RE: Before the book
January 20, 2013 at 4:57 pm
(This post was last modified: January 20, 2013 at 4:59 pm by Confused Ape.)
(January 20, 2013 at 4:30 pm)apophenia Wrote: I'm not going to explain them in any depth, but for initiating discussion, other common theories are:
1) superstition/myth: religion began as simple superstition or mythical tales that morphed into all encompassing narratives over time.
2) political/social/psychological control: religion was developed, maintained and policed by powerful elites to control and manipulate the masses.
3) social cohesion: religion developed as a social-psychological mechanism for binding groups of people together and enabling them to function as a coordinated whole.
4) meaning/teleological: theorizes that humans have an inherent need for teleological explanations, a sense of meaning, or causal explanations and that religion developed to service that need.
5) "the con": that religion is fostered and maintained by an endless supply of charlatans, great and small, using it to get their immediate needs for power or wealth met.
Religion is such a complex phenomenon that all the above appear to have played a part in the development of individual religions.
Humans have come up with a number of ways of reaching altered states of consciousness and the results can turn up in various religions. Glossolalia is one such example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossolalia...n_practice
The article goes on to neuroscience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossolalia#Neuroscience
Quote:In 2006, the brains of a group of individuals were scanned while they were speaking in tongues. Activity in the language centers of the brain decreased, while activity in the emotional centers of the brain increased. Activity in the area of control decreased. There were no changes in any language areas, suggesting that glossolalia is not associated with usual language function.[58][59][60] One of the researchers, Andrew Newberg, said: "It's fascinating because these subjects truly believe that the spirit of God is moving through them and controlling them to speak". The data demonstrated that subject's usual language centres were not activated as they spoke in tongues, which suggests that a different region of the brain is responsible for this activity.[61][62][63] Other brain wave studies have also found that brain activity alters in glossolalia.[64]
I have no personal experience of glossolalia but, many years ago, a friend of the family who was a spiritualist medium suggested I try automatic writing. It felt as if my arm had been taken over by something else which was moving it without me being in control. I only produced a few scribbles but I can now understand why some people attribute this kind of thing to God or spirits.
