My Wife's Christian Co-worker

[Shaggy]

Oh I forgot that he also told her it's selfish to not believe. That one confused me.

[Jackalope]

Oh I forgot that he also told her it's selfish to not believe. That one confused me.

If that isn't a compelling argument, I don't know what is.

[Chad32]

She probably thinks it's rape if hubby makes her have sex when she doesn't want it. How very selfish of her. Very unchristian.

[SteelCurtain]

Selfish? Huh?

Whenever a fundie says "scientifically proven", I ask for the peer review. Although the scientific community has recently shat on that.

There are in fact studies that show specific parts of the brain lighting up in fMRI's when people are having "religious experiences," showing that these experiences share at least something in common. Not surprisingly, the interpretation of what this means is vastly different in the two camps...

[Angrboda]

I'm not aware of any statistics on happiness per se, most times what is represented is that there are studies showing better health outcomes for the religious than the non-religious. On the other side of the coin, excluding former Soviet bloc countries, on most measures of well-being, people in the more secular countries do better than those in less secular countries. But the research is mixed. The best article I've seen on it was a review by Phil Zuckerman a number of years back.

The part of the brain being referred to is typically called "the God center," and as with most things, is more myth than reality. From the way V.S. Ramachandran describes it, it's more that there are areas of the brain associated with the feelings involved in mystical experiences, not so much specifically relating to God. (Two of them, in fact, in the temporal lobes, iirc. [bilateral symmetry])

[Shaggy]

Thanks for the insight peeps. That's all pretty much what I was expecting. I was just disappointed I wasn't there when this guy was saying all this, because my wife doesn't call bullshit on people like that.
Seems like no one ever gives me a chance to talk like that.

[Alex K]

As you know (*), we only use 10% of our brain. The other 90% are for God, you see?

But more seriously, there is quite some interesting material in Dennett's "Breaking the Spell", and already in Darwin's very own "Descent of Man" discussing the evolutionary origin of religion. In a sense, it is hardwired. In a very particular sense. Of course that don't mean that there is a God

The thing about being selfish for not believing is just a restatement of the old trope that atheists just want to live an immoral life without facing consequences, and therefore don't believe in God. It doesn't make sense, I know, but it is an absolute standard respons.

(*) As in: it's a silly, long disproven urban legend.

[Mystical]

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

"Andrew Newberg, neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of a book entitled, “How God Changes Your Brain” has been scanning the brains of religious people for more than ten years. Newberg One of Newberg’s test subjects was Michael Baime, a doctor at the University of Pennsylvania and a Tibetan Buddhist who has meditated at least an hour a day forthe past40 years. Baime told Newberg that during a peak meditative experience, “he feels oneness with the universe, and time slips away.†“It’s as if the present moment expands to fill all of eternity,” he explains, “that there has never been anything but this eternal now.”

While Newberg scanned Baime’s brain, the Buddhist meditated, and his brain mirrored those feelings.As was expected, his frontal lobes lit up on the screen because meditation is sheer concentration. But what Newberg found most interesting was that Baime’s parietal lobes went dark.

“This is an area that normally takes our sensory information, tries to create for us a sense of ourselves, and orient that self in the world,” he explains. “When people lose their sense of self, feel a sense of oneness, a blurring of the boundary between self and other, we have found decreases in activity in that area.”

Newberg achieved the same results with other monks he scanned. Itwas the same when he imaged the brains of Franciscan nuns praying andSikhs chanting. They all felt the same oneness with the universe. When it comes to the brain, Newberg says, spiritual experience is spiritual experience. “There is no Christian, there is noJewish,there is noMuslim, it’s just all one,” Newberg says.



Therefore ALL of them are correct in their god claim, or all of them are experiencing the same physiological process.
[/quote]

[Tonus]

So am I missing something, or is that absolutely ridiculous?

You're not missing anything. I think that as we learn more about our universe and continue to not find god anywhere, theists are shoving god into some metaphysical domain where we will never find him. Be it "heaven" or "within each of us," they will keep god alive as long as possible.

Personally I find it heartening that they're reduced to pushing him out of our existence and into these little pockets of imagination. Yes, it lets them hold on to the illusion longer. But it makes it easier for everyone to see that it is an illusion. And that's a good thing.

[Chad32]

Yeah. Heaven wasn't described as a metaphysical place in the old testament. His throne was right on top of the firmament, which was basically a solid roof over the world. He even had to wreck a tower once because of it, though it's unclear if they wanted to go to Heaven, or just the heavens/sky. I mean, why build a city on the ground if you're trying to get to where god is?