I've heard it be said that people's belief in God is a result of a projection of the person explaining God. In a neurological study it has been said that when the brain is scanned and the individual thinks about God, they are actually thinking about themselves because the area that lights up is responsible for their sense of self. Personally, I think that knowledge of how the brain works is still at it's infancy so I would say that the information is too incomplete to say to what extent this area of the brain is responsible for. Another way of saying this is that we're counting our chickens before they hatch and then selling those hatch-less chickens to a company on a million dollar contract; seem's a bit over done. Frankly, what I want to know is; do the scientists know who these people are that they are conducting the tests on? I mean if the study is saying that God is just a projection of the individual self then shouldn't they know who the person is and and try to compare it to how they view God? Exactly is is that done? Is it accurate? Are they sure the two would always match? Also, if they match, how do we know it isn't because they tried to change their mind over time through effort? Part of Christianity in my view is to have the intentions match up with the intentions and thoughts of God to the best that can be done. Obviously there are things believers may find to be difficult to adhere to and may feel some things to be unfair and struggle with it in some sense but may still accept that their is a discrepancy in view and want to change it, so wouldn't the sense of self and the desires of the self clash with the desires and portrayal of God in the Bible? If something is being struggled through that is against the wishes of God (as it's understood to them) then wouldn't that show that there are two different understandings? Separating the self and God? Have they tried to see if it matches up with what the Bible says? (talking mostly about Christians not believers of God from outside of it but that can be considered of course if it pleases you) It just seems that there is so many stones left unturned and I feel that the effort to explain away true faith as being short from it's goal. Before I babble on further, what do you guys think about this? Personally, I may not get too involved in this conversation. I just want to see other's take on this.. What is your opinion?
It might explain some of the variety in the interpretations of the major religious teachings/texts that humanity has. There has to be some sort of mechanism behind peoples conversion to pentecostal Christianity from Catholicism for example that supersedes coincidence/chance. Clearly, it isn't god because conversion to a religion is by no means funneling into one specific sect of any of the major religions in the world. Why would god be behind Joe choosing hinduism over pentacoastal christianity, if serena is choosing pentacostal christianity over hinduism?? So go certainly does not explain why people choose one religion over another. Take for example speaking in tongues. When we see people who claim they are speaking in tongues we associate our expectations and our interpretations of what gods POV would be on the matter and then come up with a opinion on the phenomena and there is some mental mechanism behind that. Some are repulsed others are intrigued and there is something behind this which could in fact be what a persons sense of self is. An interesting study would be to see how personality characteristics might play a role in how we interpret and generate attitudes religious phenomena around the world. How an introvert might feel about hindu rituals or Pentecostal 'speaking in tongues' as opposed to how an extrovert might. It might give more weight to this potential mechanism.
there is no god, ancient man needed a explanation for his being and purpose and came up with this God Shit. NEXT
They should replace the next edition of the Bible with this sentence, and get rid of everything else. I'd like to know more about the part of the brain responsible for self, though. Didn't know there was such a thing.
Before reaching a conclusion, I'd want to find out a lot more about the study. Who did it? Where was it published? What was the methodology? How was "God" operationalized? A few years back, Dean Hamer, a research scientist with NIH caused a stir by publishing The God Gene, which was much balleyhooed by Time magazine for allegedly showing a genetic tendency toward religiosity. Fellow scientists were less impressed. He operationalized religion as "self -transcendence", which is broad enough to include environmentalism or other altruistic sentiments. He brought the book to publication without subjecting it to peer review in scientific journals, probably because the findings accounted at best for a tiny difference. As his colleague, Francis Collins, remarked;"Maybe the title of the book should have been The Identification of a Gene Variant WHich, WHile Not Yet Subjected to a Replication Study, May Contribute About One Percent or Less of a Parameter Called Self-Transcendence on a Personality Test." An excellent book summarizing scientific findings on the relationship between brain functioning and spiritual experiences is Barbara Hagerty's Fingerprints of God. Her account is pretty balanced, and far removed from the conclusion that God is "nothing but" a human projection. From an atheist perspective, Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell explores psychological and sociological factors contributing to a belief in God, without even getting into brain functioning. After showing how important God is to our individual and social functioning, he seems to expect the reader to abandon the belief as "nothing but"--which strikes me as a bit paradoxical. I'd like to see some neurological studies on atheists. What do their brains do when "God" is mentioned. Also, what we usually have in these studies are correlations which are always subject to interpretation. If the sense of self lights up when "God" is mentioned, maybe the Hindus and religious mystics are on to something. Maybe it's just "God" saying "Hi!" Namaste.
