Re: A "God" Part of the Brain?

From: Dawsonzhu@aol.com
Date: Thu Aug 14 2003 - 09:46:52 EDT

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    Blake Nelson within a long outpouring of frustration wrote:

    > BTW, what evidence is there or on what basis would one
    > say that God has hard-wired only humans to perceive
    > Him? I wouldn't presume that to be the case, and the
    > pan-experientialists and process theologians certainly
    > wouldn't either (although I do not fall into those
    > categories).
    >

    I'm not quite sure what you are asking here? Are you thinking
    that animals can have faith too. Or intelligent life on other
    planets (if there is any)?

    At any rate, it seems that "natural selection" has "decided" that
    to believe in God is wiser than not. If we go on Glenn's
    view that Neanderthals also believed in God (probably more like
    gods to our thinking of course), then there is an excess of
    500,000 years for evolution or natural selection to weed out
    useless and unnecessary skills. So why is God still around?
    We cannot seem to kill him off, can we? I think a sound
    conclusion is that there is some kind of "selective advantage"
    to believing in God.

    Now, exactly WHY natural selection has favored belief over
    non-belief a matter that is debatable. It may be possible
    to argue why we should stop believing in God, because religious
    experience is just "neurons firing in the brain", but then all
    imagination including profound mathematical discoveries, great
    scientific discoveries, and much literary and musical genius are
    also mere "neurons firing in the brain". Should we dismiss these
    because we can find a spot to pin them down in functional
    magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis?

    So the presence of a "God module" if you will, is probably no less important
    than an ear, or an eye. You can live without them, but not particularly well
    and your life is much poorer for it. Hmm,... so let those with ears hear,
    and eyes see.

    On a more technical note:
    It greatly depends on the way the brain functions in the long run.
    For the most part it probably is "meat", which is the position that these
    atheists cling to. On the other hand, whereas I do not support Penrose's
    quantum brain as the full scale running machinery (that is the meat in
    my opinion), I do think he may have a point. The imagination, the
    discoveries,
    this is the SALT that makes life meaningful. That is probably the quantum
    mechanics rearing its head in the process. Flashes of inspiration are rare,
    but they join many concepts together sort of like a wave moving through the
    mind. I think if you take away the "salt", you have only the "meat" left,
    which
    is not very interesting, imaginative, or particular enriching for the
    universe,
    ourselves and whatever we were made for.

    In the end, it is faith and faith alone that saves us. (Isn't that Luther?)
    Maybe in the end, evolution does say more about what is true than
    the atheists. We will only know the answer at the last judgment. That,
    or there is basically nothing we can do about it anyway.

    I think on these issues, you just have to chose what you think is right,
    and run with it. Even if there is no "well done my faithful servant" at the
    end of the road, will you really regret having done Godly things? I think it
    is
    better to live in faith (as a personal choice) and accept the consequences.
    And, evolution, in some ways, seems to be saying the same thing.

    By Grace alone we proceed,
    Wayne

    He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom
    what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing
    better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone
    may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil --- this is the gift
    of
    God. I now that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be
    added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere
    him.
    Ecclesiastes 3.11-14



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