The "God" Part of the Brain, by Matthew Alper

[brewer]

I have not.

Boru

It follows a number of kids going to a bible camp where they are heavily indoctrinated (More so than they already are).  They are told they have prophetic abilities, and they are to take back America for Jesus. 

It's worth a viewing.

If you like being disturbed. Probably should be a horror movie fan to call it worthy.

[arewethereyet]

Jesus Camp is pretty un-nerving. When you think about the fact that it's true and they probably didn't air the worst of it is a scary thought.  If you were turned in for doing some of the things at home, you would probably lose your kids or at least be required frequent visits from some sort of child protective service.  Since they call it part of their religion, they are able to get by with it.

I watched it once and that's enough for me.  It made Catholic school look like going to a theme park.  I hated my HS less after watching it.

[Nay_Sayer]

It follows a number of kids going to a bible camp where they are heavily indoctrinated (More so than they already are).  They are told they have prophetic abilities, and they are to take back America for Jesus. 

It's worth a viewing.

If you like being disturbed. Probably should be a horror movie fan to call it worthy.

It would fit that description.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I have not.

Boru

It follows a number of kids going to a bible camp where they are heavily indoctrinated (More so than they already are).  They are told they have prophetic abilities, and they are to take back America for Jesus. 

It's worth a viewing.

I’m familiar with the premise, I just have no desire to watch it.

Boru

[Nay_Sayer]

It follows a number of kids going to a bible camp where they are heavily indoctrinated (More so than they already are).  They are told they have prophetic abilities, and they are to take back America for Jesus. 

It's worth a viewing.

I’m familiar with the premise, I just have no desire to watch it.

Boru

Completely understandable

[Belacqua]

"The 'God' Part of the Brain" by Matthew Alper - I found any mention of this book only once on this forum, on a thread that's more than 10 years old.

Is anyone here familiar with this book? Although I haven't read it, I have heard the author interviewed about it, so I have an overview or superficial idea of what it's about.

In an interview with the author, they're discussing the gene or series of genes involved in producing a belief in deities, an afterlife, etc., and he's asked, "how did it get there - who put it there?" The way he responds to this is rather vague, and essentially, he simply doesn't know.

There is another book - one that I have read ("Rule by Secrecy" by Jim Marrs), that inspired me to come up with a possible explanation that would answer that question (of who put it there or how it got there); essentially, it's the portion of the book that discusses Hasan's method of recruiting people to make them assassins.

I'd never heard of this book before. Thank you for introducing me to it.

There's quite a bit of information on the Amazon page. As far as I can tell, Alper comes to the conclusion that what we perceive as spiritual experiences derive entirely from brain chemistry. That is, if we feel that we have temporarily become "One with the Universe," this is simply a feeling we have due to an unusual brain state, and has no further meaning concerning God or how an [alleged] soul relates to reality. 

I suspect that most people on this forum will agree with his conclusions, even if they don't know of his specific arguments (e.g. which parts of the brain, or which chemicals). 

The answer to the questions of "how did it get there?" would probably go along the lines of "it's a glitch in the system," or that certain reward systems in our mental feedback can be gamed, with chemicals or other stimulation, to go beyond what we normally experience. 

The problem this runs up against is the ineffable nature of most spiritual experiences. It is a common characteristic of people claiming such an experience that they say it can't be described it words. Therefore we can't be completely sure that a drug-induced experience is really the same as the sort of mystical or spiritual state that Plotinus, among many others, say they've had. 

I've never had any experience like this, so it's hard for me to be sure about them.

Does Marrs also conclude that spiritual experiences are brain tricks like this?

[Ahriman]

Does Marrs also conclude that spiritual experiences are brain tricks like this?

I don't know who Marrs is, but they're brain tricks. One hundred percent. They can seem so convincingly real, while they're happening, that after it's over, you will have no idea how that happened, or why. But it isn't real. None of it is. Your brain is quite literally playing tricks on you.

[Belacqua]

Does Marrs also conclude that spiritual experiences are brain tricks like this?

I don't know who Marrs is

The OP mentions two books. One of them is The Rule by Secrecy: Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids, by Jim Marrs. It doesn't look like the kind of thing I'm interested in, so I didn't look beyond the title. 

but they're brain tricks. One hundred percent. They can seem so convincingly real, while they're happening, that after it's over, you will have no idea how that happened, or why. But it isn't real. None of it is. Your brain is quite literally playing tricks on you.

You may be right. The brain is an amazing and puzzling thing.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think that perceptions of ineffability are more likely statements of frustration or exasperation than attributes of the experience. We’re saying “I don’t have the words” not that there are no words. There are piles of authors in every literary culture describing the sense of the numinous, and no shortage of words spoken in oral cultures on the same. Experientially and anecdotally, I think we can make some observations about drug induced states and religious states….if/when they’re not the same. I know from use that some drugs or combinations of drugs can produce the feeling in my own experience, and the two are joined at the hip with respect to the history of spiritualist belief. Both explicitly in tradition and practice, and as a matter of hard archaeological evidence.

[Simon Moon]

There is no "god part of the brain".

Humans are hyper active agency detectors.

We evolved in an environment that was out to kill us.

A rustle in the bushes could be just the wind, but it could also be a predator. It is more advantageous to our survival, to have false positives. If it just the wind, and our ancestors ran, they were much better off, than if it was a lion, and our ancestors thought it was just the wind.

So, that same mental process that ascribes agency to the wind rustling a bush (a lion), gets applied to ascribing agency to other natural phenomena.

Earthquakes, floods, disease get ascribed to some other agent. Maybe first those agents are inhabiting the ground that caused the earthquake. Or a spirit inhabits the river that caused a flood.

Little by little, this animism evolves into separate gods controlling larger parts of nature. Instead of one spirit that inhabits that single river, maybe there is a god that controls all rivers.

Interesting enough, when functional MRI's are used on god believes, the same exact part of the brain lights up with activity, as when someone is told that some random process on a computer display is being controlled by someone in a different room as the test subject.