Gul dern ... see what ya made me do now?
Posted on 02/11/2010 11:08:39 PM PST by jerry557
Scientists have identified areas of the brain that, when damaged, lead to greater spirituality. The findings hint at the roots of spiritual and religious attitudes, the researchers say.
The study, published in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Neuron, involves a personality trait called self-transcendence, which is a somewhat vague measure of spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors. Self-transcendence "reflects a decreased sense of self and an ability to identify one's self as an integral part of the universe as a whole," the researchers explain.
Before and after surgery, the scientists surveyed patients who had brain tumors removed. The surveys generate self-transcendence scores.
Selective damage to the left and right posterior parietal regions of the brain induced a specific increase in self-transcendence, or ST, the surveys showed.
"Our symptom-lesion mapping study is the first demonstration of a causative link between brain functioning and ST," said Dr. Cosimo Urgesi from the University of Udine in Italy. "Damage to posterior parietal areas induced unusually fast changes of a stable personality dimension related to transcendental self-referential awareness. Thus, dysfunctional parietal neural activity may underpin altered spiritual and religious attitudes and behaviors."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
A long time ago there was a man who was a respected worker until he suffered accidental brain damage - and lost his conscience.
Uhmm .. OK!?
Basically it means that there is a difference in a key personality trait that is linked to spirituality/religion when certain areas of the brain are damaged.
alah hu akbar !
Always thought that was located in the heart...
That’s what these ‘experts’ don’t know. Let’s keep them ignorant, like the climate experts.
Gul dern ... see what ya made me do now?
Did they find the area of the brain that created the Universe?
It means that these researchers are dopes. I could walk down the street with a Glock and pump a round into the chest of a couple dozen people, and I can pretty much guarantee you that all of them will have a heightened state of transcendental self-referential awareness. If need be I can repeat the experiment as many times as you like, with similar results. I have therefore just demonstrated a causal relationship.
Excellent.
In Biblical Greek, the soul is comprised of the mind and heart, with the mind being an return chamber and the heart being the discharge chamber of thought.
The spirit is frequently discussed as also being linked to the soul, but not a component within the soul. Every human at birth is essentially born physically without a pure spirit from the consequences of sin in the human race, genetically passed from one generation to the next. Upon faith in Christ, it is recognized a rebirth of the human spirit occurs from which and in which God the Holy Spirit indwells the believer.
That spirit, then is able to receive pure righteous perception in faith, which also may be used to input thinking into the soul (mind). Then the righteous thinking as developed in the mind, becomes associated with recall and language, becomes an outward knowledge formed in the ‘heart’. Upon testing of the soul, the heart manifests the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the believer as faith, also as a type of faith called ‘doctrine’.
liberals saying that anyone with spiritual beliefs has brain damage
gee... not too condescending.
of course, liberals could easily be classified as sociopaths
That is precisely what I took from this, as well. You summed it up quite nicely.
There is no God. It’s just a mechanical function of the brain that leads people to feel that there’s a God. Ultimately that’s what this says.
There is no end in the attempt to dethrone God.
additional:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2450127/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2450438/posts
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