scombrid

Your assertions are far from fact. At the end of my ramblings I’ve included several links that discuss emotion, drug, and environmental interactions. PET scans have allowed detailed observation of brain activity in relation to certain drugs. I will grant you that some people improve their emotional health when they embrace religion but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t deluding themselves. We can fool the brain with both chemical and environmental stimuli.

Emotions are indeed complex and not extremely well understood yet but we are making progress now that behavioral science has begun too quit viewing emotion as some ethereal mystery but a physical reality that is part of all animals. I doubt all animals experience emotions in quite the same way. However, just focusing on the higher mammals, we see that they experience anger, happiness, emotional bonds that could be interpreted as love, grief, etc


Emotions effect health. duh. Emotions drive behavior and behavior effects health. Surprise, Surprise. Emotions are biochemical reactions within the brain not the heart. Some do affect the heart. Fear and anger both crank out the adrenaline that speeds the heart and stimulates the liver to release glycogen. To much stimulation of the heart can lead to hypertension. Too much stimulation of the liver will cause the body to store fat in the vicinity of the liver to replenish glycogen in the event of fight or flight responses. Chronic stress contributes to “gut” formation. Have you looked at the latest studies on brain chemistry and addictive behavior? In addiction, brain chemistry is severely altered. Some drugs (domamine agonists, such as cocaine and nicotine) flood dopamine receptors and cause a feeling of pleasure. (MAOIs, the most common anti-depressant, work in a similar way by blocking MAO from removing dopamine from the blood) The body responds to the excess stimulation by reducing the numbers of receptors, desensitization. The user then can’t experience pleasure in the absence of the drug and “needs” the drug. Such addiction occurs in animals (I don’t condone this sort of testing but it’s been done) beside humans. I was addicted to nicotine (I didn’t need prayer to get me off the stuff either nor is prayer effective in getting people off of other drugs, look and the abysmal failure rate of AA) and know what it feels like. Just the smell of chewing tobacco would cause me to salivate. Other studies have examined dopamine patterns in newlyweds and found patterns of love very similar to addiction. That’s why it “hurts” so bad when you get dumped.

One interesting thing regarding happiness and addiction is that some people are born less content and require constant stimulation to avoid depression. They are either short on dopamine or have too many receptors. These restless folks are prone to addiction and fall in love more easily. Many find natural highs of some form be they sports, arts, or business pursuit. I’m on of the restless folks and my current addiction is kayak racing. I know a former coke addict at the gym that replaced 20years of cocaine use with body building and he is severely addicted to bodybuilding.

Love is an emotion that compels the individual experiencing the emotion to make sacrifices for the object of love. Love is not unique to humans. Love can sometimes malfunction and result in what we would consider aberrant desires. Some mother birds see a gaping red thing and are compelled to feed it. This has resulted in the observation of robins feeding koi. Mothers in species that rear young experience love. They could do a lot better foraging for themselves and not wasting energy on their young. However, then their genes would die with them. This means that genes that force an expression for love for offspring do better in the population than other genes. Altruism in nature follows a nice predictable pattern based on kinship but I won’t bother you with those details. In animals that produce enough gametes that rearing is a waste of time, we don’t see love for offspring. On the surface, emotions aren’t in the best interest of the individual but ultimately on close examination we see that the behaviors that they elicit benefit the individual {on average but not always}. Think of the anger and jealousy that a bull in rut expresses and go into a bare where two testosterone pumped youths are vying for the same female. Think how it feels when a girl that you’re sweet on goes after another guy. In animals where females make the greater contribution to reproduction (physically re: gamete size, lactation, etc…) males tend to compete for females because sperm is cheap and they have the free energy to pursue multiple partners or provide resources (nest building etc…). In a competitive reproductive environment, males that experience stronger jealousy will likely fair better. Interestingly, in social animals with a dominance hierarchy, subordinates tend to be more susceptible to addiction to dopamine agonists

http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPa...ull/nn798.html
http://www.utexas.edu/research/asrec/dopamine.html
http://www.drugabuse.gov/NIDA_Notes/...ineTarget.html
http://www.biopsychiatry.com/cokopi.html
http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/GVG/Cscans.htm

jj

I agree 100%. Where does Radorth get off claiming omniscience?

jj

So, Jerome is god? Or he just gets to say who is god, or who is a Christian, or what?

In any case, now Jerome is omniscient, you say?

Right. Sure.

Radorth

And here are my a-materialist links.

http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap5/chap5u.htm

http://www.latimes.com/features/heal...lines%2Dhealth

Materialists want to reduce all human psychology to a bunch of chemical reactions. For example, they think they can attribute the most lengthy and cogent NDE testimony to "oxygen starvation" and some of their leaps of faith are laughable, really.


Rad

Radorth

jj apparently hasn't time to read what people say, so he just makes up things.

Rad

HelenM

It's interesting to see you link to that because I know the author is definitely not a Christian.

I went to the page after the one that this link pulls up and found the subheading Does Prayer Improve Health?

Here's a quote from that section:

and another...

I rather think the author would side with the non-theists here, against the theists...so I'm surprised you'd link to this in support of your views

Oh, I see the author begins his acknowledgements page with:

(Mods: I have written permission from the author to quote from his book )

Helen

hezekiah jones

Typical Radorth "scholarship."

Philosoft

Your reasoning is remarkable. So, does it go something like this?

"Sure, stuff like oxygen deprivation and ketamine can be reliably shown to cause minor NDEs, but those really 'lengthy and cogent' ones? Leap of faith, that. What? Logical inference? Extrapolation? Never heard of it."

Ye gods.

Radorth

The "prayer" studies give entirely mixed results, suggesting either that the researchers are biased, or that it makes a difference how one prays, and in what spirit. Some religious beliefs are bad for mental and physical health and some helpful.

I was arguing that emotions and physical health are inexorably connected as they say

Furthermore the site notes the majority of illnesses are caused by BAD BEHAVIOR- smoking, illicit sex, drinking, violence, etc.

Read it and weep, skeptics without sin. Then tell us which of Paul's "works of the flesh" promotes mental and physical health.

No comment on the L.A Times article which came out just the other day?

Rad

hezekiah jones

I was arguing that emotions and physical health are inexorably connected as they say.

Your "argument" was a link to an "a-materialist" site, which it isn't. Do you really have an argument? Or are you just blowing apologetic smoke as usual?

Furthermore the site notes the majority of illnesses are caused by BAD BEHAVIOR- smoking, illicit sex, etc.

Are those activities "a-materialist" as well?

Then tell us which of Paul's 'works of the flesh' promotes mental and physical health.

Who gives a shit about Paul?

No comment on the L.A Times article which came out just the other day?

It requires registration. Sum it up for us, in your typically concise, scholarly, and objective manner.

While you're at it, you might want to explain why behavioral problems associated with, for example, bi-polar disorder, can be effectively treated with chemicals.