woodguard said:
Some Buddhists may overlap with the atheist catergory, and they do not appear to be accounted for in this survey.
Also, Hindus don't believe in God, they believe in gods. Also, the 12.63% "non-religious" catergory means they don't believe in God, either. So it isn't %97.5, it's more like... let me get my calculator... what was that about brain damage again?
Here is another link to a religion statistic: http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
I think it agrees with the CIA one.
I think it agrees with the CIA one.
Here's a link regarding the Dalai Lama considering himself an athiest: http://www.celebatheists.com/entries/ambiguous_1.html
Upchurch
Papa Funkosophy
Re: Re: Re: Do atheist have brain damage?
While Loki made some valid points, there is one more I'd like to address.
If we consider the psychic reading an experience, perhaps even an religious one, is it genuine? I would say that I don't know because I can't tell if the financial advice actually came from the late husband or if it came from the psychic. You're telling me that it doesn't matter if the psychic is lying to the widow because the advice is real and thats what matters.
Do I have that right, Ian? After all, a little faith never hurt anyone, right?
I guess my question for Ian really is this: Do you believe that any religious experience is devinely inspired? That is, do you believe that there is ever an instance when that mechanism that gets the religious experience response in the human brain is triggered by a non-material force?
While Loki made some valid points, there is one more I'd like to address.
Let us, for a moment, take a hypothetical (but familiar to this board) situation. A widow goes to a psychic. The psychic contacts the spirit of her late husband who then proceeds to give her financial advice.Interesting Ian said:
Artificial one??Surely a religious experience is a religious experience is a religious experience!
[snip]
I really don't understand why we should wish to distinguish them. You seem to be just assuming that artificially induced religious experiences are not real. And I don't know what your argument is which justifies this stance.
If we consider the psychic reading an experience, perhaps even an religious one, is it genuine? I would say that I don't know because I can't tell if the financial advice actually came from the late husband or if it came from the psychic. You're telling me that it doesn't matter if the psychic is lying to the widow because the advice is real and thats what matters.
Do I have that right, Ian? After all, a little faith never hurt anyone, right?
I guess my question for Ian really is this: Do you believe that any religious experience is devinely inspired? That is, do you believe that there is ever an instance when that mechanism that gets the religious experience response in the human brain is triggered by a non-material force?
woodguard said:There is some research showing that we are hardwired to believe in God.
Some evidence shows parts of the brain when stimulated, cause a religion experience.
99% of humans believe in God, that is normal.
So if you don’t believe in God then there is something wrong with your brain, you have a undiagnosed head injury ?
I think we need research into your brain, so we can repair you defected brains.
Until this is done, we should place you in a home. For you own safety.
99%? I don't think so...although, maybe here in Texas it's true!
Seismosaurus
Philosopher
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2003
- Messages
- 6,092
woodguard said:There is some research showing that we are hardwired to believe in God.
Some evidence shows parts of the brain when stimulated, cause a religion experience.
99% of humans believe in God, that is normal.
So if you don’t believe in God then there is something wrong with your brain, you have a undiagnosed head injury ?
I think we need research into your brain, so we can repair you defected brains.
Until this is done, we should place you in a home. For you own safety.
I've often wondered if atheist's heads are somehow "wired differently". I've found it very hard to understand why most people have faith in deities of one sort or another, and yet I just don't.
However, you take quite a leap in defining the believers as "normal" simply because they are in the majority and then take an even bigger one in suggesting that atheists need to be cured. You're suggesting that it's okay to be crazy, as long as the inmates are running the asylum!
Right now, we only confine people with mental illness if they are a danger to themselves or others because of it. Since it is religion that instigates much of the trouble in the world and leads to so many deaths, it seems to me that if anybody needs curing it the majority.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
Hmmm, if I press on my eyeballs I can see these cool patterns, imogenic(I don't remember), I sense them and percieve them, but they have no visual correlate : IE they are not created by photons bouncing off an object and into my eye.
So if we stimulate someones brain to create an experinece itr comes down to if there is an outside correlate to the experience.
Peace
So if we stimulate someones brain to create an experinece itr comes down to if there is an outside correlate to the experience.
Peace
Upchurch
Papa Funkosophy
So really, it's not about whether the experience is artificial or genuine but whether the cause behind the experience is artificial or genuine. In this case, I would consider colors generated from photons to be genuine color and colors generated from one's eyes to be artificial color. Both are still colors, but in the latter instance, our minds are mis-interpreting the stimulous as light information when there is none. Would you agree?Dancing David said:
Likewise, I consider the devinely inspired religious experience to be genuine and an electrode stimulated religious experience to be artificial.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
Funkographicaly stated oh Funkmeister.
Funk On.
Funk On.
Upchurch
Papa Funkosophy
Peace Out.Dancing David said:
Upchurch said:
Photosphenes are not quite hallucinations. They're not shaped like Jesus, and they are directly connected with what's happening to your eyes. For example, if you press on your eye, you can see a white dot where pressure is being applied, and you can kind of see your retina... wheeeeee!