Present Evidence Here II

[trdsf]

I wasn't comparing God to an emotion, I was asking about believing in things that we cannot prove.  Love is an emotion we all feel yet there is no scientific proof that love exists.  Yet we all feel it regardless of the lack of proof.

Love -- and other emotions -- at least present us with the possibility of being examined in the physical world.  A broad study of EEG, FMRI, PET, MEG and other brain function measurements may reveal identifiable traces through cerebral activity.  Physical studies may reveal specific biochemical and hormonal changes.  No doubt someone here more up on biology can think of other tests that I haven't.

Even if current data gathering techniques aren't able to resolve information on a fine enough level, that's a technical issue that can in principle be overcome.

Where is even the potential physical test for the presence of a divine entity, much less any current one?

[cabinetmaker]

Love -- and other emotions -- at least present us with the possibility of being examined in the physical world.  A broad study of EEG, FMRI, PET, MEG and other brain function measurements may reveal identifiable traces through cerebral activity.  Physical studies may reveal specific biochemical and hormonal changes.  No doubt someone here more up on biology can think of other tests that I haven't.

Even if current data gathering techniques aren't able to resolve information on a fine enough level, that's a technical issue that can in principle be overcome.

Where is even the potential physical test for the presence of a divine entity, much less any current one?

Some of these tests have been done.  There some MRI studies showing that the brain of a person in love looks like the brain of a person high on cocaine.  Interestingly, a person deep in religious thought triggers the same areas of the brain.  Love, cocaine and religion all trigger the brains reward mechanism.  What do you conclude from this data?

[Mike Cl]

Some of these tests have been done.  There some MRI studies showing that the brain of a person in love looks like the brain of a person high on cocaine.  Interestingly, a person deep in religious thought triggers the same areas of the brain.  Love, cocaine and religion all trigger the brains reward mechanism.  What do you conclude from this data?

I conclude that emotions have a actual, physical cause and that humans have evolved with them to this point.  And that god still cannot be tested for, has no empirical data to support it and is basically, a man-made fiction.

[Sargon The Grape]

Some of these tests have been done.  There some MRI studies showing that the brain of a person in love looks like the brain of a person high on cocaine.  Interestingly, a person deep in religious thought triggers the same areas of the brain.  Love, cocaine and religion all trigger the brains reward mechanism.  What do you conclude from this data?

I conclude that religion is a helluva drug.

[cabinetmaker]

I conclude that emotions have a actual, physical cause and that humans have evolved with them to this point.  And that god still cannot be tested for, has no empirical data to support it and is basically, a man-made fiction.

Do you trust your emotions?  Do you need to prove that your emotions are real and not just the result of something you ate last night.  The brain seems to react to same to both so how do you know that you are in love or just high?

[cabinetmaker]

I conclude that religion is a helluva drug.

It would not be unreasonable to conclude that faith is as real as love and drugs.

[Baruch]

Do you trust your emotions?  Do you need to prove that your emotions are real and not just the result of something you ate last night.  The brain seems to react to same to both so how do you know that you are in love or just high?

Kibitzing, sorry.  Don't fall into the trap of epistemological reductionism?  Materialists and Pythagoreans do that.  I am a humanist and an empiricist, I find scientism, rationalism, Pythagoreanism to be reductionist ... and therefore limited (but I can use them professionally).  Epistemological fundies reject all metaphysics, all value theory, all subjectivity.

So since proof involves objectivity, no, you can't prove what emotion you have, or what it means to you, or why it would have any meaning to anyone else, it is correlation error to use PET scans etc to analyze it.  But demand for proof is a fallacy itself.  I can't prove I am typing this, but I don't need to either.  Proof only applies in logic and math, not in natural language theater ... aka rhetoric, propaganda, dialectic.

[Baruch]

It would not be unreasonable to conclude that faith is as real as love and drugs.

"Real" is a metaphysical concept.  Epistemological fundies and physicists expropriate it to defend their own minimalist position.

In their position, love and faith are unreasonable, drugs are reasonable.  You can demonstrate drugs with chemistry, and with clinical trials.  Anything that involves introspection falls under confirmation bias.

Also be careful with "faith" if by that you mean "belief".  Epistemologists will tear apart "belief" as unjustified.  Originally "faith" equals "fides" equals "trustworthiness".  It has to do with relationship between people, not the psychological state of an individual.

[Unbeliever]

It would not be unreasonable to conclude that faith is as real as love and drugs.

What do you mean "faith is real"? So what? That's no indication that the object of that faith is indeed real.

Reason is a lighthouse, faith is the rocks below.

[Mike Cl]

Do you trust your emotions?  Do you need to prove that your emotions are real and not just the result of something you ate last night.  The brain seems to react to same to both so how do you know that you are in love or just high?

Do I trust my emotions?  Some of them I do.  Most of them, actually---at this point in my life.  Whatever emotion(s) I am feeling right now I can check on for source and how does this emotion feel like.  It was/is through trial and error I learned what particular emotions made me feel and led me to either trust those feelings or not to.  I am not very steeped in any of those scientific studies about emotions and where they come from, so I can't comment on those much.  But if getting high and being in love affect the same part of the brain, it does not mean that the same feelings are the result of that stimulation.  Being high is a temporary thing.  Being in love can be temporary but if it is not, then it most likely is love and not infatuation.  That's a harder test--are you in love or infatuated with them/it.  Time will tell and I learned what each emotion felt like and when I could trust that what I was feeling was love or infatuation.  And then I acted in accordance with those feelings. 

God does not offer anything outwardly.  I love somebody or something.  God is neither--god is a fiction.  I might as well say I worship and love Bugs Bunny; god and Bugs offer the same reality--fictional.

[trdsf]

Some of these tests have been done.  There some MRI studies showing that the brain of a person in love looks like the brain of a person high on cocaine.  Interestingly, a person deep in religious thought triggers the same areas of the brain.  Love, cocaine and religion all trigger the brains reward mechanism.  What do you conclude from this data?

Not being a researcher in the area myself, and not being a biologist of any stripe (I took bio in high school with the explicit intention of getting it over with once and for all, and that was in 1976), I conclude only that more research needs to be done so it can be understood well enough to distill it down to a level I can understand.  :)

However, that connection does make a certain amount of sense.  Love and religious belief are both powerful perception-altering mental activities; cocaine is a powerful perception alterant.  Also remember that there are only just so many neurotransmitters to work with, and only so many ccs of brain, so we shouldn't be surprised to see many things using similar areas.

If I had to hazard a guess, and it's only a guess because I'm just not au courant with the current state of consciousness research, the connection has to to with addictionâ€"to another person (love), to an idea (god) or to a chemical (cocaine).  In the absence of chemical intake, the cerebral cortex does its best to explain the underlying biochemical changes affecting it.  Emotions at that point are really just the label we apply to a set of un- or sub- or even non-consciously controlled chemical changes in the brain.

One last pointâ€"I'm familiar in outline with the research on the effects of religion on the brain.  It's worth noting that the effects appear related only to religiosity, not to the specific religion of the person under study.  This is exactly what we would expect to see if religion was a completely human-made social construct.  Otherwise, if Christianity were 'correct', we should see differences between Christians and at least non-Judeo-Christo-Islamic adherents; if Wiccans are correct, we should see differences between them and non-Wiccans; and so on.  We don't see that; we see similar activity across all believers.  Since it is not possible for all religions to be true, the only consistent result we can infer from that is that either none of them are, or that they're all wrong to precisely the same degree.

The latter is also not possible -- if there are three gods, dualist Pagans are 'more correct' than monotheists.  If there is something that exists in a non-countable state, Buddhists are 'more correct' than mono- and polytheists.

In short, the MRI data on religious thought tends to support the idea that religion is man-made and internal, rather than divinely imposed and external.

[trdsf]

Do you trust your emotions?  Do you need to prove that your emotions are real and not just the result of something you ate last night.  The brain seems to react to same to both so how do you know that you are in love or just high?

I know I haven't done any chemical alterants other than caffeine.  And I can be drug-tested to demonstrate that I'm not high.

Obviously, the brain is going to react similarly to similar stimuli -- and that's independent of the trigger cause of the stimulus.  Kind of like how 4 is 4 whether you're getting it by multiplying 2x2 or -2x-2.

[cabinetmaker]

Not being a researcher in the area myself, and not being a biologist of any stripe (I took bio in high school with the explicit intention of getting it over with once and for all, and that was in 1976), I conclude only that more research needs to be done so it can be understood well enough to distill it down to a level I can understand.  :)

However, that connection does make a certain amount of sense.  Love and religious belief are both powerful perception-altering mental activities; cocaine is a powerful perception alterant.  Also remember that there are only just so many neurotransmitters to work with, and only so many ccs of brain, so we shouldn't be surprised to see many things using similar areas.

If I had to hazard a guess, and it's only a guess because I'm just not au courant with the current state of consciousness research, the connection has to to with addictionâ€"to another person (love), to an idea (god) or to a chemical (cocaine).  In the absence of chemical intake, the cerebral cortex does its best to explain the underlying biochemical changes affecting it.  Emotions at that point are really just the label we apply to a set of un- or sub- or even non-consciously controlled chemical changes in the brain.

One last pointâ€"I'm familiar in outline with the research on the effects of religion on the brain.  It's worth noting that the effects appear related only to religiosity, not to the specific religion of the person under study.  This is exactly what we would expect to see if religion was a completely human-made social construct.  Otherwise, if Christianity were 'correct', we should see differences between Christians and at least non-Judeo-Christo-Islamic adherents; if Wiccans are correct, we should see differences between them and non-Wiccans; and so on.  We don't see that; we see similar activity across all believers.  Since it is not possible for all religions to be true, the only consistent result we can infer from that is that either none of them are, or that they're all wrong to precisely the same degree.

The latter is also not possible -- if there are three gods, dualist Pagans are 'more correct' than monotheists.  If there is something that exists in a non-countable state, Buddhists are 'more correct' than mono- and polytheists.

In short, the MRI data on religious thought tends to support the idea that religion is man-made and internal, rather than divinely imposed and external.

Scientific research can only take us so far.  It is not long before we enter the realm of speculation regardless of which side of the line you are on.  I speculate that the brain responds to a stimuli such as cocaine or the presence of another person.  If this is true, then could the stimuli that triggers the "religious experience response" be the presence of God in that persons experience?

[Unbeliever]

No, it couldn't be the presence of God, since no such thing exists, but it could be a hallucination or simply a delusion, or wishful thinking.

[trdsf]

Scientific research can only take us so far.  It is not long before we enter the realm of speculation regardless of which side of the line you are on.  I speculate that the brain responds to a stimuli such as cocaine or the presence of another person.  If this is true, then could the stimuli that triggers the "religious experience response" be the presence of God in that persons experience?

The determinant is not "you can't say it's not this", the determinant is "the data says this".  There is absolutely zero justification to make the assumption that any divine power was involved without evidence beforehand.

"It could be this" is not evidence, nor is it even a theory.  It's the barest speculation that lacks even the slightest independent data pointing in that direction.  All you're doing here is presupposing the result you want, and when you do that, you've abandoned the scientific method.