[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by glatt

We both know you were responding to my post, not to some post from another time. I foolishly took your bait and went back through the thread again to see where others were talking about the scientific studies of the temporal lobes and their relation to religion. Of course I found none. Perhaps you can point to them directly since I'm obviously blind.

I don't particularly care to be called a liar. It's on the God? Faith? thread, post # 96, 97 and 98, posted by Troubleshooter about a book he is reading on that very subject.

My post was simply to put some cold hard facts out there that can be backed up through repeatable experiments by anyone that has the ability to do so. Nobody else in this thread has added science into the mix in such a specific way. It's all been theories in the absence of facts.

But there is absolutely NO WAY to say that any given person's religious type experience is a direct result of electrical stimuli in the temporal lobe. Yes, Im sure they can be induced by stimuli, but that doesn't mean ALL RE's are caused by that.

You may not believe in the science,

Of course I believe in science. I just don't swallow some theoretical hypothesis without better evidence than one study.

but the people who took part in those experiments beleive that they saw God when their brains were zapped. We can zap them again and they will see God again. Unlike the theory of evolution, it's a repeatable experiment.

For those people. Not every person has been tested. I haven't seen the results of the study, so I don't know their methodology, or their sample groups. I don't know what them seeing God was like for them, or how that would differ from me seeing God.

You can draw various conclusions from the data, but the data itself is good.

The data is good for those patients. Not necessarily every human will experience the same thing.

Two obvious conclusions are a) this part of the brain sees God, so God is a hallucination or b) this part of the brain sees God, so God is real.

I disagree with that. I think a murderer or Satanist who got zapped may think they see God, but is it really God or is it a product of energized brain neurons firing in a random pattern?

Do you see what I'm saying here? Electrical activity is NOT the same as God revealing himself to you.

Perhaps you have a different conclusion?

Again, I haven't seen the study or taken part in the study, therefore I cannot draw a conclusion regarding that hypothesis.



edit: Just because you don't see something you're looking for doesn't mean it doesn't exist.