Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Melkor · 04-18-2003, 09:06 AM

According to this article, it may be:

Quote:

Professor VS Ramachandran, of the University of California in San Diego, believed that the temporal lobes of the brain were key in religious experience. He felt that patients like Rudi and Gwen could provide important evidence linking the temporal lobes to religious experience.

So he set up an experiment to compare the brains of people with and without temporal lobe epilepsy. He decided to measure his patients' changes in skin resistance, essentially measuring how much they sweated when they looked at different types of imagery.

What Professor Ramachandran discovered to his surprise was that when the temporal lobe patients were shown any type of religious imagery, their bodies produced a dramatic change in their skin resistance.

Well, this explains a lot about some of the people in the city in which I live... those poor people need HELP.

abe smith · 04-18-2003, 09:32 AM

Not a subject for mockery, after all...( This is not a reproof, Melcor.)
I myself find the (not-recent) correlation of religiosity with temporal-lobe activity a very interesting (POSSIBLE!) " fact", because it wd substantiate my dearly, most dearly-held bias, that we human creatures function (each) as one-thing(s); and (therefore) that EVERY human event/behaviour is a PHYSICAL = material, event. That therefore, (human = of course! only human) religious belief and practise are *bodily/material* events.
Members here have complained that many of my statements are obscure, or wacky. Is this foregoing statement of mine clear? (Try agen:) Everything-human exists in, by, and as an event of one individual material human body./ single individual material human bodies.
The single, surely, SINGLE exception is that crucial event in which what was ONE, functionally-one, body divides (I'll call it "catastrophically".) into TWO BODIES: at the physical severing of the umbilical cord.

Melkor · 04-18-2003, 09:35 AM

Um....

Huh?

emotional · 04-18-2003, 10:46 AM

Yeah, all right: religion is a mental disorder. Makes you feel superior, doesn't it, atheists? Makes you feel above the rubble of theistic, superstitious, God-believing supernaturalists, eh?

Just like Matt Slick of CARM says, here:

Quote:

Condescension
This is the most common of all mistakes I've encountered with atheists. I've been told by atheists that I'm an idiot for believing God, that if I were truly intelligent I'd abandon my anachronistic thinking, etc. I've yet to meet a single humble atheist.

Take that! It's not, repeat NOT, a shame, even in our enlightened day and age, to believe in God, fairies, demons, ghosts, angels or any other supernatural beings!

philechat · 04-18-2003, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by emotional
Just like Matt Slick of CARM says, here:

Take that! It's not, repeat NOT, a shame, even in our enlightened day and age, to believe in God, fairies, demons, ghosts, angels or any other supernatural beings!

Man, we don't need to stereotype atheists here using a CARM website.

Christianity is NOT a mental disorder, but the result of social and cultural indoctrination. If there were correlations with mental disorders I will imagine more atheists to suffer from depression or whatnot. The fundies often gives the same "psychological" diagnosis of atheists, calling the atheists' opinions the effect of devil possession or disordered thinking.

Salmon of Doubt · 04-18-2003, 12:24 PM

The tv show based on the same studies actually gave it a different slant- how atheists are mentally deficient. There, do you want to mock us back? Will it make you feel better? Please, if it will, go ahead.

It's difficult for an atheist not to feel superior to someone who they think believes in fairies. It takes a lot of work and effort not to. I'm sure you'd feel superior to someone who believes in leprechauns. Only hopefully, most atheists will just remember that theists are people too, often intelligent ones, and act accordingly, and with respect.

christ-on-a-stick · 04-18-2003, 12:30 PM

Quote:

It's difficult for an atheist not to feel superior to someone who they think believes in fairies. It takes a lot of work and effort not to. I'm sure you'd feel superior to someone who believes in leprechauns. Only hopefully, most atheists will just remember that theists are people too, often intelligent ones, and act accordingly, and with respect.

Well said, Salmon of Doubt.

We had an interesting discussion on this same topic a while ago.

To sum up my opinion...

Quote:

Perhaps one of the reasons that even some non-theists are wary of or "offended" by the thought of considering the possibility of theism being considered a mental illness is because of the still-pervasive stigma attached to the term "mental illness". I think a lot of people automatically have connotations of a person being "crazy" or obviously not in their "right mind", such as a schizophrenic, manic-depressive in a hypomanic cycle, etc., etc.

However, it is important to note that there are MANY disorders in DSM-IV, that would generally fall under the category of "mental illness", that may in many cases not even be noticeable to others as the sufferer goes about their daily life.. they are still able to function, work, interact with others and speak coherently, etc., but still be mentally ill. In other words, mental illness does NOT = raving loony.

For my part, I *do* consider god-belief (invisble being that cannot be seen or heard by anyone else but "speaks" to you) to be a form of delusional thinking. Fundamentalism in a more extreme form, to be sure - i.e. the adamant refusal of YEC's to accept scientific facts, biblical inerrancy (talking snakes, sun standing still, etc., etc.).

Oxymoron · 04-18-2003, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by emotional
Yeah, all right: religion is a mental disorder. Makes you feel superior, doesn't it, atheists? Makes you feel above the rubble of theistic, superstitious, God-believing supernaturalists, eh?

Doesn't make it wrong, though.

Quote:

Take that! It's not, repeat NOT, a shame, even in our enlightened day and age, to believe in God, fairies, demons, ghosts, angels or any other supernatural beings! [/B]

Au contraire: garbage in, garbage out. Ooh look! We're surrounded by garbage!

I am afraid that I consider religious belief and other similar drivel as exactly what the OP suggested: a mental illness.

Interestingly though, Prof Ramachandran was on a UK TV show yesterday, and he categorically denied that his ideas undermined the ideas of God and religion. Perhaps he was thinking of his tenure, though

.

christ-on-a-stick · 04-18-2003, 12:39 PM

Are people who claim to be routinely abducted and experimented on by aliens suffering from delusional thinking (a mental illness?) I would venture to guess that most people, including the religious, would say "yes".

But there is no difference . The empirical evidence for either (god-belief or alien-belief) is NIL. One is just socially acceptable.

Jinto · 04-18-2003, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Take that! It's not, repeat NOT, a shame, even in our enlightened day and age, to believe in God, fairies, demons, ghosts, angels or any other supernatural beings! [/B]

emotional, I wonder - do you consider believing something because you want it to be true a rational course of action?

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04-18-2003, 09:32 AM	#2
abe smith Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: springfield, MA. USA Posts: 2,482	Not a subject for mockery, after all...( This is not a reproof, Melcor.) I myself find the (not-recent) correlation of religiosity with temporal-lobe activity a very interesting (POSSIBLE!) " fact", because it wd substantiate my dearly, most dearly-held bias, that we human creatures function (each) as one-thing(s); and (therefore) that EVERY human event/behaviour is a PHYSICAL = material, event. That therefore, (human = of course! only human) religious belief and practise are bodily/material events. Members here have complained that many of my statements are obscure, or wacky. Is this foregoing statement of mine clear? (Try agen:) Everything-human exists in, by, and as an event of one individual material human body./ single individual material human bodies. The single, surely, SINGLE exception is that crucial event in which what was ONE, functionally-one, body divides (I'll call it "catastrophically".) into TWO BODIES: at the physical severing of the umbilical cord.

04-18-2003, 09:35 AM	#3
Melkor Regular Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: The Void Posts: 396	Um.... Huh?

04-18-2003, 12:24 PM	#6
Salmon of Doubt Regular Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: UK Posts: 150	The tv show based on the same studies actually gave it a different slant- how atheists are mentally deficient. There, do you want to mock us back? Will it make you feel better? Please, if it will, go ahead. It's difficult for an atheist not to feel superior to someone who they think believes in fairies. It takes a lot of work and effort not to. I'm sure you'd feel superior to someone who believes in leprechauns. Only hopefully, most atheists will just remember that theists are people too, often intelligent ones, and act accordingly, and with respect.

04-18-2003, 12:39 PM	#9
christ-on-a-stick Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Durango, Colorado Posts: 7,116	Are people who claim to be routinely abducted and experimented on by aliens suffering from delusional thinking (a mental illness?) I would venture to guess that most people, including the religious, would say "yes". But there is no difference . The empirical evidence for either (god-belief or alien-belief) is NIL. One is just socially acceptable.

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