X-Message-Number: 20081 From: "mike99" <> Subject: God talk Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 06:21:23 -0600 Since this subject was broached on CryoNet, I think it's time to get beyond the usual theist vs. atheist roundabout debate and look at what science has been discovering in recent years. More and more brain researchers have found correlations between brain states and subjectively reported mystical/divine union states. Dr. Michael A. Persinger pioneered this work in the 1980s. Here's a list of his publications: - Persinger, Michael A. Religious and mystical Experiences As Artifacts Of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis Perceptual And Motor Skills, 1983, 57 1255-1262 - Persinger, Michael A. Ph.d. Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs Praeger, 1987 - Persinger, Michael A. Geophysical variables and behavior: LV. Predicting the Details of Visitor Experiences and the Personality of Experience: the Temporal Lobe Factor. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1989, 68, 55-65 - Persinger, Michael A. Ph.D. The Sensed Presence As Right Hemispheric intrusions Into The Left Hemispheric Awareness Of Self: An Illustrative Case Study , Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1994, 78, 999-1009 If you do a Net search on the term "neurotheology" you will find several other sources of information on this topic, including a forthcoming book (due in Oct. 2002) of articles by many authors by that very title. Todd Murphy, a researcher working under Dr. Persinger, has put a lot of his material on the web (much of it in dire need of copy editing!) that reports some fascinating research he has conducted on himself and others using Persinger's solenoid devices for stimulating specific brain structures using magnetic fields. You'll find Murphy's documents at http://www.innerworlds.50megs.com/ What this all comes down to, in my opinion, is that mystical experiences can be induced technologically. While this does not disprove the independent existence of a deity (that's a different philosophical problem), it brings into question millennia of reports from "god-experiencers" about what they were "told" to reveal to the rest of us. As we Buddhists say, If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. Michael LaTorra Member: Extropy Institute: www.extropy.org World Transhumanist Association: www.transhumanism.org Alcor Life Extension Foundation: www.alcor.org Society for Technical Communication: www.stc.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20081