Salyavin, I've been wondering about this: what if "God" is simply what people call it when, let's say, 99% of their brain is functioning in a very, very healthy way? I do think there are some people, in all spiritual and or religious systems and even outside of them, who have 99% of their brain functioning in a very, very healthy way. I find it fascinating that they then speak about God or Brahman or Allah, etc.
Is this not worthy of scientific exploration? I say let's hook some of these people up to an fMRI machine and see what's going on. Then let's continue the discussions on that basis. Otherwise, not even the scientists are being very scientific! As for me, I suspect that this is what's going on with such individuals. I think they have a whole lot more of their brain functioning healthily than I do. So I'm willing to pay attention to what they say. Because I'd love to get to that same point, have a brain that's optimally functioning. On Monday, February 17, 2014 1:12 AM, salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote: comments below ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote: Exactly. Just as Brahman is not a proper name, but Brahma is (or Zeus, or Wotan, etc.). For theists, these named gods are, strictly speaking, demiurges, deities subordinate to the Ultimate Reality, the Ground of Being. The Tao is another term for the latter (which, according to Laotze, is "eternally nameless"). In some religious systems perhaps, but not the ones the quote is aimed at. Nothing wrong with not being a believer, but if they're going to argue with theists, these new atheist dudes need to read, at the very least, David Bentley Hart's The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss so they have some idea of what they're talking about. He really blasts them for their willful, arrogant ignorance, but they deserve it. As might have been mentioned, this experience of god is most likely a different state of consciousness and the neural functions and the hormonal, chemical systems that support it. I say "most likely" because it isn't like the new religious have got anywhere nearer to proving that there is "something else", some brahma or whatever you want to call it today. How many ways of saying "We want there to be more" can there possibly be? All you have here is a new way of saying the same old thing. An involving argument is no substitute for evidence. It's a security blanket. Judy is correct. What Stephen Roberts (who he?) doesn't get is that "God" is not a proper name. The trouble with these new atheist types is that they have no sympathy for theology so completely misunderstand the language that theologians use.
