What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
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Re: What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
#2Most non-religious people are "passionately committed to some ideology or other," explains Patrick McNamara, a neurology professor at Boston University School of Medicine. - so swapping one ideology for another.
Funnily enough a synonym for ideology is belief. I wonder if getting rid of ALL beliefs (not just the unfashionable ones) is becoming more interesting to people.
Re: What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
#3In Southeast Asia, people that don’t believe in religion are called “free thinkers”. As someone that escaped the allegorical cave of religion, I really love that.
I can indeed confirm that the most intense feelings of communion with God are replicable with expressions of music or philosophy, in the right context. I really enjoyed this article!
Re: What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
#4Fun fact: In the former GDR the percentage of people who never believed in god was 59% and only 13% believed in god at all time. Contrast this to the Philippines where the percentage of believers is 94%. In the US 81% believe in god.
https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article106198838/Kaum-ei...
Re: What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
#5A great deal of speculation in that article. Sounds more like psycotherapy ideas than real psychology/neuroscience.
Meanwhile, let's look at the (paraphrased) claims:
"Science is not compatible with religion."
Yet the Big Bang theory was invented by a physicist who went on to become a Catholic priest, George Lemaitre. And the father of modern genetics is not Darwin but a catholic monk, Gregor Mendel. hmmm. Both had google doodles recently.
"Evolution and creationism are not reconcileable."
But Christianity has never had a formal dogma that the Bible is literally true as a historical document (but neither any reason prior to modern science to think otherwise, but that misses the point). 3/4 of Christianity is fine with evolution and the Big Bang, and 14 billion years, and for Catholics even the existence of aliens. It's arguable that the rest are just reacting to Atheist claims, clutching to a dogma that doesn't exist because they are simple and uneducated Christians who don't know better.
"There is no evidence of a god."
But this claim has to discount those who claim to personally know a god as deluded. That's clearly a fallacy. Sure, spiritual 'contact' doesn't give 3rd party verification (the 3rd party being an agnostic who hasn't had such contact), and will not satisfy the determinedly materialistic who will only accept physical evidence, but what evidence of a spiritual God can we expect in the material universe?
More importantly, wouldn't a god be able to give proof of itself? And wouldn't that proof, if it were a personal god as claimed, be person to person communing? The author evidently did not actually personally know the god she eventually rejected and by a Christian standard never had faith.
Faith "Belief without evidence". Thanks for that presumptious redefinition, Bertrand Russell, but that is not a Christian or religious definition and has no etymological roots. Sure makes them look silly, though. The real definition of faith is more to do with direct personal knowledge of a god.
Or let's take Dawkins favourite argument "Who made God?". But this was answered by Thomas Aquinas centuries ago. A thing whose nature/essence is existence, to exist, self-evidently exists. Since it must also self-evidently exist of itself, and is therefore self-referencing, the real question is not "Is there a god" but "Is this self-referencing fundamental thing also self-aware?". Either Dawkins is ignorant or he's lying by ommission (which he already does with evolution).
But here's the kicker: an atheist beleives that there is no god - which is why they quite outrageously call religious persons deluded as no agnostic would - yet there is no proof of the non-existence of a supreme being.
So while atheists are always irrational whether or not there is a god, religious persons are only irrational if there isn't a god.
The irony is wonderful. Faith as "Belief without evidence" applies to atheists more than religious persons.
What's your best atheist argument? I can pretty much defeat any atheist argument.
Re: What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
#6I personally disagree with Thalia Goldstein's "Kids don't just turn [belief] off,"
I remember specifically that my parents dispelled the Santa myth to me very early, I think in or before 1st grade. One day at my Catholic school, each of us had made little gingerbread houses and left them on a table by the windows. After going out for recess, we came back to a few of them being broken (later found out from the janitor trying to fix the blinds) and they told us it was Santa coming by to check on us. I knew it was BS then and it made me a young skeptic. I was obsessed with when they told us that the Holy Spirit was all around us but couldn't be seen. I couldn't get over that and figured if they would lie about Santa, they would lie about God.
It made for an unpleasant 12 years in Catholic schools. I've since let go of any anger and active Atheism and am happy with a passive Apatheism.
Re: What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
#7A great deal of speculation in that article. Sounds more like psycotherapy ideas than real psychology/neuroscience. Meanwhile, let's look at the (paraphrased) claims: "Science is not compatible with religion." Yet the Big Bang theory was invented by a physicist who went on to become a Catholic priest, George Lemaitre. And the father of modern genetics is not Darwin but a catholic monk, Gregor Mendel. hmmm. Both had g…
Rather than Atheist arguments, I prefer how the Church of Satan deals with religion, challenging hypocrisy with silly but strong legal arguments. I think Atheists should change from arguing whether a god exists or not to challenging the self-serving frauds found in fundamentalist churches in the US Bible Belt. So much money and time is wasted in those mega-churches that could be better spent actually helping those in need.
Re: What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
#8A great deal of speculation in that article. Sounds more like psycotherapy ideas than real psychology/neuroscience. Meanwhile, let's look at the (paraphrased) claims: "Science is not compatible with religion." Yet the Big Bang theory was invented by a physicist who went on to become a Catholic priest, George Lemaitre. And the father of modern genetics is not Darwin but a catholic monk, Gregor Mendel. hmmm. Both had g…
"But here's the kicker: an atheist beleives that there is no god"
Nope. A-theist simply means someone who lacks theism. I don't posit that there is no god, I simply don't believe there is any evidence or reason for me to believe in one. The burden of proof is yours my friend.
"What's your best atheist argument?"
I don't need one any more than I need a "best argument" against the existence of pixies. The default position is not to believe in something without a good reason. Why would we?
As soon as you can provide any solid scientific evidence that a god exists, then we can talk.
Re: What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
#9I personally disagree with Thalia Goldstein's "Kids don't just turn [belief] off," I remember specifically that my parents dispelled the Santa myth to me very early, I think in or before 1st grade. One day at my Catholic school, each of us had made little gingerbread houses and left them on a table by the windows. After going out for recess, we came back to a few of them being broken (later found out from the janitor…
I wonder if there are some sort of benefits from the Santa myth and subsequent dispelling of it? Is this how you make people critical?
Re: What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
#10This is a trash article, it doesn't talk about how your brain changes when you stop believing its just a bunch of personal opinion.
> Religion works exactly like a drug—like cocaine, or methamphetamine
No it does not, the chemical reactions in your brain are not like taking meth. I see this constantly its like they think their audience are just a bunch of druggies and to make something relatable they have to say "its like drugs!". I have tried cocaine and can say first hand it's nothing like sitting in church.