The Need to Evolve

[Sheldon]

Well obviously I can consult a dictionary myself, but since the other poster made an assertion, I wanted them to explain what they meant, and how they knew it existed. If we are going to claim abstract ideas "exist" then Superman and Spiderman et all exist, this doesn't seem helpful in advancing our understanding of reality. 

According to the definition I gave, spirituality is deep feelings and beliefs. I think the existence of those feelings and beliefs is very well attested. As you said, subjective states may be evidenced by objective results, and I think the history of culture is full of such evidence. 

Since the text from my post that you quoted addresses this already, I have no clue why you're still repeating this? That religious beliefs produce emotions is not and never has been disputed, however this does not in any way objectively evidence those religious beliefs, and furthermore since they can be the result of wildly differing religious beliefs and deities, they seem demonstrably unreliable in doing so. 

Nor is this definition the only one, which is why I asked the poster what they meant, to avoid speculating as you're doing. 

Your new analogy makes the same false equivalence your first did, since my criteria is that sufficient objective evidence be demonstrated, and I explained previously objectivity and subjectivity are on a scale, they are not a binary condition, one or the other, thus evidence can be said to be sufficiently objective quite apart from whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant credulity.

I believe that all the cathedrals of Europe and all the temples of Japan attest objectively to the existence of spirituality, when we're using the Cambridge Dictionary definition.

You can believe the moon is made of cheese if it makes you happy, but this is utterly irrelevant to what you quoted from my post? Do you have any thoughts on what I actually said there, or the false equivalence you used? 

we can objectively measure how well depressed people do on the drug, again simple double blind clinical trials where the test group involves a placebo spring to mind.

Again, how can we objectively measure this? 

Exactly as I described, by using strict protocols, and measuring objective markers for human emotions like happiness, we can even identify it on an MRI if we needed to, as I explained. 

we know physiological changes can be cause by drugs, and objectively testing them is easy, I have explained how> 

I don't think you have explained it.

Obviously I don't see it that way. 

Paradoxically I know of no way to objectively verify that religious beliefs making the adherent happy, objectively evidences that belief? Given they've had limitless resources and millenia to do so, I can only remain dubious. 

Yes, I agree. We have no objective way of determining this. We can, however, use pretty much the objective follow-on effects that we'd use for drugs. Do they jump off bridges? Do they have the energy to leave the house? If these objective measures apply to drugs, why not to religion?

Straw man fallacy, since the claim religion can make someone happy isn't what is disputed. If one read a Superman comic and it makes you happy, does this in any way evidence Superman as real? Lets try bullet points:

1. Is a deity objectively possible?
2. Is Superman objectively possible?
3. Are mood altering pharmaceuticals objectively possible?
4. Should the fact belief in the first two can make someone happy, change your answer? 

whilst all claims carry a burden of proof, they do not carry an equal burden of proof, and that claims involving phenomena we already objectively know are possible, must be deemed to carry a lesser burden of proof than those we have no objective evidence are possible. 

Yes, that's the heart of it. We interpret all evidence within frameworks of things that we already feel confident about. If you feel far more confident about the kind of objective quantifiable empirical repeatable framework of facts that science deals with, then claims which fit easily within that framework will seem more likely to be true. To you.  

No, not at all, what has subjective perception of an objective fact, or a belief that is demonstrably wrong, to do with the objective truth? People are confident the earth is flat, others are confident that it is round, do you really imagine it's confidence that remotely determines truth? That's just asinine sorry. And none of that remotely addresses my point at all, even more bizarre? You seem to be quoting my post now, but posting non-sequiturs to express what you believe?

what objective evidence if any, can that person demonstrate that anything "spiritual" exists.

As I said, if we define spirituality as a condition or state of mind that people can be in, and then look for evidence of what they do when they are in that condition, then I believe there is a lot of evidence. 

Not we, you, it took seconds to find an online dictionary that defined it quite differently. However if one were defining spirituality as only an emotional state, then this of course tells us precisely nothing about the beliefs people claim produce it, unlike a tablet ingested to alter emotional states, as we know that is physiologically possible, and we can test it objectively. So we are right back at your original false equivalence. 

Perhaps the issue here is that you are associating "spiritual" with "supernatural." 

I withheld judgement and asked the poster who used the word what they meant, I have as yet not received an answer, and don't care to speculate on what someone may have meant. 

The part where you'll probably disagree with me is where I say that these states may in fact tell us important things about the world which science never can. 

Well that's a bare claim, firstly what do you imagine it tells us and why, what objective evidence supports your claim, and secondly you now seem to be implying that this emotional state you are describing as spiritual is a supernatural state. Were it purely natural, then there is no good reason to believe it can't be studied by science?

The claims made for MRIs in the popular press are wildly exaggerated, and the scientists working in the field know it.

Was the link I provided from the popular press, or any press? As long as the original research is from a valid source I think your objection seems a little like handwaving. 

I found this:
"A number of studies have used functional MRI to see what our brain looks like as we recall pleasant memories, watch scary movies or listen to sad music. Scientists have even had some success telling which of these stimuli a subject is experiencing by looking at his or her scans."

"In a study reported in the June 2016 issue of Cerebral Cortex, Heini Saarimäki of Aalto University in Finland and her colleagues observed volunteers in a brain scanner who were being prompted to recall memories they associated with words drawn from six emotional categories or to reflect on a movie clip selected to provoke certain emotions. The participants also completed a questionnaire about how closely linked different emotions were—rating, for instance, whether “anxiety” is closer to “fear” than to “happiness.” The researchers found that pattern-recognition software could detect which category of emotion a person had been prompted with. In addition, the more closely he or she linked words in the questionnaire, the more his or her brain scans for those emotions resembled one another."

Do you consider Scientific America to be popular press, do you think they are exaggerating the findings in the research from the Finnish scientists?