posted on June 19, 2001 10:50:23 AM new
Man having the most complex nervous system with a unchallenged advantage over all animals. However, with this gift, he has the
unfortunate realization that death spares no one, including himself. So with the knowledge his time is only brief. Perhaps the brain has evolved to overcome this fear.
Civilization, religion and written lanqauge came to be about the same time!
posted on June 19, 2001 11:20:25 AM new
I was watching on the Discovery Channel about two or three weeks ago when they aired a program abou tthis very thing. Some neurosurgeon in England was on his way to work one morning and was standing at the train station waiting for the next to pass by when he had what could only be described as a "religious" experience.
The doctor went on to explain that since he was keenly educated on the workings of the brain, he decided to investigate this as a neruochemical phenomena. Thus, he started what has now become an international effort to reproduce at will religious visions and experiences. The piece was quite interesting.
posted on June 19, 2001 11:22:05 AM new
Kraft- No, the people who don't believe in gods give the experience a different attribution, other than gods, or because of brain chemistry do not experience the "religious" experience at all.
What the experiments show is that a "religious" experience is a brain chemical state and nothing more. The gods didn't create us, we created the gods.
I also have a friend in South America who is doing his internship in Neuro-Psychiartry. They were able to use electrodes in areas of the brain to cause people to see auras and "angels". The area they stimulated is the same one that (mis)fires during epileptic episodes.
posted on June 19, 2001 12:26:22 PM new
No one would have questioned that that is what constitutes a religeous experience for some people. I have watched people rock back and forth and talk in a sing song until they wave worked themselves up into a highly emotional state. Anyone who has been to a tent revival will tell you the same story. I have seen Jews at the temple wall in Jerusalem doing the same rocking nodding hypnotic thing. I used to have a friend who would go to revivals with others and work the crowd for the preacher. They would "Amen and Yes and Tell it Brother" with increasing tempo and pitch until the crowd was in a fury.
A good Faschist Speaker can do the same thing if you will allow there is a difference.
posted on June 19, 2001 01:08:22 PM newI have never had a religious experience.
What I do have is a relationship with a God who is very real. There are times when He seems nearer to me than others, but emotions and sensations are fleeting, and my life as a child and servant of God is eternal.
In those times when God feels furthest away, I am encouraged in knowing that my feelings are not reality, because He is always near.
One Bible passage that has meant a lot to me in difficult times is Psalm 139:1-16:
[i]O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.
You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. [/i]
How could a God this amazing be a figment of my imagination?
[ edited by hiddenheaven on Jun 19, 2001 01:10 PM ]
posted on June 19, 2001 01:44:01 PM new
It is not a figment of your "imagination". It is sensations, feelings, beliefs, etc., caused by a chemical brain state.
Just as some chemicals when ingested make there way to the brain and cause sensations, feelings etc.. Being drunk on alcohol is the same thing.
posted on June 19, 2001 02:47:33 PM new"I also have a friend in South America who is doing his internship in Neuro-Psychiartry. They were able to use electrodes in areas of the brain to cause people to see auras and "angels". The area they stimulated is the same one that (mis)fires during epileptic episodes."
I'm not trying to argue with you reamond, but the above statement can't be true. There is no 'one' area of the brain that causes seizures, but a lesion on any area could cause them. So if the same short-circuited area of the brain was used to cause these hallucinations, how would they know where to look on non-epileptic people?
posted on June 19, 2001 03:56:47 PM new
Kraft- No, in this case it is an area of the brain subject to seizure that also produces the auras and angels. They were able to narrow this area down by scanning those who see auras and angels before seizure. No all seizures produce the auras and angels. The ones that did were used to map this area.
posted on June 19, 2001 05:35:49 PM new
I am more attracted to a reasoned religion than an emotional one. To me creation speaks for God's qualities and I don't expect a euporic message that I am not sure of it's value or origin.
posted on June 19, 2001 07:37:47 PM new
Sorry but you don't need to injest anything. My nephew hears voices all the time if he is NOT injesting his meds. Yes he is psychotic. Manic depressive and Scizo as much as that means anything, Docs all want to argue over names.
But I have had a number of fairly main stream religeous people assure me that the Lord has spoken clearly to them as in a real percieved sound - not an abstraction. You would have a real hard time getting a doc to give you a not normal designation on any of them.
My mother in law has Alzhiemer's and comes out of the bedroom where she has been alone all evening and tells me about the crowd of visitors she had and enjoyed chatting with them. -- Fine with me - at least it was a happy visit. With her it is Dementia.
Boy would it cause a problem if religeous experience was labeled by any big group of health care providers as a mental health problem!!
posted on June 19, 2001 10:27:51 PM new
I think that we need not be worried where and how such thngs come about, however intersting they are to find out about. What about psychic perceptions? My mother has dreams about famous politicians that turn out oto be true, has in the past predicted earthquakes so accurately that is scares people into having the Hershry-Squirts. I myself occasionally have visions in a semi-dream state that shows me things that happen to me eighteen months down the road and they re-occur as deja vu'. While they may be able to recreate the religious experiences, how would they ever find one for psychic experiences? And if they could, wouldn't it be great?
posted on June 19, 2001 10:54:56 PM new
Well when they find a cure you can be sure there will be plenty who feel it is the devil's own medicine to cut those voices off.
posted on June 20, 2001 06:27:36 AM new
You state,
"Psychotic - perhaps, but it is just a label."
The term psychotic is well defined in the psychiatric commumity but like any other diagnosis, it can be misused.
You state,
A lie ? Not to the person who "heard" the voices.
That depends on the circumstances, of course. If a psychotic individual
hears voices, then he is not lying. But if, for example, a criminal tells the judge that his dog told him to murder, then you are dealing with either a lie or a psychosis. People can be motivated by many circumstances to lie about such experiences.
Then, you state
"The bottom line is that brain chemistry creates our perceptions, whether "nutty" or "rational".
This is a broad and unsubstantiated statement. The possibility that chemical transmitter substances play a part in behavior is only beginning to be explored. You cannot state with any degree of certainty that "brain chemistry creates perceptual distortions.
Chemical Transmitter substances such as norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin play important roles in behavior but there is no evidence that they produce psychotic perceptual distortions.
LSD acts as an antagonist against some functions of serotonin and
will cause dissociation of both behavorial and mental activities.
It's still my opinion that the article which is referred to in this thread was designed to sell a book for profit and possibly as NearTheSea suggested, to raise money for more research.
posted on June 20, 2001 06:41:53 AM new
Scientists now believe...(fill in the blank)
The whole scientific community changes their collective minds more than a woman. There will be another well-funded research group out in about 8 months to a year with a completely different conclusion. See you then.
posted on June 20, 2001 06:58:21 AM new"Boy would it cause a problem if religeous experience was labeled by any big group of health care providers as a mental health problem!!"
It'd change faith healing for sure.
There is a great deal of literature on this subject, most of it suportive of the theory that religious belief is only a result of electrical stimulation of particular areas of the brain. The original and perhaps only higher power. Nuero-psychology is at the forefront of valid research into the mechanisms of the brain or the electrical patterns which set the characteristics of brain activity. These are measurable impulses and they go a long way toward explaining empirically what previously has only been theorized subjectively. Also, the patterning of brain activity can transcend all of the various emotional and irrational bases of belief, or faith, by providing a common linkage between the religious experience and revelation described in all of the cultural or historical information.
The characterizations of psychosis, schizophrenia, and the rest are very recent and very subjective diagnostic tools used only to quantify differences from set norms. As much as the shrinks would like them to they mean very little more than saying "we find this person to be weird because this person does not do as we all do".
posted on June 20, 2001 07:43:55 AM new
Someone said, Chemical Transmitter substances such as norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin play important roles in behavior but there is no evidence that they produce psychotic perceptual distortions.
Well,
Norepinephrine OD:
ADVERSE REACTIONS: Generalized CNS stimulation can result in adverse effects
manifested as fear, anxiety, nervousness, insomnia, excitability, psychomotor agitation, impaired memory, headache, dizziness and disorientation. These reactions can occur with therapeutic doses of systemic norepinephrine. In patients with underlying
psychiatric disturbances, norepinephrine can induce more pronounced CNS effects of their pathologic state including panic, hallucinations, aggressive behavior, and expression of suicidal or homicidal tendencies.
http://www.parkinsons-information-exchange-network-online.com/drugdb/092.html
Dopamine Side Effects:
SIDE-EFFECTS AND SPECIAL PRECAUTIONS:
Central effects include fear, anxiety, restlessness, tremor, insomnia, confusion, irritability, weakness and psychotic states. http://home.intekom.com/pharm/quatrom/q-dop200.html
Overconcentration of Serotonin
Severe cases are characterised by mental status changes in combination with motor and
autonomic dysfunction:
Agitation, confusion, hypomania http://www.egora.fr/Tox-In/TOXIANGL/SYNDROME/SEROTONI.HTM
Sounds like you'd feel crazy if you had too much of these monoamines. By non-chatboard standards, anyway.
posted on June 20, 2001 08:15:30 AM new
It's only a matter of conductivity. The chemicals do have effect variously, as water does and electrical tape does.
Thought I was kidding about your pyramid hat, Gravid?
posted on June 20, 2001 09:53:03 AM new
This thread reminds me of the old Soviet Union. Back then and there, if you got "saved" and went about proselytizing people on the street, the police would pick them up and send them off to a mental institution. Once there in the care of psychiatrists, they would apply drugs, electric-shock, and other therapies until the patient became "well" again. These stories horrified religious people around the world and in particularly in America where religious beliefs are a right. I imagine that the studies mentioned in this thread will come under attack from more than just mesageboards and federal funding pulled.
posted on June 20, 2001 11:40:35 AM new
We are a product of our brain chemistry, which includes beliefs, memories (whether faulty or not), actions/inactions. Even our "reasoning"/rationalization process is dependant on chemical brain states.
These states can be altered by natural occurances, such as sights, sounds, tactile senses, smells, etc.. These states can also be altered by ingestion/application of chemicals.
Brain injury can cause loss of memory, change of personalty, loss of reasoning powers.
Our perceptions are all dependant on brain chemistry. How we react to stimulus, what we remember, what we forget, pain and pleasure.
Regarding those with "ESP", whether by dreams or otherwise, I can only say that in controled experiments, they have never found to be valid. Most cases of ESP are found to be chicanary or faulty memories, or stretching the meaning of the premonition beyond recognition to apply iot to the result.
In regards to religion being mental illness - IMHO, mental illness must be redifined. Presently, mental illness is that which falls outside "norms", and is merely labeling to describe and distinguish how and why one falls outside the norms in a manner we do not value as "productive". A person well outside the norms of intellegence is not considered mentally ill because we value the intellegence he/she demonstrates. A person who hears voices is not considered mentally ill unless he/she exhibits behavior we do not value. The difference between a madman and a prophet is our acceptance of the prophet's behavior and/or message. But if the prophet's behavior or message is not acceptable, he/she will be labeled a madman.
That of which we can not find empirical explanations for is always rendered to the spiritual realms. In dealing with the brain, we created the mind/soul, a spirit that was part of the person, yet not a physical entity, to explain behavior we could not reveal empirically. As the experiments continue and are refined, the mind/soul will be further extinguished.
