias detrimental to seeing that demonstration. If you experience something, something similar to what thousands of others describe (and this isn't an argument from numbers or anything) it doesn't make it any more objectively true, but it does make it more subjectively true as the other opinions are indicative. Some may think it's rationalization, but I don't think it is, and if you experience something first then you'll obviously call it a justification not a rationalization. The center temporal lobe (I believe is what you're referencing) Is the emotional memory and is also responsible for us reliving the emotions involved in a rape, racial hatred, the conviction of "Man this dream felt so real", and lots of other things. Just because we can manipulate that into the same emotional response just means we can trigger chemicals. Does that have any basis on whether the rape happened, or what the dream was about? No, it came from another part of the brain, and in some cases that was from something actually experienced in reality and stored in memory. You're saying (in essence) we can simulate all religious effects through manipulation of this and I disagree. Neuroscience also has no way of explaining a soul as I've argued elsewhere on here.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari