Evolution

[keithprosser3]

Given the nature of reproduction and of natural selection isn't evolution inescapable?
How can evolution not happen?

[kenblogton]

[Replying to post 1179 by Jashwell]

To repeat, "in your posting 1162, you distorted what I'd said in posting 1161. I said that researchers had identified the brain area where humans transcend the physical and make contact with God, and you said instead "And no, researchers have not "identified ... the brain area where humans transcend the physical and make contact with God", they've probably identified the region where people believe they transcend the physical and make contact with God." which gives you a more convenient straw man to deal with. I stated what the researchers said and you say no, they didn't say that."

I said they had, and you said they hadn't, identified the God-contact area. That is a distortion of what I said. If you want to dispute a point, you can say I disagree, and give some basis for your disagreement, or you can ask for more details on the point I made. To say I didn't say what I said is a distortion plain and simple, where distortion is defined distortion as "the action of giving a misleading account or impression." Your reply makes it seem that researchers had not identified the "God contact spot" when I clearly said they had. One doesn't dispute by misquoting.
kenblogton

Please show your work. Stop complaining about how he distorted what you said, show us that what you said is actually true because at this point it is just a claim made by some guy on the internet.

Can you show that your un-evidenced claim is even true? That might put Jashwell in a bit of a spot. IMO, he is on very safe ground though.

The book is Newberg, A., DAquili, E.G. and Rause, V. WHY GOD WONT GO AWAY: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002.
kenblogton

[KenRU]

WHY GOD WON'T GO AWAY: SCIENCE AND THE BIOLOGY OF BELIEF

Review from Psychology Today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles ... -the-brain

Bullet Points from article:

- "The most dramatic finding in the book, primarily (and admirably) written by journalist Vince Rause, concerns a portion of the brain the authors call the orientation association area (OAA). The OAA, say Newberg and D'Aquili, is largely responsible for helping us distinguish between ourselves and other things. People with damage to this part of the brain have problems navigating their way around a room: They actually cannot discriminate between their bodies and the furniture. The researchers discovered that during meditation and prayer, at the moment when the monks were at one with the universe and the nuns felt the presence of a universal spirit, there was reduced activity in the OAA. Like patients with damage to this brain area, their selves became indistinguishable from their nonselves. From these findings the authors conclude "that spiritual experience, at its very root, is intimately interwoven with human biology. That biology, in some way, compels the spiritual urge.""

- "If the book ended there, I would have no qualms about recommending it to anyone interested in why people believe in God. It is reasonable to posit that one of the variables that shape religious beliefs is the brain with which we believe. (Other variables no doubt include genetics, parental upbringing, sibling dynamics, peer influence and mentoring, among others.)

Unfortunately, the authors add another hundred pages of what they themselves call "terrifically unscientific" speculations. Our brains may not be generating spiritual experiences, they suggest, so much as they are opening a window into some spiritual realm that exists outside the brain. How the brain makes contact with this transcendent being or place is not discussed, of course, because no one has a clue. (This has not, of course, prevented countless New Age authors from prattling on about how quantum states account for ESE telekinesis and other flapdoodle, including talking to the dead and to God.)"


This is a far cry from "asserting that researchers have found the part of the brain where humans transcend the physical and make contact with god"

Actually, the data would seem to me to argue the opposite.

- All the best,

[arian]

[Replying to post 1201 by Clownboat]

If "researchers had identified the brain area where humans transcend the physical and make contact with God", then I'm going back to church, and a lot of us have some serious mea culpa's to do.

Just a thought.

What good would going back to your Muslim Mosque, or visit the Vatican, bow before the Pope and start kissing his ring do even if you did believe there is a part of the brain that can get in touch with God?

We don't need researchers to tell us that we have a mind/spirit breathed into us from God within our body which makes us 'living souls', where we can pray/meditate to get in touch with God. We (that spirit within us) has to use our brain to discern truth from lies, to discern if we are receiving the answers to our prayers from God, or from divining spirits trapped in the supernatural realm?

The demon 'Legion' seems to have been accepted as God in Christianity. Oh how I wish and pray that all those wonderful people in Christianity would see this?

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 1206 by arian]

Way to once again ignore the data, Arian:

People with damage to this part of the brain have problems navigating their way around a room: They actually cannot discriminate between their bodies and the furniture. The researchers discovered that during meditation and prayer, at the moment when the monks were at one with the universe and the nuns felt the presence of a universal spirit, there was reduced activity in the OAA. Like patients with damage to this brain area, their selves became indistinguishable from their nonselves.

If damage to this part of the brain makes people unable to distinguish between their body and furniture in the room, then that is pretty telling, don't you think?

More proof that the mind & brain are inextricable. Any extra-body argument drawn from this is pure speculation, and wish-thinking.

Show me evidence (real world examples) otherwise.

All the best,

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 1199 by kenblogton]

I've addressed this two or three times.

You said "the researchers have identified... brain area... transcend... contact with God"
I said they haven't identified it. This is of course, not in relation to whether or not they believe they have identified it, or whether or not the patients believe it.
This is not misquoting, this is not distortion, this is disagreeing with you

Do you want me to accept prima facie that these (still) anonymous researchers in this (still) unnamed book have identified where people make contact with God? Alright, then there is a God. discussion over.

If you say :I don't believe it, that's fine; if you say that haven't done it, that's a distortion of what I said.
kenblogton

You don't seem to understand.
This is akin to you saying "There is a God", and me replying "No, There probably isn't a God" and you saying I'm distorting what you're saying rather than disbelieving it.

I'm not saying they didn't say they had identified whatever, but that they hadn't identified it because then they'd not only have proven God but they'd done it as a side effect.

If they think they've identified someone talking to God, and it turns out that isn't God, then it's a false positive. They haven't actually identified God.

[arian]

WHY GOD WON'T GO AWAY: SCIENCE AND THE BIOLOGY OF BELIEF

Review from Psychology Today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles ... -the-brain

Bullet Points from article:

- "The most dramatic finding in the book, primarily (and admirably) written by journalist Vince Rause, concerns a portion of the brain the authors call the orientation association area (OAA). The OAA, say Newberg and D'Aquili, is largely responsible for helping us distinguish between ourselves and other things. People with damage to this part of the brain have problems navigating their way around a room: They actually cannot discriminate between their bodies and the furniture. The researchers discovered that during meditation and prayer, at the moment when the monks were at one with the universe and the nuns felt the presence of a universal spirit, there was reduced activity in the OAA. Like patients with damage to this brain area, their selves became indistinguishable from their nonselves. From these findings the authors conclude "that spiritual experience, at its very root, is intimately interwoven with human biology. That biology, in some way, compels the spiritual urge.""

- "If the book ended there, I would have no qualms about recommending it to anyone interested in why people believe in God. It is reasonable to posit that one of the variables that shape religious beliefs is the brain with which we believe. (Other variables no doubt include genetics, parental upbringing, sibling dynamics, peer influence and mentoring, among others.)

Unfortunately, the authors add another hundred pages of what they themselves call "terrifically unscientific" speculations. Our brains may not be generating spiritual experiences, they suggest, so much as they are opening a window into some spiritual realm that exists outside the brain. How the brain makes contact with this transcendent being or place is not discussed, of course, because no one has a clue. (This has not, of course, prevented countless New Age authors from prattling on about how quantum states account for ESE telekinesis and other flapdoodle, including talking to the dead and to God.)"


This is a far cry from "asserting that researchers have found the part of the brain where humans transcend the physical and make contact with god"

Actually, the data would seem to me to argue the opposite.

- All the best,

I would have to agree with KenRU here.

The mind/spirit of man, which makes us who we are is NOT part of the brain. It's not something we could cut out, hook up to a radio transmitter and say: "God, .. you there?"

Demons, evil 'spirits' (If our spirit within us allows, if we are not careful) can come in to poses this physical body and take over controlling the brain, and have access to our entire body. Look what the demon called Legion was doing to this man:

Mark 5:1 Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes. 2 And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
3 who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains, 4 because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him. 5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 1209 by arian]

Wow.

I'm not sure how to respond, Arian. Not only do I not share your fantastical thinking, but I think you do me a great disservice by agreeing with me on this point.

By the way, I do like your signature. Great quote.

-All the best,

[Clownboat]

WHY GOD WON'T GO AWAY: SCIENCE AND THE BIOLOGY OF BELIEF

Review from Psychology Today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles ... -the-brain

Bullet Points from article:

- "The most dramatic finding in the book, primarily (and admirably) written by journalist Vince Rause, concerns a portion of the brain the authors call the orientation association area (OAA). The OAA, say Newberg and D'Aquili, is largely responsible for helping us distinguish between ourselves and other things. People with damage to this part of the brain have problems navigating their way around a room: They actually cannot discriminate between their bodies and the furniture. The researchers discovered that during meditation and prayer, at the moment when the monks were at one with the universe and the nuns felt the presence of a universal spirit, there was reduced activity in the OAA. Like patients with damage to this brain area, their selves became indistinguishable from their nonselves. From these findings the authors conclude "that spiritual experience, at its very root, is intimately interwoven with human biology. That biology, in some way, compels the spiritual urge.""

- "If the book ended there, I would have no qualms about recommending it to anyone interested in why people believe in God. It is reasonable to posit that one of the variables that shape religious beliefs is the brain with which we believe. (Other variables no doubt include genetics, parental upbringing, sibling dynamics, peer influence and mentoring, among others.)

Unfortunately, the authors add another hundred pages of what they themselves call "terrifically unscientific" speculations. Our brains may not be generating spiritual experiences, they suggest, so much as they are opening a window into some spiritual realm that exists outside the brain. How the brain makes contact with this transcendent being or place is not discussed, of course, because no one has a clue. (This has not, of course, prevented countless New Age authors from prattling on about how quantum states account for ESE telekinesis and other flapdoodle, including talking to the dead and to God.)"


This is a far cry from "asserting that researchers have found the part of the brain where humans transcend the physical and make contact with god"

Actually, the data would seem to me to argue the opposite.

- All the best,

I think we know why he was reluctant to show his work now.

[arian]

[Replying to post 1206 by arian]

Way to once again ignore the data, Arian:

People with damage to this part of the brain have problems navigating their way around a room: They actually cannot discriminate between their bodies and the furniture. The researchers discovered that during meditation and prayer, at the moment when the monks were at one with the universe and the nuns felt the presence of a universal spirit, there was reduced activity in the OAA. Like patients with damage to this brain area, their selves became indistinguishable from their nonselves.

If damage to this part of the brain makes people unable to distinguish between their body and furniture in the room, then that is pretty telling, don't you think?

More proof that the mind & brain are inextricable. Any extra-body argument drawn from this is pure speculation, and wish-thinking.

Show me evidence (real world examples) otherwise.

All the best,

Thanks KenRU, please read the post before this?

Remember I mentioned the computer? You keep banging it, it will start doing some pretty weird things don't you agree?
The mind/spirit IS part of this body, it 'resides' in it like we can reside in a tent, or our house. If we are right with God, God calls us a 'Temple', because God is more present with us! Another word; this body then (for that time) becomes the Temple of God, holy.

Please read the Bible verse I presented just before, it should be clear what another demonic spirit can do when he comes in us, .. and instead of us casting him out with our mind, we invite him to stay, and he entertains us with all kinds of amazing stories. Like Big-bang Evolution for instance, or that he is that God of the Bible, only in a plural sense.

I mean look at the last World War, tell me if it wasn't some demonic spirits that took over Hitler and the smart, educated hard working German People? In one day they turned on their own neighbors, Jews who entertained them, who were part of their society for many generations, the Slavs, Gypsies and even their own sick, old and mentally suffering, .. and 'poof', overnight these innocent people, even their own nationality became their worst enemies, not even to be considered part of the human race!

Now tell me KenRU, did the entire German Nation get brain damage at once? In one day?

Once the war was over, many Germans did agree that what they did was almost beyond belief? But what happened, as long as they kept those evil spirits within themselves, and just kept them quiet for now, the same feelings toward the Jews (blacks, Italians, Spanish, Russian, Indians or any other race other than German) arose.

Communism is another legion of demonic spirits that have taken over the Russians, and the rest of Europe, China and so on. But now comes that Final Solution, where all these spirits come together will lead man to their ultimate demise. Armageddon, where like in the 'Movie World War Z', man will destroy each other.

Have you seen the movie? I couldn't believe my eyes or my ears when at the end they revealed the 'solution to the zombie problem', "Each Human must be inoculated with the most deadly viruses that have caused plagues that wiped out more than half of Europe, and AIDS, or any incurable disease" which will keep the Zombies away from them. My God, .. and this is not just a movie, but is happening as we speak! Spraying the poison in our air, in our water, food, into the veins of still healthy people. They cause wars and continent wide famines, starvations that they blame on; "too many people on the earth, there is no way to sustain them!"

If it is a world problem, why not call everyone together and hear suggestions how to fix it? Is EVERYONE ignorant except them, the ones that control and horde all the money? We could start with Facebook, everyone from the Hollywood Stars to the tree dwelling farmers/fisherman in the jungles of the Philippines have a 'smart-phone', so this could be done very easily!?!

But of course they are not foolish to dare such a thing, because they are the CAUSE and the CREATORS of every plague, every disease, every war, every corruption in the world, they control the drugs and the Drug Lords, Gambling to Pornography, .. everything. They know that the whole world would point right in their face, and may even get the ropes to try to hang them.

So they go in secret with all the puppet-government leaders of the world, present them the 'self-created world wide problem', and show them the solution Satan been planning from the time God created man in His Own Image.

Listen to me, we all have the right to our house, this body, we are the hosts of it, and we can say: "Out demons, I am taking charge here" Only remember that this will piss them off something awful, so unless you get some protection for your home/body, like calling on Jesus Christ who can send some of Gods Holy Spirit to reside with you, or they will come back with demons seven times as mean and evil, and you will be worse off than you were before!

Please don't snip a line, or a small sentence from what I said here and respond to my entire post by a short comment. Debate what I said here, and you will see why this idea of Big-bang Evolution is so evil, it is the basis for many of the worlds New Agendas for a world without humans. Just look up what they're doing at the Chernobyl sight, and WHO is doing it, and why?

The demon 'Legion' has become more powerful then ever since Jesus cast him out of that man. It is as if he is preparing the entrance for Satan himself as the New Christ, .. and then he will order a world-wide 'Purge' (like the movie) which will sound that Last Trumpet, and there will be such horrible tribulation as never was since the creation of the world, and never will be!

[kenblogton]

WHY GOD WON'T GO AWAY: SCIENCE AND THE BIOLOGY OF BELIEF

Review from Psychology Today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles ... -the-brain

Bullet Points from article:

- "The most dramatic finding in the book, primarily (and admirably) written by journalist Vince Rause, concerns a portion of the brain the authors call the orientation association area (OAA). The OAA, say Newberg and D'Aquili, is largely responsible for helping us distinguish between ourselves and other things. People with damage to this part of the brain have problems navigating their way around a room: They actually cannot discriminate between their bodies and the furniture. The researchers discovered that during meditation and prayer, at the moment when the monks were at one with the universe and the nuns felt the presence of a universal spirit, there was reduced activity in the OAA. Like patients with damage to this brain area, their selves became indistinguishable from their nonselves. From these findings the authors conclude "that spiritual experience, at its very root, is intimately interwoven with human biology. That biology, in some way, compels the spiritual urge.""

- "If the book ended there, I would have no qualms about recommending it to anyone interested in why people believe in God. It is reasonable to posit that one of the variables that shape religious beliefs is the brain with which we believe. (Other variables no doubt include genetics, parental upbringing, sibling dynamics, peer influence and mentoring, among others.)

Unfortunately, the authors add another hundred pages of what they themselves call "terrifically unscientific" speculations. Our brains may not be generating spiritual experiences, they suggest, so much as they are opening a window into some spiritual realm that exists outside the brain. How the brain makes contact with this transcendent being or place is not discussed, of course, because no one has a clue. (This has not, of course, prevented countless New Age authors from prattling on about how quantum states account for ESE telekinesis and other flapdoodle, including talking to the dead and to God.)"


This is a far cry from "asserting that researchers have found the part of the brain where humans transcend the physical and make contact with god"

Actually, the data would seem to me to argue the opposite.

- All the best,

Here's another review from a respected review publication: Kirkus Reviews

"Science meets religion meets good writing. Over a century ago, Nietzsche declared that God was dead, but He just doesn't seem to go away. The authors use science to try and explain religion, not explain it away. They do not conclude that mystical experiences are baloney simply because the brain has something to do with them. It's no accident that the human brain is wired to help folks get religion, the authors insist, but an evolutionary advantage religious people tend to have fewer strokes, lower blood pressure, and better overall health than unbelievers. Nietzsche and other modern prophets predicted the end of religion, but that's unlikely to happen unless the human brain changes. An intriguing study for skeptics and believers alike."

Having read the book, I can state categorically nowhere do the authors refer to their conclusions as "terribly unscientific" - but I can understand how a reviewer with an atheistic bias would be tempted to misinterpret what they say in that way.

The authors also say "All perceptions rest in the mind. The earth beneath your feet, the chair youre sitting in, the book you hold in your hands may all seem unquestionably solid and real, but they are known to you only as secondhand neurological perceptions. If you were to dismiss spiritual experience as mere neurological activities, you would also have to dismiss all of your own brains perceptions of the material world. On the other hand, if we do trust our perceptions of the physical world, we have no rational reason to declare that spiritual experience is a fiction that is only in the mind."

kenblogton