<<I love and feel warmth in my heart,..and is religion..some sort of virus?>>i think of religion/much the same as science...claiming..;natural selection...when natural...isn't science.isn't science method

Yes UOG, mankind is at a stop at this present time. All we can do is wait for the next development. Sorry if I seem hard at times, but the hunt for truth must go on. We( mankind ) are still very primitive at this time and for all we know, well, is very little.

I prefer to put my faith in mankind and this earth, after all, the nit-picking has been exhausted. Only one conclusion remains, we still on both sides, Have no bloody clue at all. Speculation and suspicion is going to waste our time even further. The planet is unwell, maybe in time all 3 consciouses will join and what we all are seeking, will come to light for the best intentions and not the purposes of hate or greed.

Thank-you for your response.

csteele,

Being able to explain romantic love biologically is no different to explaining colour vision. On one hand, we can enjoy the experience; on the other hand, we can understand what is going on.

I guess religious belief is a different case, if, as might be the case, the neocortex confabulates conditions to mediate the survival instincts of the limbic system and the fear rseponses of the amygdala. Here, it it would harder to indwell in the religious experience and understand the phenomenon at the same time. One would have to make a choice, I suspect.

Oliver,
>> it would (be) harder to indwell in the religious experience and understand the phenomenon at the same time<<
Do you mean to say that it is also harder to “indwell in the experience” of speaking English and understand its grammar (e.g. its idioms) at the same time? Or that you have to be blind in order to understand the physics of optics? I am sure you could describe in neuroscientific terms also the functioning of the brain of an English speaker when he/she hears English, as different from that of somebody who does not understand English. Nevertheless, understanding these differences is not the same as understanding English.

What conclusions can you draw from that except that we use our brain to do rational thinking, to evaluate and appreciate the input of experiences, sensual, religious or what you have. Or do you think that the brain treats religious inputs - whether in their rational, aesthetic (liturgic, ritual) or moral form - that much differently? And if, then why? Do you agree with Andrew Newberg (http://www.andrewnewberg.com/qna.asp) that our brain is pre-wired to experience spiritual states, or God (in whatever culturally determined representation), like it is “pre-wired” to understand mathematics and through it the workings of physical reality, or like our eyes are “pre-wired” to experience light?

I also doubt you could conclude about the substance of my religious beliefs or faith (whether they refer to something really “existing” or are just Dawkinsian delusions) merely from measuring my brain activities, any more than you could make conclusions about whether my understanding of (this or that part of) mathematics is right or wrong just by means of electrodes attached to my brain. This comes to one‘s mind when people conclude that “God is just in your brain” solely from studying the functioning of our brain. Of course, I have no reason to believe that you too jump to that conclusion.

I think the interesting thing that religion shows, is that mankind are capable of believing the most patent bullsh/t, so that it seems there is positively an adaptation for it. One must wonder then how could natural selection work to promote a tendency to perceive things that are false?

Some say that religious belief in humans evolves as a matter of sexual selection. According to this theory, the human mind is like a software version of the peacock’s tail. It doesn’t matter that the beliefs are factually true or not, any more than it matters that the peacock’s tail does not assist, or may actively hinder, his survival. So long as one considers the trait when agreeing to sex, it it will tend to be selected. And the moreso where the belief system, as with patriarchal ones, tends to increase the chances of survival of offspring.

Grim
I maintain that statism is indistinguishable from religious belief.

Perfect socialism and perfect markets cannot exist even in theory: no civilisation could exist under them. Perfect socialism would be incapable of economic calculation (no prices for capital goods because no market for them). And perfect markets would be a state of equilibrium or non-action.

If you have to argue by such rhetorical devices as “a handful of obscenely rich, totally dehumanised individuals” perhaps you had better give the game away.

Prices come from the actions of everyone in buying or selling, or abstaining from buying or selling.

So there is no need to make a false dichotomy between political decision-making by democracy, or by an infallible person. You have not shown any reason why any decision-making should be by political process in the first place.

And your belief that decision-making by "Democracy" most nearly approaches perfection is indistinguishable from a belief in a superhuman entity, over and above society, that is imbued with superior knowledge, virtue and capacity.

While perfection is not of this world, what we can say is that private property and voluntary exchange provide for the satisfaction of human wants as best we know how; which states can only reduce.

Gentlemen, There are 3 possibilities to what is truth and what is not. The brain can be convinced of absolutely anything, which all would agree. The answers begins right back at the start. When instinct left us and the conscious mind began, was the beginning of all things religious, such as eg, the bull god or the great sun god and so on, this is only 5 million years of guess work, and nothing has changed.

Possibilities are,

1. We have evolved by chemical chance.

2. One of the gods made us and all we see.

3. A higher evolved form of life, we simply could not comprehend.
Hence( God is not what you think it is)

"that our brain is pre-wired to experience" which Georges link has provided, is the backbone to our curiosity, and since that can run wild, Go back to my last post.
The brain must be trained to fit the time we now live in, The book was the guide, and now as one, we must guide ourselves, or where does it stop?

Belief is a main component, faith is its energy, and trust is its drive, and the not knowing of all 3, is why we have come so far.

Continued...

Dear Oliver,

<< the neocortex confabulates conditions to mediate the survival instincts of the limbic system and the fear responses of the amygdala>>

Whew, UOG was easy. Can one confabulate a condition?

Anyway we have all experienced our mates confabulating away over some girl (obviously to mediate the sexual instincts driven by their reproductive systems :)) telling us she is the most beautiful creature in the world and he can't see life being possible without her. We know he is deluded of course because the most beautiful creature in the world is the one we have our arm around.

Having colour vision is not the same as romantic love, it is more like having a penis. In the case of a male, having that particular appendage certainly plays a big role in the foundations of romantic love but sitting down to write poetry to the object of that love would be a lot harder if one was to contemplate that, driven by the nucleus accumbens, one's primary goal was insemination.

With colour vision just having it is not the issue, but going into raptures over the glory of a rainbow, or a mist shrouded Uluru, or a beautiful woman must entail letting the imagination intervene, in other words confabulating like hell.

Your statement could just as easily read; “I guess this raises the question of whether society should allow some of its kind to believe in the romantic nature of sex, because romanticism has existed as a sustaining societal meme or, do we treat the condition with neuro-psycho pharmacologic solutions. Herein, the challenge would be to inhibit the overzealous networking of brain neurons which inappropriately reinforce delusions.”

For now I will stand by my question; should we be including romantic love when we turf out religion? Or do we both agree they are part of our human make-up and work to mitigate their excesses rather than terminate their existences?