Religion and neuroscience

[WilyWestbrook0]

This article may be old news, but it addresses important aspects of religion and neuroscience that I wish we would take into account more often:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...t-1641022.html

The entire article is worth examining in context, but I thought I'd highlight this particular part:

"They found that people of different religious persuasions and beliefs, as well as atheists, all tended to use the same electrical circuits in the brain to solve a perceived moral conundrum – and the same circuits were used when religiously-inclined people dealt with issues related to God."

As some of you know, I am a theist, but I am willing to engage in all kinds of discussions with others about religion, including atheists, so long as respect is maintained (sadly, it is often not). I believe existence, our purpose, the world, and the universe are some of the most worthy things we can use our finite time to focus on in this life. That said, these sorts of studies raise lots of controversial and thought-provoking questions, such as - are there really "ethereal" things like spirits and souls and an afterlife, things that we cannot observe and prove empirically but which give many of us some comfort in an often chaotic, unpredictable life and world - or is everything we perceive simply the product of a concrete, tangible brain that grows, has its time, imagines and observes, and then simply dies with the rest of our physical body? If the latter is true, why have life at all? And how does the Creator factor into all of this? Etc.

Plenty for us to ruminate about here.

[centrehice]

Religion does not give reason's for unexplained phenomena. It gives credence to simplemindedness when perceived likenesses of certain defined divine beings are found in Grilled-Cheese Sandwiches, and Ice Cube Trays.

[shrewsbury]

and science depends upon a paradigm that when a phenomena can't be explained within it, then the phenomena is ignored until there is a paradigm shift.

[habsheaven]

Science doesn't "depend" on or "ignore" anything. Although those two words are impossible to separate from religion.

[Wickabee]

Science doesn't "depend" on or "ignore" anything. Although those two words are impossible to separate from religion.

Actually, science depends on the honesty of scientists, just as religion depends on the honesty of prophets.

[shrewsbury]

habs, science does rely on a paradigm, and always has, I would suggest reading Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolution".

a paradigm represents a way of “seeing” the world. For scientists, this means that professional inquiries begin with a set of assumptions about reality. These assumptions determine the scope and direction of exploration and experimentation.

. A paradigm
provides an ongoing research community with a framework for ‘normal science.’
Science education is an initiation into the habits of thought presented in standards
texts and into the practices of established scientists.

A new paradigm can occur after so many irregular happenings accumulate, which are inexplicable by the old paradigm or by a sudden appearance of a new theory or a discovery by a genius.