Religion: Real or Fake

[N35t0r]

...what? I'm perfectly aware that a song I hear is nothing more than a sound wave arriving in my ear. It, however gets translated by my brain into something that is more or less meaningful to it according to past experiences. I think that all this happens thanks to physical processes going in my brain. I fail to see how the lack of 'magic' in the process substracts from the experience.

[rah]

I don't need religion or a belief in god to be see the beauty of a painting or be lifted by a song. (I don't need science for those either)

[Imran Siddiqui]

I don't need religion or a belief in god to be see the beauty of a painting or be lifted by a song. (I don't need science for those either)

Missing the point. The idea of their being beauty of a painting or lifting by a song indicates that not everything can be explained science, ie there is something other than mechanical process.

[Jon Miller]

But are discussion was about if there was something more than just electrons in the head for religion, and we were saying that even if science understands some effects of electrons in the head it doesn't mean that religion is just electrons in the head.

JM

[Docfeelgood]

still thinking......

[rah]

Missing the point. The idea of their being beauty of a painting or lifting by a song indicates that not everything can be explained science, ie there is something other than mechanical process.

No I think you're missing the point. Just because something can't be explained by science (i'll concede that there is something other than mechanical processes), doesn't mean it can be explained by religion.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I see the goalposts moving, moving, moving...

(point was religion and science can co-exist)

[Docfeelgood]

still thinking......

[Kidlicious]

Yes we are hardwired to want to know the truth.

I'm afraid not. We believe our own lies. We do this in order to function and get ahead in society.

[Kidlicious]

hm?

free will != sentience

In order to have free will we must have a mind which is something different than the brain. The evidence that we do have a mind and free will is that we can use it to alter the way the brain works. That is I can consciously use my mind to alter my brain.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/23943

Does the Brain Control the Mind or the Mind Control the Brain?
Parag and Ayesha Khanna on September 9, 2010, 8:17 AM
One of the first things students debate in a high school AP history class is Thomas Carlyle’s “Great Man” theory of history, taking sides on the bedeviling question: “Does the man make the moment or the moment make the man?” Carlyle led other 19th century historians in claiming, “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” A similar orthodoxy long dominated neuropsychology: the brain controls the mind, which has no independent existence outside of the chemical reactions and patterns which constantly fire inside our brains. Neuro-biologists have long held that the brain exclusively drives the mind, and that the mind serves only the individual self.

But a new breed of medical scientists is challenging this linear approach to the relationship between the objective physical world and subjective mental life. Dan Siegel, a professor at UCLA medical school, argues that the mind can be shared with others, and that these inter-personal neural networks can in fact shape the brain. The brain and the mind obviously have an intimate relationship, but the mind is different: it is a collection of thoughts, patterns, perceptions, beliefs, memories and attitudes. As Siegel explains, “The mind can use the brain to perceive itself, and the mind can be used to change the brain.”

Siegel is author of the best-selling Mindsight and founder of the Mindsight Institute, which Siegel calls an action-oriented think-tank. At UCLA, he founded the Center for Culture, Brain and Development, which investigates how cultural and social relations inform brain development, how the brain organizes such experiences and knowledge, and how such developments in turn give rise to a cultural brain. Our cultural practices such as emotional bonds to family or religious devotion are themselves repetitive patterns of energy use that stimulate (from the outside) discernable neural firing patterns and synaptic connections. Our brains become used to, and even develop a preference for, certain patterns, meaning the brain can be trained to behave, and even gradually evolve, based on the activities of the mind.

Technology is helping us shed ever more focused light on which parts of our brain direct specific actions or respond to diverse stimuli. Advancements in artificial intelligence have benefited from such insights, leading to devices which can “read your mind,” i.e. discern signals of will and intention, for example with respect to where you wish to move a computer mouse, and translate that intent into action. By this logic, culture is literally a “state of mind,” a cluster of signals which believers of a certain faith share in common. By extension, cultural evolution is to some extent the mutation of patterns of mental signals shared by groups of people. For this reason, the Dalai Lama has embraced this research, and recently spoke at a prominent gathering of neuro-scientists and educators.

Since brain plasticity is greater earlier in life, Siegel is working with children to test patented new communicative technologies that help to transmit the non-verbal signals and a sense of internal mental experience between young people such that they may develop more accurate and empathetic understands of others. Such devices focus on the pre-frontal cortex where our “mental maps” of the self, others, and collective are developed and stimulated. This part of the brain can’t be fooled: it knows when you are communicating with other human beings versus playing a video game. Digital games distort these mental maps, substituting the evoking of action for inter-personal connections. The result can be stunted emotional development. Not just “Grand Theft Auto” but even Baby Einstein have thus been accused of warping the mind rather than enhancing it. If Siegel’s work continues to yield positive results, it could make a large contribution towards technology making us more empathetic—and yes, humane—than we think is possible today.

Ayesha and Parag Khanna explore human-technology co-evolution and its implications for society, business and politics at The Hybrid Reality Institute.

[Kidlicious]

If you want to know if I thin that making a 'robot' that 'thinks' as intricately as we do is possible, then yes. Certainly not now, and maybe we'll never be able to do it, but due to our own limitations.

Because materialists have no idea whatsoever about how the mind works. It's very unlikely that science will ever help us understand this.

[Ming]

I'm afraid not. We believe our own lies.

You are correct. And Religion is a classic example of this.

[Kidlicious]

You are correct. And Religion is a classic example of this.

Religion can actually make us more honest. Research shows that reciting the 10 commandments makes you less likely to lie.

[Ming]

Because materialists have no idea whatsoever about how the mind works. It's very unlikely that science will ever help us understand this.

Wrong... scientists are making progress on how the mind works... it's just a matter of time. Your denial is just another lie you like telling yourself so that you can continue to find faith in a myth.

[Ming]

Religion can actually make us more honest. Research shows that reciting the 10 commandments makes you less likely to lie.

Maybe somebody should point that out to the catholic church... It hasn't worked for them, since all they have done is lie about priests diddling little children.

It's all about the individual when it comes to honesty... not religion. And please provide a link to your "research" so that we can all see the actual basis of it, vs just a random sound bite.

One thing we do know about religion, is that it can turn you into a murderer of those not of your faith.