One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
MBPrata
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One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by MBPrata »

http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsc ... ryid=11335
When in doubt, the human brain is more likely to tell its owner that they're under the gaze of another person
Sigh...that feeling that we sometimes have that God is looking at us? Yeah, seems that it's just our flawed brain making us believe in stuff that isn't real. Again. As if it didn't do that often enough.

And, yes, I do realize God is not "another person". Still, the idea of a God has its similarities with a person: the idea of someone intelligent, judgemental that has the ability to percept us and take conclusion from what he/she captures from us.

And neurology (or brain studies, whatever...) keeps giving us evidence we can't trust our own brain. Just another Tuesday for them...
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by abelcainsbrother »

MBPrata wrote:http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsc ... ryid=11335
When in doubt, the human brain is more likely to tell its owner that they're under the gaze of another person
Sigh...that feeling that we sometimes have that God is looking at us? Yeah, seems that it's just our flawed brain making us believe in stuff that isn't real. Again. As if it didn't do that often enough.

And, yes, I do realize God is not "another person". Still, the idea of a God has its similarities with a person: the idea of someone intelligent, judgemental that has the ability to percept us and take conclusion from what he/she captures from us.

And neurology (or brain studies, whatever...) keeps giving us evidence we can't trust our own brain. Just another Tuesday for them...
I don't see how you interpret it the way you do.because I don't know if you've heard of Rupert Sheldrake but this supports things he has been trying to make a point about.Like when someone is staring at you,you notice or like when a dog senses his owner returning it gets excited and knows somehow.So this seems to be just confirming some of the points Sheldrake has been trying to make.
I was watching a video on YouTube the other night with Rupert Sheldrake talking about these kinds of things but the dogma in science to reject these kinds of things.
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by abelcainsbrother »

Rupert Sheldrake The science delusion: Why materialism is not the answer.

https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=mR1SLQwHDog
Hebrews 12:2-3 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,despising the shame,and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

2nd Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not,lest the light of this glorious gospel of Christ,who is the image of God,should shine unto them.
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by Storyteller »

MBPrata wrote:http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsc ... ryid=11335
When in doubt, the human brain is more likely to tell its owner that they're under the gaze of another person
Sigh...that feeling that we sometimes have that God is looking at us? Yeah, seems that it's just our flawed brain making us believe in stuff that isn't real. Again. As if it didn't do that often enough.

And, yes, I do realize God is not "another person". Still, the idea of a God has its similarities with a person: the idea of someone intelligent, judgemental that has the ability to percept us and take conclusion from what he/she captures from us.

And neurology (or brain studies, whatever...) keeps giving us evidence we can't trust our own brain. Just another Tuesday for them...
How does that provide a reason that belief in God is delusional?
Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof - Kahlil Gibran
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by bippy123 »

abelcainsbrother wrote:
MBPrata wrote:http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsc ... ryid=11335
When in doubt, the human brain is more likely to tell its owner that they're under the gaze of another person
Sigh...that feeling that we sometimes have that God is looking at us? Yeah, seems that it's just our flawed brain making us believe in stuff that isn't real. Again. As if it didn't do that often enough.

And, yes, I do realize God is not "another person". Still, the idea of a God has its similarities with a person: the idea of someone intelligent, judgemental that has the ability to percept us and take conclusion from what he/she captures from us.

And neurology (or brain studies, whatever...) keeps giving us evidence we can't trust our own brain. Just another Tuesday for them...





I don't see how you interpret it the way you do.because I don't know if you've heard of Rupert Sheldrake but this supports things he has been trying to make a point about.Like when someone is staring at you,you notice or like when a dog senses his owner returning it gets excited and knows somehow.So this seems to be just confirming some of the points Sheldrake has been trying to make.
I was watching a video on YouTube the other night with Rupert Sheldrake talking about these kinds of things but the dogma in science to reject these kinds of things.

Speaking of rupert sheldrake , this is the psychic dog experiment which arch skeptic atheist Richard wiseman tried repeatedly to debunk.

In this video when the owner even though of going home to her house even when she was 5 miles away the dog went to the front if the door/window and waited for her . This was shown repeatedly , over and over again on a split screen camera . No one to this day could debunk it .

http://youtu.be/DkrLJhBC3X4
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by MBPrata »

How does that provide a reason that belief in God is delusional?
A reason to think that belief in God is delusional. It's different.

How? Well, by finding out that the feeling that we have "someone" looking at us is not a "spiritual" feeling; it's brought the usual electricity circulating in our brain.

As for the rest...I don't even know Rupert Sheldrake and I couldn't open the link. I guess I have some research to do...
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by SoCalExile »

Amazing what people will subscribe to in order to in order to ignore their own consciences.
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by Nicki »

MBPrata wrote:http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsc ... ryid=11335
When in doubt, the human brain is more likely to tell its owner that they're under the gaze of another person
Sigh...that feeling that we sometimes have that God is looking at us? Yeah, seems that it's just our flawed brain making us believe in stuff that isn't real. Again. As if it didn't do that often enough.

And, yes, I do realize God is not "another person". Still, the idea of a God has its similarities with a person: the idea of someone intelligent, judgemental that has the ability to percept us and take conclusion from what he/she captures from us.

And neurology (or brain studies, whatever...) keeps giving us evidence we can't trust our own brain. Just another Tuesday for them...
Hmm... I thought that would be about having the feeling that someone's watching you even though you can't see anyone, but it's about judging which way someone's looking. A bit of self-consciousness/ self-centredness I suppose? It's hard to apply it to God when we can't usually see him and he's supposed to be observing everything at once anyway.
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by B. W. »

MBPrata wrote:
How does that provide a reason that belief in God is delusional?
A reason to think that belief in God is delusional. It's different.

How? Well, by finding out that the feeling that we have "someone" looking at us is not a "spiritual" feeling; it's brought the usual electricity circulating in our brain...

A reason to think that unbelief in God is delusional. It's different.

How? Well, by finding out that the sentiment that we have "nobody" looking at us is not a "physical" feeling; it's brought the usual electricity circulating in our brain....

So therefore why cannot it be that unbelief in God is what is delusional?
SoCalExile wrote:Amazing what people will subscribe to in order to in order to ignore their own consciences.
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by dfnj »

My problem with the article is "our brains generate assumptions" that our minds are capable of understanding how our brains work. We have 100 billion neurons in our brains. What if you need 10 times, 100 times, or even 1000 times that many in order to be able to fully comprehend how the mind works. Our mind is capable of having one thinking imaginary reality. You may need more than a 100 billion neurons just to visualize the intracies of 100 billion neurons all working together. What if in order to understand how the mind works you need a 100 billion imaginary realities all thinking at once simultaneously making comparisons between each set of neurons in order to synthesize a working model for how the brain functions. Without comparisons between data sets you will not be able to recognize any patterns in each of the 100 billion neurons. The problem is not just making all the comparisons, but having a way of representing and storing all the information. It's a big problem.

Science is really good at reducing simple patterns of nature's behavior into simple mathematical representations. Science is not very good at collating meaningful results out of billions of instances of simple rules working independently from each other.

In the article, it claims our brains generate assumptions of paranoia which makes us turn our heads to meet someone's staring gaze. Billions of neurons randomly popping away creating an image of an imaginary gaze just as a way to keep us safe by being paranoid may be a possible explanation. In a limited view of reality, many of our measurement results will appear to be random. But reality is much more complicated.

Reality is so much more than our imagination of it. The fabric of reality may consist of an infinite number of dimensions and depth. Particles are made of smaller particles which are made of smaller particles which are yet made of smaller particles. The only thing that stops us from measuring new smaller particles is the particles we use for measuring particles are too big.

In this deep fabric of reality, the human mind with its 100 billion neurons certainly could be experiencing signals of information beyond our familiar spectrums. And in those signals, we could certainly have connections with other nearby minds. And even further, it may be possibe we can even experience a signal of information which is so deep, so profound, that we can only give it a single of word to represent it. This deep profound signal of information may be connecting us with a much larger reality that we simply cannot put into words. This God signal could be the Tibetan OM or the "cosmic sound" or "mystical syllable".

OM

A delusion is a firmly held belief that is kept in spite of contradictory evidence. It seems to me there is no contradictory evidence presented by the article to suggest any false delusions. I think there is more weight for the contrary view that having the belief in a finite Universe is delusional given all our experiences with nature's bahaviors.
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by neo-x »

MBPrata wrote:http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsc ... ryid=11335
When in doubt, the human brain is more likely to tell its owner that they're under the gaze of another person
Sigh...that feeling that we sometimes have that God is looking at us? Yeah, seems that it's just our flawed brain making us believe in stuff that isn't real. Again. As if it didn't do that often enough.

And, yes, I do realize God is not "another person". Still, the idea of a God has its similarities with a person: the idea of someone intelligent, judgemental that has the ability to percept us and take conclusion from what he/she captures from us.

And neurology (or brain studies, whatever...) keeps giving us evidence we can't trust our own brain. Just another Tuesday for them...
That may be an evolutionary trait, this behavior is loosely present in animals as well when they kill and then look out for anymore predators just to make sure no one is after them or their kill.

But anyway is it a reason to think a belief in God is delusional, perhaps. But I would go on an then say that the brain can't say otherwise. It is as you said a flaw, like the calculator turning out an error because it can't compute the input sum or its contents in whole.

Is it as reason to think belief in God/Gods is delusional? to some extent, and in the case of some peoples' belief yes, I agree but then what I do about the hundreds of millions of faiths which believe in God for various reasons and experience?

Faith is at some point, not totally based on rational logic and sense of consequence. Somewhere, one has to make a leap of faith and believe in the impossible. That is what faith really us. It can't be completely broken down. We can do research after research that the Gospels are accurate or near accurate but at some point you have to take a step of faith and believe that Christ rose from the dead. No research can prove that for a christian. There it is. Either you believe or you don't.
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by MBPrata »

How? Well, by finding out that the sentiment that we have "nobody" looking at us is not a "physical" feeling; it's brought the usual electricity circulating in our brain...
Huh?! That doesn't make sense. y:-/

Number one, where does the article focus on a feeling that we have nobody looking at us? Number two, "knowing" that the feeling that we have nobody looking at us is not a physical thing is more of an argument against God than an argument for Him. Number three, electricity circulating in our brain sounds pretty physical to me. Like...it's inside the laws of physics. And our brain operating sounds like something pretty physical to me. It's a machine working, not a soul observing...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like your sentence would make more sense if you replaced the word "physical" for "spiritual". Just saying...

PS: Still researching on Rupert Sheldrake. It's not been easy. I'm afraid I'll have to buy a book...
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by PaulSacramento »

So, what neurology is doing is telling us not to trust our brains.
I wonder what organ the neurologists are using to come to that conclusion, certainly can't be the brain because if so, they can't trust their conclusions...
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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by RickD »

PaulSacramento wrote:So, what neurology is doing is telling us not to trust our brains.
I wonder what organ the neurologists are using to come to that conclusion, certainly can't be the brain because if so, they can't trust their conclusions...
You haven't posted in over a month, and that's the best you've got? :wave:

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Re: One more reason to think a belief in a God is delusional...

Post by Kurieuo »

Got more likes than anything you've posted recently Rick. :poke:
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