The non-thinking that is Religion.

[LesMts]

Originally Posted by freakonaleash

I just saw an interesting programme on discovery science, relating to this very topic. Is there more to life, our consciousness, than just our physical selves?
Which is what I have been trying to put across this thread. That there is nothing wrong with open-mindedness.

From this site;

Science is a method, not a position: Prospective study of Near-Death Experiences
I can find these examples immediately....


Dr. Peter Fenwick, M.D.: Science and Spirituality
By Peter Fenwick, M.D., F.R.C.Psych., Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London, and associated with the Mental Health Group at the University of Southampton. He is also Consultant Neuropsychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital and at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, and holds a visiting professorship in Japan, where he spends three months of the year in advanced neuropsychiatric research;

"A major and relatively rapid shift is underway in the field of medicine. In the past 10 years, medical professionals have gone from looking upon spirituality with a skeptical if not cynical eye, to embracing it enthusiastically."



and also;
Dr. Pim van Lommel, M.D.: Continuity of Consciousness


I found this awesome quote on my travels through googlishious;
"I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." - C.G.Jung

Another truly great scientist.


Alex, it seems as though you're going against the grain.

Jung?!?!?! A great "scientist"?? He cared nothing for the scientific method and he was so full of shit it was unbelievable.
Jung was many things but a scientist was not one of them.

It's a stupid quote anyway. Of course we shouldn't label everything we can't explain as a fraud. But neither should we give equal serious attention to all hypotheses regarding things that are currently unexplained. We need to recognise the difference between what's possible, what's plausible and what's probable.

Alex is not going against the grain, in science the massively predominant view of the spiritual is a healthy scepticism (i.e. a scepticism that doesn't dismiss out of hand and/or brush under the carpet - the opposite from the kind of scepticism that Jung is talking about above) and a tendency to favour neurobiological theories of spirituality.
Saying "scientist A believes X, Y, Z so you're stupid if you don't believe it" is a remarkably illogical way of reasoning. If the fact he/she is a scientist is important to your argument then what about the many, many more scientists who disagree? And if the fact that he/she is a scientist isn't important to your argument then what's the difference between him/her saying at and some random God botherer on the street? It's no argument at all.

Seeing as we're in the business of quotes I'll counter that with two quotes that I feel are pertinent to the debate you're putting forward....

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

"Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out." - Richard Feynman

[humndislocation]

Another thing I think should be pointed out. I think people are mistaking people saying "god doesn't exist", for being 100% closed off to the possibility that a god could exist at all. Think of it being more like "I am open to the possibility that a god exists, to the same extend that I am open to the possibility that fairies exist."

The problem is, from our perspectives, is that people are being completely inconsistent with regards to what they're being "open minded" about. It seems that people will give some kind of respect to completely ridiculous ideas if they're somehow linked to a religious belief, which in my view is completely inconsistent, and a massive double standard.

If you're going to be "open minded" about someones religious belief, then you should be equally open minded about the existence of fairies, unicorns, or about the tales of people that claim that they're secret agents, and the government talks to them through their television.

[GobbHayte]

Originally Posted by LesMts

Alex is not going against the grain, in science the massively predominant view of the spiritual is a healthy scepticism (i.e. a scepticism that doesn't dismiss out of hand and/or brush under the carpet.

The reason Alex fucked me off enough to enter this topic to start with was precisely because he was dismissing spirituality out of hand and suggesting it should be brushed under the carpet.
his attitude seems a million miles away from the healthy scepticism you're talking about. He started this thread to say "only atheists are right, anyone who believes in god or anything spiritual is a moron and agnostics are weak minded fence sitters" how exactly does that reconcile with anything close to healthy scepticism?

[RiseAgainst]

now i dont agree with the way he words things, or builds his arguments BUT

what he does is say

this is my opinion
this is why i have my opinion (by using references to source material)

prove me wrong.

to which most people reply with arguments that are flawed in some way, maybe if some people read and understood everything they referenced then he would have no comeback as their argument was solid?

[gord]

"Isn't it enough to enjoy a garden without believing there are fairies at the bottom of it?"

I just caught the tail end of this discussion but that pretty much sums up how I feel about it all. This has probably been brought up already but religion just seems like a man-made defense mechanism, albeit an elaborate one. But if people give god or allah or their astrologer credit for the good things that happen in their life then they must have pretty low self-esteem. Take some credit.

My views can also be neatly encapsulated in the following lyrics by Randy Newman:

God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)

Cain slew Abel - Seth knew not why.
For if the children of Israel were supposed to multiply,
Why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:

"Man means nothing, he means less to me
Than the lowliest cactus flower
Or the humblest Yucca tree.
He chases round this desert
'Cause he thinks that's where I'll be,
That's why I love mankind.

I recoil in horror at the foulness of thee,
From the squalor and the filth and the misery.
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That's why I love mankind"

The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said, "Lord, a plague is on the world
Lord, no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Won't you please, please let us be?"
And the Lord said:

"I burn down your cities, how blind you must be.
I take from you your children and you say 'how blessed are we'.
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me.
That's why I love mankind -
You really need me
That's why I love mankind"



If God exits, he doesn't give a shit about you.

[Hecate]

Meh. Did anyone actually read that 8-page report about all the research into near-death experiences, before firing in?
Or has anyone actually paid any attention to what I have been explaining about my personal beliefs?
I never spoke about a god. I said I was probably more similar in certain beliefs to Buddhism.
Many scientists involved in these fields of research and medical professionals would place a bet on the liklihood of some kind of consciousness not connected to the body, that cannot be explained.
Jung forwarded psychoanalysis and psychology in very important ways with his theories of the mind.
He also speculated on a collective unconsciousness, and I am open-minded to that, or some kind of greater consciousness.
Not a fat controller, nor a creator, nor a destiny-shaper.

[RiseAgainst]

Just to clarify, your open minded towards the collective unconsciousness, but yet closed minded towards the possibilities of fairies at the bottom of the garden?

im just trying to understand your personal beliefs here...

It kinda annoys me when people are "open-minded" yet stand so closed minded on other things. Brian summed it up perfectly a few posts upward.

[LesMts]

Originally Posted by freakonaleash

Meh. Did anyone actually read that 8-page report about all the research into near-death experiences, before firing in?

Yes. It's just a collection of interviews (a notoriously unreliable form of research) with no real mechanistic conclusion outside of a bit speculation (it even suggests that there is strong but incomplete evidence that NDEs are the result of very physical/neurological processes).
More interesting is this very recent study which suggests very strongly that out of body experiences are an illusion (kind of like an optical illusion but acting on more than one sense).

[humndislocation]

This is going to sound more sarcastic than it's intended to, but it's intended to illustrate how silly, (in my opinion anyway), this line of thinking is.

If the human brain is not the seat of human consciousness, then why is it that people will often end up with a completely different personality after suffering brain damage?

Does brain damage snap the little strings that attach the soul to the brain, and a new soul jumps in, taking advantage of the situation, or are these people just randomly reassigned a new soul from the pool of souls?

[ArchFlameTera]

Originally Posted by humndislocation

or are these people just randomly reassigned a new soul from the pool of souls?

I think it depends if theyve got a static sole or a dynamic one. Maybe they should speak to there ISP.

[humndislocation]

Originally Posted by ArchFlameTera

I think it depends if theyve got a static sole or a dynamic one. Maybe they should speak to there ISP.

Can someone reboot the soul router please?

[LesMts]

Originally Posted by humndislocation

This is going to sound more sarcastic than it's intended to, but it's intended to illustrate how silly, (in my opinion anyway), this line of thinking is.

If the human brain is not the seat of human consciousness, then why is it that people will often end up with a completely different personality after suffering brain damage?

Does brain damage snap the little strings that attach the soul to the brain, and a new soul jumps in, taking advantage of the situation, or are these people just randomly reassigned a new soul from the pool of souls?

This is something I've always wondered. What about things like Alzheimer's in which little protein plaques interrupt the normal physical functioning of the brain? What about brain damage?

If someone dies from a disease like Alzheimer's what is the "state of mind" of their soul when they go into heaven/hell or whatever? Is the personality of their soul rewound to an earlier point in their life? If so how is it decided what point? People can hold various differing, even contradictory, views at different points in their lives.

What about the soul of a baby? We know that environment (perhaps even more than genetics) shapes the more complex aspects of someone's personality as they grow and develop, and this is a physical shaping at the neuroanatomical level. If a baby dies before the personality has a chance to develop then what is the nature of its soul?

Or maybe the soul is nothing to do with personality, thoughts or consciousness but that begs the question: what actually is it, then?