God and the Imagination

[Tonus]

They really don't believe they are doing that!

If they really believed that god was just an imaginary friend, they would treat him like one.

For me, being raised Christian meant that god's existence was a given, and it wasn't something I bothered to question. If someone had asked me about it, I am certain that I would have insisted that I tested the claim and found it to be the absolute truth. Further questioning would have led to rationalization and deflection and questioning of motives in an attempt to shield the core belief.

So I did indeed imagine god as I was taught to do so by other people who had imagined him. And I did not, at any time prior to my deconversion, believe that I was doing that.

[Godscreated]

Godschild, what do you consider highly unlikely with regards to this subject? Do you find it unlikely that humans all over the world no matter where they are, have sex in the same positions? No? We're all biologically similar, after all. What you consider unlikely, I consider highly likely for the mere fact that humans are similar in their basic biological, sociological, and psychological needs for there to be a god. The fact that your particular gods' doctrine has been multiplied over the world (BY FORCE in many cases), merely proves my point.

Tell ya what, I'll ask myself a question about my life, and see if I get an overwhelmingly intuitive answer that I would've attributed to god replying to me. Bet you I get an answer, minus the dopamine release that you get.

What has sex got to do with this, I believe there are more appropriate analogies.
Because of the number of believers and the ages of time people have believed in the God of the Bible, I would even as a nonbeliever find a delusional explanation highly unlikely. No one can be forced to believe in the existence of God, not in reality they can not.
Scripture says no one seeks out God, so your little psychological rant means nothing.
You do know talking to one's self shows one has psychological problems, right. When one gets an answer from that same conversation with one's self well time to get help.

[Cato]

What has sex got to do with this, I believe there are more appropriate analogies.
Because of the number of believers and the ages of time people have believed in the God of the Bible, I would even as a nonbeliever find a delusional explanation highly unlikely. No one can be forced to believe in the existence of God, not in reality they can not.
Scripture says no one seeks out God, so your little psychological rant means nothing.
You do know talking to one's self shows one has psychological problems, right. When one gets an answer from that same conversation with one's self well time to get help.

Amusing and telling. You have a problem with intercourse and inner discourse.

[Mystical]

Well, sex can become addictive as can anything that causes your brain to release dopamine. Like, looking at a blue sky or exercising or even eating chocolate. We can even program our bodies to release dopamine after certain activities that we find soothing.
Here's your brain, after it's soothed.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...=110997741

Can prayer have an effect on sculpting the brain? “Neurotheologians” – researchers who are studying the brain science of spiritual experience -- think so. They have found that the brains of those who pray or meditate, whether it's Carmelite nuns or Buddhist monks, operate differently from normal brains. Dr. Andrew Newberg at the University of Pennsylvania has found that those who meditate have increased activity in the frontal lobe -- the part of the brain involved in concentration -- and decreased activity in the parietal lobe, which gives people a sense of orientation in time and space.


So..... yeah. Whose right if you all are having the same experience? Maybe, just maybe.. You're just performing changes in your neuroscience and not really getting in touch with god.

[KichigaiNeko]

I like to think prayer is no different to spell-casting. Both require neurological restructuring and both are just as ineffective in influencing reality.

[goodnews]

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. Galileo Galilei

[Angrboda]

I like to think of it more as an artifact of the way that human minds work than any kind of recognizable act of imagination. Folk psychological concepts tend to divide the mind up into clear, separate, and inviolate categories: belief, imagination, memory, consciousness, unconsciousness, and so on. The fact of the matter is that our minds are more like a toolbox of assorted tools that combine to perform different cognitive tasks, and the more recognizable ones, like "imagination" are akin to constellations of stars in the sky — we recognize it for what it is based on the specific arrangement of its constituent stars, and its particular location and orientation in the sky. However, many of these components or stars can combine into constellations for which we have no standard classification, or recognition that it is just stars arrayed in the night sky; religious intiutions are one such pattern: they are made of the same stuff as constellations like imagination or reasoning or pattern matching, but because we don't recognize them in that particular arrangement, we don't recognize them as being of the same "mind stuff" as these other cognitive forms. So I would say that I suspect that, from inside, at best, its not clear that "god stuff" is built out of the same stuff as imagination and theory of mind, and can very easily appear to a person as something unrelated. And a simple stroll through the rather lengthy list of cognitive biases that we know about from psychology shows that the mind introspecting upon itself is not a particularly reliable, or, many times, even aware, tool for deconstructing its own experience.

[littleendian]

However, many of these components or stars can combine into constellations for which we have no standard classification, or recognition that it is just stars arrayed in the night sky; religious intiutions are one such pattern: they are made of the same stuff as constellations like imagination or reasoning or pattern matching, but because we don't recognize them in that particular arrangement, we don't recognize them as being of the same "mind stuff" as these other cognitive forms.

Fascinating illustration. The amount of extremely high-level yet largely unconscious background-processing that our mind does at any moment must be absolutely mind-boggling (no pun (?) intended).

[Colanth]

You need to disprove my experiences before you dismiss them

Assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

How is it you are certain, your word not mine, there is no interaction with God.

There's never been any objective evidence that any god has ever objectively existed - that's how. (If no god exists, you can't have interacted with one.)

And don't ask for evidence that there's no god - the burden of proof is on the existentially positive assertion which, in this case, is yours.

Isn't it profound that, as a Christian, when you pray and hear nothing, Christian doctrine tells you that you're just, "not ready for the answer yet?" It's silly, and obvious to anyone who spends even a moment as an outsider.

That's not Christian doctrine, who told you that, that's a fact of life in many different arenas.

No, no god is a "fact of life". No sapient being who has never heard of any god-concept ever sees not being ready for an answer from a god as a fact of life. Getting wet when you stand out in the rain is a fact of life. Going 'splat' when you fall off a 500 foot high cliff is a fact of life. Not being ready to receive an answer from a god is a religious doctrine.

[FifthElement]

... How is it you are certain, your word not mine, there is no interaction with God...

Amputees, not one, or few, but all of them