Is This Your Brain on God?

[ufojoe]

Interesting subject matter. I'm just starting to read/listen to, the articles/audio excerpts.

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/brain

More than half of adult Americans report they have had a spiritual experience that changed their lives. Now, scientists from universities like Harvard, Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins are using new technologies to analyze the brains of people who claim they have touched the spiritual -- from Christians who speak in tongues to Buddhist monks to people who claim to have had near-death experiences. Hear what they have discovered in this controversial field, as the science of spirituality continues to evolve.

[Skull and Bones]

http://www.amanitashop.com/amanita-arthur/mankind1.htm

check out James Arthur's  Mushrooms and Mankind

[ufojoe]

I'm on Part 3. One interesting note...

Another similar study, where employees at a high-tech firm meditated a few minutes a day over a few weeks, produced more dramatic results.

"Just two months' practice among rank amateurs led to a systematic change in both the brain as well as the immune system in more positive directions," he said.

For example, they developed more antibodies to a flu virus than did their colleagues who did not meditate.

[Skull and Bones]

interesting that the pineal gland isn't mentioned or it's association by many including Dr. Rick Strassman to the "third eye", the symbol for enlightenment/higher consciousness.  Did you know that fluoride found in our drinking water and toothpaste have cause most people's pineal gland to calcify?  Plot to dumb us sheep down?  Perhaps.

[Skull and Bones]

nothing really new.  the belief in kundalini and chakras with their associations with various organs and glands of the endocrine system  is ancient.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakra

[O.S. Buc76]

I still have no idea why science is trying to figure out spirituality and religion and religion is trying to make sense of science; the two are very opposite of each other and pretty much cancel each other out. 

[ufojoe]

I still have no idea why science is trying to figure out spirituality and religion and religion is trying to make sense of science; the two are very opposite of each other and pretty much cancel each other out. 

They're not tying to understand religion.

Read/listen to, the stories/research and maybe you'll understand what they were doing with this research.

[John Galt?]

If you "believe" then you would "act" accordingly. If not, then either something is wrong with your "belief" or something is wrong with your overall thought process (psychosis?). But someone could ''act" proper for reasons other than belief. Therefore, judging "belief" makes more sense because if the belief is right, the acts should also follow. It is like a Buy one get one free, and God loves a bargain.

Not buying that one at all. Judging belief makes zero sense from what I've seen. Too many Christians that I've met, who believe in Jesus and his message, don't practice what they preach. The hypocrisy is sickening. And I focus on Christians because that is who I encounter 99% of the time when it comes to religious folks.

Belief is not important.

So a thread on how "believing" in something (i.e. meditating, praying, etc.) may actually change/affect the body/brain physically.

In another thread, you questioned why "belief" would be more important than acts, in this one I think you have answered your own question.

Maybe belief isn't so much being "judged" as it is just a necessary component to even get the afterlife process started. Makes a lot of sense. If you don't believe you can climb a mountain, odds are you won't, if you don't believe you'll make a free throw, you'll probably miss, hence the need to believe in an afterlife in order to achieve it.

[ufojoe]

No, I talked about people claiming to believe in something and doing the opposite. In that case, their belief meant zero to me.

But nice try. Not even close to what I was talking about.

BTW, there have been studies where people were taught how to meditate. Some of those people didn't believe it would affect them in a positive way. But lo and behold, it did! In that situation, belief (or lack of it) meant zero.

Is there such thing as a placebo effect where belief affects the human body? Of course. Never claimed that there weren't situations where belief wasn't important.

Acts are more important. Like I said, the hypocrisy is sickening.

[ufojoe]

BTW, JG, we talk about God/Afterlife/Religion a lot on these boards and you usually participate. But you never tell us what you think/believe.

So, enlighten us. What are your opinions on God, the Afterlife, etc...? And what do you consider yourself? Christian? Atheist? Agnostic? Wiccan?

[John Galt?]

No, I talked about people claiming to believe in something and doing the opposite. In that case, their belief meant zero to me.

But nice try. Not even close to what I was talking about.

But it is what I was hypothesizing, sort of.

BTW, there have been studies where people were taught how to meditate. Some of those people didn't believe it would affect them in a positive way. But lo and behold, it did! In that situation, belief meant zero.

There is no way to measure "belief", but I would bet those people, at least subconsciously, did believe something. The power of positive thinking, son't underestimate it.

Is there such thing as a placebo effect where belief affects the human body? Of course. Never claimed that there weren't situations where belief wasn't important.

Acts are more important. Like I said, the hypocrisy is sickening.

So forget the hypocrites and the closed minded for a minute.

If there is an afterlife of some type, I would guess it involves energy of some kind. The mind/consciousness/soul (whatever you want to call it) is mostly the arrangement of EM impulses in our nerve cells. If at or near the moment of death a person truly believed he was moving on to something else, maybe those patterns of EM pulses would be better organized to make a transition to (a different plane/dimension) the Great beyond. Your actions throughout your life wouldn't matter, just the pattern of your brainwaves at that moment.  

[O.S. Buc76]

No, I talked about people claiming to believe in something and doing the opposite. In that case, their belief meant zero to me.

But nice try. Not even close to what I was talking about.

But it is what I was hypothesizing, sort of.

BTW, there have been studies where people were taught how to meditate. Some of those people didn't believe it would affect them in a positive way. But lo and behold, it did! In that situation, belief meant zero.

There is no way to measure "belief", but I would bet those people, at least subconsciously, did believe something. The power of positive thinking, son't underestimate it.

Is there such thing as a placebo effect where belief affects the human body? Of course. Never claimed that there weren't situations where belief wasn't important.

Acts are more important. Like I said, the hypocrisy is sickening.

So forget the hypocrites and the closed minded for a minute.

If there is an afterlife of some type, I would guess it involves energy of some kind. The mind/consciousness/soul (whatever you want to call it) is mostly the arrangement of EM impulses in our nerve cells. If at or near the moment of death a person truly believed he was moving on to something else, maybe those patterns of EM pulses would be better organized to make a transition to (a different plane/dimension) the Great beyond. Your actions throughout your life wouldn't matter, just the pattern of your brainwaves at that moment.   

This is a great point John Galt; and I have always felt that each one of us has a very strong energy inside that will escape and go somewhere to organize & settle itself when we die, which is pretty much what a soul is if that's what you wanna call it.

[ufojoe]

BTW, there have been studies where people were taught how to meditate. Some of those people didn't believe it would affect them in a positive way. But lo and behold, it did! In that situation, belief meant zero.

There is no way to measure "belief", but I would bet those people, at least subconsciously, did believe something. The power of positive thinking, son't underestimate it.

Trust me, I don't underestimate it. But there are so many different kinds of belief that it's hard to discuss without discussing a lot of different situations.

So forget the hypocrites and the closed minded for a minute.

If there is an afterlife of some type, I would guess it involves energy of some kind. The mind/consciousness/soul (whatever you want to call it) is mostly the arrangement of EM impulses in our nerve cells. If at or near the moment of death a person truly believed he was moving on to something else, maybe those patterns of EM pulses would be better organized to make a transition to (a different plane/dimension) the Great beyond. Your actions throughout your life wouldn't matter, just the pattern of your brainwaves at that moment.  

We're not that far off on the afterlife stuff. I suspect (from what I have read, heard, watched, etc... on the subject) that our level of vibration (related to energy and a very metaphysical concept) determines what we experience in the afterlife. I think we all get to experience some sort of afterlife. But the ones with the lower vibrations stay close to Earth (ths place can be hellish) and the ones with higher vibrations move on to higher dimensions. What can we do to raise those vibrations? Lots of meditation? Good acts? Both? I think both go hand in hand. And I'm not limiting it to just those two.

Would somebody who is spiritual, (really tries to to good while on this planet) of sane mind and who practices a lot of introspection and quieting of the mind, go out and murder somebody in cold blood for no reason? I don't think so. So I guess I'm making an argument for acts and acts being important to an afterlife. But not belief. I actually think belief can affect you in the afterlife but in a negative way. Not a REALLY negative way but in a limiting way. I am being cryptic because I don't want to get into it here. Unless somebody wants me to speculate and give my opinions on that.

Ah, what the heck. I'll give you a short explanation. I think all Christians who believe in Jesus and the pearly gates of heaven will experience that. They will have their own place (created by group thought) in the afterlife. It's not a bad place to be. But not the best place and not the place where they will learn the most. The energy they put out attracts them to this place.

Just an opinion based on a few books I have read. I am not locked into that theory but I threw it out there for conversation.