This is your brain on God.

[Radical Hypocrisy]

So I just got myself all comfy one night, eyes held open by the Ludovico-esque wires I use to stay up and watch all the good shows (Usually something on Adult Swim, or other such mindrot.) when I noticed that the new Science Channel show, Through the Wormhole, with Morgan Freeman (Who may or may not be God).

Anywho, so there I am, enraptured by the flickering lights and pretty images, letting the Quantum Technobable I've heard a trillion times before slip through my ears without much hindrance.

The particular episode went by in true Morgan Freeman Aplomb. Good show, great affects, and a lasting moral or idea. Time Travel and all that. Goodie.

Then they showed the first episode to fill time. I hadn't seen this one, so I settled in for the usual filler of over-used theories that are always either explained in ways no layperson could understand, or shown using big flashy CG animations that the Science Channel is known for.

This show was about God.

I was wondering why Morgan "Jehovah" Freeman was waxing narcissistic, hosting a show about himself.

There were some good points raised about how our Universe is seemingly too perfect, and therefore must come from a creator (I subscribe to the Strong Anthropic Principle myself, which states that there are an infinite number of universes, and ours is just a random happy accident in an infinite number. The only reason it seems that it's perfect is because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here anyway, but I'm getting on a tangent.)

Anyway, one of the last theories about God was that he exists in our minds. I've subscribed to this theory for quite some time (Being a big Psychology buff), and paid, perhaps selfishly, a little more attention.

What was proposed was so very profound, I had to scrape my mind off the back wall of my home. To wit:

The left side of our brains, the "logical" side figured out our own mortality around the same time we became self aware. when you contemplate your mortality, it puts you under serious stress.

The right side of our brains, the "Free Thinker" and total parallel to the left, therefore must have found a way to cope with this knowledge of mortality and ease the burden of being self aware.

It does this by convincing you that there is an infinite something to which you are connected, and therefore your mortality is just fine, because in some way, you will never die.

The part in question happens to lay in a square inch of gray matter on the right side of your head above the temple. By hooking up a nice little electromagnet into a football helmet (Called the "God Helmet" by the researcher.) and sitting it on your head, then getting you to relax, he can give you an artificial religious experience.

Markings of this experience can include
-Feelings of flying
-Conviction that there are other beings present, though there are none
-The feeling of being watched
Etc.

This fits well with a long standing tradition of brain damage victims becoming religious leaders (Luther was struck by lightning in the head, for example)

Ergo, I find it totally reasonable to say we've found God.

Coincidentally, Jesus was behind my couch.  

[Captain_Shinzo]

WOAH!

s**t was crazier than ATMA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgWkcJVdB6o

Although I kinda knew partly of this when I was little, I feel comforted that I'm not alone on this understanding.
After all, the complex of God is only created from fear of death.
Remove that and God really isn't so cool anymore.

It's like in society if you label someone crazy.

Anything they do or say, any protest, would be considered part of that sanity and protests would only be conducted as proof of that insanity. It's genius yet so easy just to manipulate a SINGLE feeling or idea to cause a chain reaction to the others.  

[B1g_crunch]

In my right brain, I AM GOD.  

[Le Pere Duchesne]

Well... no. The concept of 'god' has gone through a lot of change and growth through time. The earliest people believed that trees and rocks and rivers had minds and personalities just as we do. Spirits were thought up to explain dreams, and for this reason people were held accountable for what 'they' did in someone else's dream.

For the development of religion, and the conception of deities and the soul:
The Conception of God in Ancient Israel
Monotheism  

[Radical Hypocrisy]

Gracchia Blanqui

Well... no. The concept of 'god' has gone through a lot of change and growth through time. The earliest people believed that trees and rocks and rivers had minds and personalities just as we do. Spirits were thought up to explain dreams, and for this reason people were held accountable for what 'they' did in someone else's dream.

For the development of religion, and the conception of deities and the soul:
The Conception of God in Ancient Israel
Monotheism

Perhaps I was a little too straight forward with this God thing. I didn't mean that people have a single part of the brain that automatically tells them there is a single God out there, or that there is even a God at all. Much like the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end when you're being watched, this area of the brain stimulates feelings of being surrounded/watched/looked after by something bigger than us, something eternal, to justify our short lifespan. As all parts of our brains evolved even during our very very short time being self-aware, so to would our justification of the feeling created by our own minds.

Tree spirits? Ok, there are spirits in the trees that are bigger and mightier than us. They interact with us on some level, ergo we've got a connection.

The Pantheon of Gods? Hell, they made trips into the human world simply for the Hell of it.

At some level, we're constantly trying to connect ourselves with something immortal so we can be mortal and not care.

Also, Marxists.org? Sorry, but Politics have agendas and I don't draw information from sources with agendas that deviate from the subject at hand. Not meaning to step on toes or anything, but you wouldn't take Philosophical advice from a Mathematician, and I don't plan on taking Religious teachings from a Politician.  

[Moonlight Wolf Pack]

I'll bet a lot of religious viewers were pissed off about that episode!

this does explain a lot. I read an article once about a man who was struck by lightning and then felt that they were flying upwards and looking down at their own dying body. they claimed that they felt very happy then and not afraid at all. I guess they were then under as much stress as possible and unable to ignore their mortality, so their brain found a way of coping with it.  

[=X-Sparker + AquaKiller=]

Hey I saw that episode! rofl They tried the "God helmet" on a little girl (ok fine, she was a teenager, alright?), right?

Buggy, I don't think the problem with God lies in whether he really exists or if we created him, but more in what the people do once they convinced themselves that he exists.

 

[RandomnessAndMiscellany]

I don't claim to be a neurologist, nor do I watch that show, but doesn't this mean that if someone was hit by lightning in the wrong side of the head, or if we cut out the god helmet, &c. that people would become atheist too? Essentially, are we saying this to provide proof that God was invented by humans, or to prove that parts of our brain control religion i.e. parts of our brain can make us very, or not at all religious?

Quote:

Buggy, I don't think the problem with God lies in whether he really exists or if we created him, but more in what the people do once they convinced themselves that he exists.

Care to elaborate?

Quote:

Although I kinda knew partly of this when I was little, I feel comforted that I'm not alone on this understanding.
After all, the complex of God is only created from fear of death.
Remove that and God really isn't so cool anymore.

ASSUMING that God doesn't exist (I'm an agnostic) i.e. all that "God spoke to me" stuff is caused by the brain, couldn't God also be created by:
a) Curiosity i. e. What makes earthquakes? What made the universe,
or,
b) The need to be norm with the rest of society.
In fact, these should be what creates God more often that death because many religious people are religious all of the time (putting on their cross each morning, not eating during Ramadhan), whereas people only contemplate their mortality when their about to die, and during the nightime.

Quote:

There were some good points raised about how our Universe is seemingly too perfect, and therefore must come from a creator (I subscribe to the Strong Anthropic Principle myself, which states that there are an infinite number of universes, and ours is just a random happy accident in an infinite number. The only reason it seems that it's perfect is because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here anyway, but I'm getting on a tangent.)

Out of curiosity, haven't scientists shown that life has been able to survive in climates that are on the extremes, such as volcanoes, icebergs, &c. ?

Quote:

Ergo, I find it totally reasonable to say we've found God.

Are you saying we've disproved his existence, or just have found a way to explain why religion was "invented" (assuming it was).  

[Radical Hypocrisy]

Out of curiosity, haven't scientists shown that life has been able to survive in climates that are on the extremes, such as volcanoes, icebergs, &c. ?

Yes, of course. There are things called "Water Bears" that can survive the total vacuum of space for a fair stretch longer than humans. The Strong Anthropic Principal isn't about effected Evolution by any means. It is a psychological profile of the human race. Douglas Adams put it best, and I am paraphrasing:

"Imagine a hole in the ground. When it rains, the hole becomes a puddle. The puddle sits there and thinks to itself "This is a mighty fine place for me to be. It fits me perfectly. There's not a single thing wrong with it. It must have been made to have me in it." All the while, the sun is shining down and drying up this little puddle, who is hanging onto the belief that this perfect home was made for it."

By the same token, the human race has found itself in this perfect little universe on a perfect little planet, orbiting the perfect sun, and all we think to ourselves is "Must have been made for us."

The Strong Anthropic Principal says that there are an infinite number of universes, and this one suits us so that we could evolve properly and then look out upon it and say "Nice place, I think I'll stay."

If there was anything at ALL different with this universe, human beings would not exist. End of story. Another sect of sentient creatures might, but not homosapiens. The only reason this universe is perfect for us is because there is no other way would would exist at all. Just like the puddle: No hole, no puddle. No universe, no humans.

Man the builder and tool user is always looking for the one that made him and the world. If I can pick up a hammer and build a house, then it's perfectly logical to early man that God can work His will and make the Earth.

As for the "Finding God" comment, this theory (The one about the temporal lobe holding God) is the one to which I now personally subscribe. Not everyone else has to, but it just makes sense to me is all.