spirituality
gregladen | February 15, 2016I have often made the argument that religiosity, a personal belief in god, spirits, the supernatural, etc., would emerge in human societies on its own if it wasn't there already.
Imagine taking an entire generation of people in a geographically isolated region, and wiping out their memory of religion, and also, removing all references to religion that they might ever encounter. They would be religion free for a while, maybe even for a number of generations, but eventually, they would reinvent it.
Everybody has a theory of why religion exists, what purposes it serves, etc. etc. Until proven…
oracknows | January 13, 2015Last night I had an evening meeting for a CQI (continuous quality initiative) collaborative that I'm heavily involved in; so I didn't get home until late. Unfortunately, that means I didn't have the time to dish out the usual insolence for today. Fortunately, I do have a video lying around that made me chuckle and is relevant to skepticism and critical thinking. Even though JP Sears does appear to be a real holistic life coach of some sort promoting "healing" and a bit woo-ey, I have to admit, this video of his, at least, amused me greatly.
Hmmm. Am I getting squishy that I find a guy like…
milhayser | September 29, 2013The U.S. "war on drugs," besides failing to meet its goals, has demonstrated a stubborn ignorance of the effects that different drugs have in the human body. Granted, some drugs cause degeneration and are properly outlawed. Opiates such as heroin and stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine take a harsh physical toll and leave users addicted to the chemical. But classified along with these truly dangerous drugs are some of nature's most mysterious medicines. New research shows how marijuana, psychedelics, MDMA and even ketamine have positive physiological and psychological effects that…
carlyo | March 9, 2012This April, Jeff Lieberman, artist, scientist and host of Discovery Channel's "Time Warp", will be performing at the 2012 USA Science and Engineering Festival with his show "Beyond Your Imagination". In "Beyond Your Imagination", Lieberman will give you a tour like no other - a tour of yourself. Using advanced technologies and scientific discoveries, we will see just how amazing you are - beyond anything you could imagine! Lieberman explains that "Science doesn't just tell us about the world outside -- it also reveals a deeper understanding of who we are as human beings, and how we see the…
stoat | March 16, 2011If you believe in a good, kind, etc God then [[problem of evil]] is to explain away the various obvious features of the world at variance with this belief. People always succeed in doing so, because they want to. A good trick with any form of human badness is to invoke Free Will: obviously God doesn't want you to be naughty, but he couldn't very well stop you, could he? But things like death-dealing earthquakes and the accompanying tsunamis are a bit more of a puzzler. However, in a rather daring and novel piece of theology I heard at Thought for the Day, 15 March 2011 the Revd Dr David…
neurophilosophy | February 27, 2010REMOVAL of specific parts of the brain can induce increases in a personality trait which predisposes people to spirituality, according to a new clinical study by Italian researchers. The new research, published earlier this month in the journal Neuron, provides evidence that some brain structures are associated with spiritual thinking and feelings, and hints at individual differences that might make some people more prone than others to spirituality.
Cosimo Urgesi of the University of Udine and his colleagues combined pre- and post-surgical personality assessments with advanced lesion…
razib | February 10, 2010The Spiritual Brain: Selective Cortical Lesions Modulate Human Self-Transcendence:
The predisposition of human beings toward spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors is measured by a supposedly stable personality trait called self-transcendence. Although a few neuroimaging studies suggest that neural activation of a large fronto-parieto-temporal network may underpin a variety of spiritual experiences, information on the causative link between such a network and spirituality is lacking. Combining pre- and post-neurosurgery personality assessment with advanced brain-lesion mapping techniques…
stoat | October 19, 2009Well not *my* religion because I didn't have one to lose, certainly not since I refused to be Confirmed at about age 13. Though I do like the churches and the stonework a lot; and the old hymns. No, I went to the Cambridge Union Society to hear that Paul Wright talk to the Aetheist Society, pretty much about his essay of the same name. When I got to the Society buildings I was someone surprised to find a queue; fortunately the hoi-polloi were being filtered off downstairs to listen to a comedian, and we had a spacious room upstairs and some sweeties.
The setting and audience reminded me of…
stoat | September 6, 2009 The normally sensible mt has a post The Elephant in the Room that I've been meaning to rip to shreds for ages (oh, by the way, if anyone feels tempted to say "how unfair ripping mt to shreds when he is on the Good side, why not shred Plimer or someone" the answer is: mt is interesting, Plimer is dull). Most of it is just gobbledegook as far as I can tell, but I may just be too materialist (a nice word, perhaps hijacked for alternative meanings, but in many ways better than "atheist" which otherwise defines me in terms of something I'm not. Yes, I'm a materialist) to have fully understood.
It…