Is God A State Of Mind?

N

notme2000

The Art Of Fact
Registered Senior Member
It seems they have mapped the need for a God in the human brain. And they've explained the feeling of connection with a higher power through prayer and meditation. This is a good read for skeptics and believers alike!

Is God A State Of Mind?
 
ok, no.

the people in the study medidtate and the scientist measure brain activity. so there is a connection between meditation often used on religion (and other places) and certain neural activity. that's fine. where did god come in? the correlated fators are meditation type rituals and the neural activity.

the conclusions they try to make are way more than they should with that data.

no wonder they published in neuroreport:rolleyes:
 
Prayer is a form of meditation. Prayer is "talking to God". There you go, that's why God was in the article. Didn't take long to link, especially since I'm only repeating what was stated clearly in the article itself...
 
meditation does not always mean god.
atheist can medidate.

i could run the same study with atheist meditating and call it the "no god here" area of the brain.
 
I could run the same study with atheist meditating and call it the "no god here" area of the brain.
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That's exactly the point. Athiests can induce the same thing as theists... God is a state of mind... Both athiests and theists can reach it, but they call it by different names. Thanks for making my point for me.
 
maybe we're making the same point then.

I'm saying that the feeling that arises from the neural activity can be called whatever, it is not inheritly spiritual, a religious person may call it god, others may call it something else. i felt the article was overplaying god connection, it's really mediation, people just call it god because they are religious.
 
Did anyone have a problem with the last line of the article?

"If truth were told, nearly all the nonbelievers would love a reason to believe," McKinney says. "Newberg believes he's done a good job providing some reasons, and for those who follow his path, I wish them well."
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ok, no. the people in the study medidtate and the scientist measure brain activity. so there is a connection between meditation often used on religion (and other places) and certain neural activity. that's fine. where did god come in? the correlated fators are meditation type rituals and the neural activity
Click to expand...

Where they certain that these monks where true addepts?

I asked what kind of meditation they where doing because it would seriously change the results of the study. Meditation is an art of its own and is encredibly complex. Some "religious meditators" might just be zoneing out to a state of dilusion. In many practices that is noted as a pit fall. Unless they where doing any type of "energy" work how is the study relevant to refuting the "spiritual" ideas? There would be many more things to test and observe then the neural activity. It would be interesting to monitor the body "energies" of the meditator. Every human body uses electricity right?
I remember reading in one of the sites that this state causes one to lose balance. That to me seems un-likely because many of these same "states" are used in internal martial arts where awareness of the surroundings is of key importance, as well as physical balance. So this to me seems to have little relevants to meditation. Perhaps it does to zoning out and seperating from reality but that hardly seems to be the point of meditation. Needless to say it leaves me with many questions.
 
Isn't the mind the vessel by which we understand and "know" (if there is such a state) anything and everything?
 
Just a side note. I e-mailed Massimo Pigliucci to ask what kind of meditation they where using. He said he thinks they where doing Mantra. I have no knowledge of mantras so that really leaves me in the dark.:(
 
Since this deals with the mind making connections -

Does anyone know how the mind connects to remote, future events? How is it that some people can see things clearly that happen, say, a couple of days later?
 
God is not a state of mind in its entirity. No God is more than this. For if God is a mere concept or ideal, then this is not necessarily God and you can be deceived. For God derives from within the heart. This is his House, His Mansion; God is duality in all things, but the recognisation of one duality as a separate thing is like cutting a circle in half; you become un-whole, unholy. Thus the recognition of one without the knowledge of the other brings us far from the Kingdom. The Kingdom is in the centre of our beings. The mind prified by the heart brings the knowledge of God and not the other way around. Remember this God speaks by way of the heart; we give in love and receive in faith. One without the other than we know not. With both is all. God is the combination of all duality and then beyond also. Be it that you find God within.

As they Allah hu' manna (God within us) or Immanuel (the hidden one called God)
 
Originally posted by firefighter
Since this deals with the mind making connections -

Does anyone know how the mind connects to remote, future events? How is it that some people can see things clearly that happen, say, a couple of days later?
Click to expand...
Sometimes I wish that I could see things clearly that happened a couple of days ago :)
 
Turduckin,

Aw shucks. :)

Being stuck in the here and now all the time can't be too bad. It's a gift -

The "present".
 
Originally posted by firefighter
Since this deals with the mind making connections -

Does anyone know how the mind connects to remote, future events? How is it that some people can see things clearly that happen, say, a couple of days later?
Click to expand...

maybe it is chance:

some person is bound to have some sort of vision of the future that happens to be slightly correct at some point in time...
 
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