[Denny]

I was just reading Maureen Dowd's column today, in the New York Times Online edition and found it shocking how she is talking up the use of crystals and "karmic" revelations. I realize much of this in jest, she realtes it to politics, but to even get marginally involved in this kind of occult stuff is scary. Especially for somebody like Ms. Dowd, who should know better, as an alumnus of the Catholic University of America.

This is a snippet form the article:
" Ashley Parker, a young woman who works with me, had been warning me that I was in grave karmic danger. Her mother, too, works with crystals and healing and says she was told she was a handmaiden in ancient Egypt in a past life. She instructed Ashley never to wear vintage clothes — which I often do — because bad vibes from previous owners could rub off."


It seems that over time, along with the increasing moral decadence of America and much of the West, there has a been a growing proclivity to accept and even embrace the occult. Witness the growth of Scientology in Hollywood, among others. It seems today, that in every tourist town, you'll find stores selling crystals, amulets and various forms of pagan idolatry. Its legal, adults are entitled to the errors of their ways, but dangerous to society. There is a fine line between looking at something for its artistic merit and pondering the message its meant to promote.

It is this type of thing that has lead to much of the social cleavage that polarizes politics. Voters cling to people like Bush and now, Huckabee, who stand for righteousness, even when their own morality or competence may be suspect. I suspect that much of mid-America trusts just about anybody from Arkansas above any anybody from New York or L.A. If only the real leadership in America, in all fields, would stick to the Christian message, there would be better harmony in the country, and trust and unity along with it. Likewise in all the world trend setting cities.

By the way, even contemplation of the occult is a moral hazard. This, according to the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, articles 2115-7.

"Divination and magic

2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity. "

[Skye]

[Tanada]

The exact same phenomenom happens at the fall of every culture, when things start going badly a percentage of the population turns to 'new god's' because they feel the old ones have abandoned them.

If the society collapses like the fall of the Roman Empire in the 400-600 period in the west then the New God's whose followers do best in a crisis are able to recruit new members in droves and displace the old god's. If the leaders of the houses to worship the old god's get their followers through the crisis better then their is a revival for the old gods and the new gods are seen as weak and ineffective.

[FoolYap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', 'B')y the way, even contemplation of the occult is a moral hazard. This, according to the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, articles 2115-7.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Skye', ':')roll:

[Loki]

Agreed FoolYap, superstitionism is the problem, not people switching from one silly irrational cult to another. I really don't see how some quack using a crystal to purge you of "bad karma" is any different than some quack offering you special crackers and grape juice in order to save your soul. Both are based on silly superstitions that destroy the ability to think rationally and to deal with the world as it is.

I'm convinced most of this irrational superstitionism is rooted in death---people just can't deal with the fact that nothing happens after death other than a recycling of your atoms. They're so wrapped up in their individual egos that they invent all sorts of outrageous fantasies to try to assure themselves that they and their loved ones will survive after death. I'm perfectly happy being worm food myself. None of the after-death fantasies invented by the various sundry cults of the world strike me as a desirable way to spend eternity, including the heaven posited by that heretical Jewish death cult that seems so popular these days.

[highlander]

Tanada... Well said
"The exact same phenomenom happens at the fall of every culture, when things start going badly a percentage of the population turns to 'new god's' because they feel the old ones have abandoned them"

For all our trappings of civilization, we are still the same old superstitious beings we have always been. Even our monuments in the USA... Lincoln memorial, statue of liberty, Washington monument, look like ancient gods, goddesses, or worse.

And our "science, that is suppose to free us from the "religous curse" well, we can see where that has got us.

[Mahmoud]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'A')greed FoolYap, superstitionism is the problem, not people switching from one silly irrational cult to another. I really don't see how some quack using a crystal to purge you of "bad karma" is any different than some quack offering you special crackers and grape juice in order to save your soul. Both are based on silly superstitions that destroy the ability to think rationally and to deal with the world as it is.

[FoolYap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'I')'m convinced most of this irrational superstitionism is rooted in death---people just can't deal with the fact that nothing happens after death other than a recycling of your atoms.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FoolYap', '.')..Most admit it does come down to a fear of what happens after death. More specifically, a refusal to believe they only get one ride on the Life Merry'go'round, that they won't be preserved in some fashion when the music stops. They believe, because they fear not to...

[hubbertspeak7777777]

Wake up religious nuts, there's no Santa Claus, there's no easter bunny and there is no after life. I don't know why people are so bothered by the fact that death=no more consciousness, I find it kind of relaxing... no more pain, stress, or suffering of any kind... sounds kind of peaceful.

I've thought this way even when I was young. It's simple really if you think about it... no more electrical activity in you brain equals permanent end to consciousness. Better enjoy this life cuz you ain't gettin another one.

[lawnchair]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', '
')It appears that all religious belief stems from our great fear of non-existence.

[katkinkate]

I think the reluctance to truly grow up, ie. be responsible for your own actions and the consequences of your actions, may play a part. You have a satan to blame and a god to look to for forgiveness so you can then forget and move on and let someone else clean up your mess. Just like what happens when you're a kid. The belief systems that push personal responsibility tend to be more peaceful. I suggest neopaganism and buddism.

[gg3]

.
First of all, the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, including Cardinal Ratzinger now the Pope, was responsible for covering up and thereby acceding to, the largest pedophilia ring in recent history.

For which reason they forfeit any claim on morality.

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As for superstition, the idea that a blastocyst that lacks even a single neuron much less a functional brain, constitutes a "human being" in any sense of the word, is no more or less absurd than the idea that crystals can call up spirits or heal cancer. The universally agreed standard for "death" today (even by the RCC which does not quibble with national and local laws to this effect) is "brain death", cessation of brain activity. No brain, no mind, no person, no moral or legal standing.

If the standard of brain death means anything, it must also necessarily mean that before as well as after there is a functioning brain, there is not a living person. And if we forego the symmetry of before and after, in favor of some nonsense about "potential human," then we must also equate miscarriage to manslaughter, and jerking-off to genocide.

---

That being said, religious belief is founded on religious experience, which in turn is mediated by certain very well known parts of the human brain. As such, it, as with most other aspects of human cognition, emotion, and behavior, has necessarily had evolutionary utility or it would have been abandoned ages ago.

The key bits of neurophysiology in question translate to "deeply felt sense of meaning in relation to something larger than self," and "perception of a superordinate unifying intelligence." It is even possible to bring about religious experiences via electromagnetic stimulation (5 Hz field directed to the right temporal lobe), and via pharmacology (30 milligrams of psilocybin in a controlled setting).

But the fact that God exists within the human brain does not prove that God does not exist outside the human brain.

And the ongoing clinical research into NDEs (near-death experiences) now includes cases (such as Pam Reynolds, widely reported in the literature) where individuals have had conscious experience, with objective correlates such as perception of verifiable elements in the hospital, at times when their EEGs were flat and there was no measurable brain activity. "Consciousness in the absence of a functioning brain" is the paradigm definition of "life after death." In other words, yes, you do continue in some form after your body has turned into compost.

So while we should be quick to pounce on the hypocrisies of the powerful cloaked in religious garb, we should also be careful that reasonable skepticism and criticism not become their own form of superstition and obscurantism. Failure to recognize the findings of NDE research is no different than failure to recognize the findings of neurophysiology: on one hand, consciousness in a living person depends upon the brain; and on the other hand, consciousness also appears to be self-sufficient after death. Paradoxes abound, and this one is hardly as problematic as the dual particle/wave nature of light.

Note: The leading edge of theory in cognitive science, is "interactionism," which holds that the human mind is an emergent outcome of the interaction between neurophysiology and information, where information is also seen as a fundamental quantity. For more, look up David Chalmers' papers on the subject of "the hard problem of human consciousness." (Chalmers is hardly a new-age ninny: he was offered the Newton Chair at Oxford.)

---

As for "Christian nation." By what right? By virtue of tradition? If that was the case, we should all be offering our prayers to the Great Spirit, and conducting our observances with respect to the Four Directions: as we in America inhabit a continent whose original people believed and practiced accordingly.

If the only basis for claiming a Christian tradition on this continent is that it is part of our "nationality" or "nationhood," then what we have just admitted is that the true foundation of the claim is the blunt brutal fact of conquest: Our ancestors killed off their ancestors and took their land, and thereby we can somehow exercise dominion.

That would be the complete repudiation of everything that Jesus himself taught.

But for those who prefer to follow the Gospel according to Paul, they should also take note that Paul said in no uncertain terms, "the love of money is the root of all evil." What part of the word "all" don't the modern-day apologists for conquest and consumption understand?

To be a consistent Christian, one must necessarily forego any claim of tradition-by-conquest, and any claim to personal wealth!

---

Though in fact we do practice according to the old traditions of this continent, at least in one respect.

The basis for much of what is embodied in the United States Constitution, was derived from Benjamin Franklin's observations of the Iroquois Confederacy.

And for anyone who thinks I'm indulging in "noble savage" nonsense, consider the origins of that phrase. First, the word "savage" comes from the French "sauvage," meaning, "people who live in the woods." Second, the "noble"' reference was to the fact that in Europe of that period, only the nobility had the "privilege" of hunting in the woods. Commoners caught hunting were subject to the death penalty, carried out by as cruel means as could be devised.

European settlers were amazed to see that all members of the native nations had the right to hunt in the woods: the "sauvages" had a right that only pertained to "nobles," as if today's poor had an enforceable right to build permanent houses on any abandoned land they could find. The obvious explanation was that in the culture of the "sauvages," every adult was nobility: an idea that was convergent with other lines of philosophical thought that together contributed to the emergence of the concept of the citizen as the foundation of democracy.

---

Mahmoud, I'll assume that you know the technical definition of "mysticism," specifically, "religious belief that is based on the direct personal experience of contact with the deity or ground-of-being."

And no doubt you know of Rumi and Hafiz, probably quite a bit more than I know of either. But I know enough to say this much:

A hefty dose of mysticism, thus defined, is not the problem but the cure.

The mystical philosophers of all faiths, traditions, and denominations, have never had the slightest trouble sitting down together to break bread and make peace. They know in their hearts, minds, and souls, that the One of which they speak is one and the same across the breadth of their many traditions. They are not dividers, they are uniters, taking joy in the unity that transcends the appearance of separate selves. They speak of love and they practice compassion, and their very nature challenges the sophistries of those in power whose goals are wedded to worldly gains.

---

And to those here of Christian faith who equate Islam to some form of savagery, I'll challenge you to look up Rumi and Hafiz and read for yourselves. You will not be able to tell the difference between their writing and the writing of any of the Christian mystics.

And to those here for whom all religion is the enemy of reason, do some research and you will find that the mystical traditions in each of the major faiths have always been open-minded and even eager about the findings of science. For one recent example, the Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhism) met with a group of leading people in the physical sciences, and said that he was delighted to learn what they were discovering about the nature of life and the universe.

---

It should be noted that the flip side of the coin of neurophysiology is that the presence and the absence of religion are both mediated by the same physical structures and processes.

Those individuals with above-average levels of activity in those areas of the brain, tend to be more religious than average.

Those individuals with below-average levels of activity in those areas of the brain, tend to be less religious than average.

(And let's please not get digressed over the idea of "above" and "below" average: this is not an IQ test.)

In that way, religious experience and feelings are no different from any other capability of the human brain: verbal, mathematical, spatial, melodic, rhythmic, empathic, artistic, and so on: they tend to vary independently; strength in one does not imply strength in others. For example I have a finely-tuned ear for the human voice in music, but no clue about what constitutes beauty in dance; I can understand abstract math, but dyslexia gets in the way of working the equations; I can make telephone switching systems do things that aren't in the manual but I have no clue about computer networks.

It is, as Einstien was famously quoted, entirely reasonable to understand "the sense of the mystical" in nature itself, and in the workings of the physical universe; and by extension, entirely reasonable for anyone, whether religious or atheistic.

In the end, we all have to get along. In the end, we all die. There is nothing to fear. And there are no separate selves.
.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'B')ut the fact that God exists within the human brain does not prove that God does not exist outside the human brain.

And the ongoing clinical research into NDEs (near-death experiences) now includes cases (such as Pam Reynolds, widely reported in the literature) where individuals have had conscious experience, with objective correlates such as perception of verifiable elements in the hospital, at times when their EEGs were flat and there was no measurable brain activity. "Consciousness in the absence of a functioning brain" is the paradigm definition of "life after death." In other words, yes, you do continue in some form after your body has turned into compost.

[FoolYap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'B')ut the fact that God exists within the human brain does not prove that God does not exist outside the human brain.

[jasonraymondson]

To christians I am an atheist, to atheists I am a christian, to agnostics I am a brother.

[Cloud9]

That which is mean spirited in all religions is the highest form of heresy. I suspect that God is as few of us have imagined him. Both the inquisitor and the suicide bomber have gotten it wrong. Cloud9, a Deist.

[gg3]

.
Hi Zardoz, how'z it goin?:-)

Her body was chilled to 60 Fahrenheit, it was drained of blood to deflate the aneurysm for surgery, and her heart and lungs were stopped. The EEG recorded no activity in the cerebral cortex, and the point of those earplugs was that they contained earphone speakers whose clicks, if picked up by the ears, would produce distinct signals (evoked potentials) in the brainstem, as recorded by another instrument. Not only was there no sign of cortical activity, there was no sign of brainstem activity.

To quote Spock, "she's dead, Jim."

So. To paraphrase your points:

"The most interesting parts happened before they made her temporarily dead."

OK, so at least you're not quibbling over whether she was able to perceive, accurately and in detail, goings-on in the operating room around her despite being knocked out by general anaesthetics and having her eyes taped shut as well as her ears plugged tight. By the way the technical term for what she reported at the initial stage, is "an out of body experience with objective correlates" (to distinguish from the type of OBE whose content is more dreamlike and can't be verified).

If I'm not mistaken, that constitutes acceptance of, at least, remote viewing, and possibly OBEs as such. Sounds like progress to me.

"But she wasn't really dead because they brought her back and now she's alive."

She was quite dead by every current medical definition. Heart, breathing, and brain activity stopped. Blood drained. Body temperature down to 60 Fahrenheit. Deader than a doornail.

The definition of death you're using is, "does not come back," in other words, "not dead until composted." That is not the accepted definition in medical science. And in any case, it's pure obscurantism because it pushes the entire subject matter outside the realm of testable hypotheses, in other words, outside of science. That would be the "God in the Gaps" method, that's also used to justify conventional religion by pointing to "anything we can't presently explain" as evidence of God, and as the explanatory gaps narrow, the definition of God narrows along with.

"There might have been brain activity the EEG missed."

According to which, so long as there is any evidence of consciousness, it must be hiding out some place in the brain that is magically eluding our every attempt at measurement! Now as well as God in the Gaps, we have Consciousness in the Crannies, or perhaps Materialist Monism by Mis-measurement!

That would almost fly except for those little clicking ear speakers and the absence of an evoked potential signal in the brainstem. Nothing in the brainstem, nothing in the cortex, and the patient's blood drained from her brain which is chilled to 60 Fahrenheit along with the rest of her body. When you perform a procedure that shuts down the brainstem as well as the cortex, it's safe to say that the stuff in between is shut down as well. Unless you want to operationalize the variable by putting the brain in a blender just to be sure! And that also fulfills your "don't come back" criterion, but once again, that ain't science.

There's one more piece that Zardoz didn't comment on, from the Wikipedia article: "She may have had the claimed experiences before or after the standstill, when she was merely under general anaesthesia and the brain was still active."

In order for that to be true, we would have to have a completely anomalous finding of continuous memory through a state of deep general anaesthesia! Fact is, people do not have continuous memory through deep general anaesthesia. Memory recording basically stops as a person slips into unconsciousness: there is always a gap, just as when a person faints or gets knocked out in an accident. "The last thing I remember, the light turned green in my direction..." Same case with going to sleep: consider all those times you've gone to bed thinking "I have a good idea but I'm not going to bother writing it down, I'll think of it in the morning," and then the next morning, "Oh darn, what the heck was it I thought of last night?"

By this time the monistic explanatory entities are multiplying faster than ghosts at a new-age seance! So many entities that Occam himself (or Ockham if you prefer) would be slashing about with his razor to slice out the superfluous ones and get down to the meat of the matter.

Far more elegant to forego Consciousness in the Crannies, and go with Chalmers' intereactionist hypothesis.

---

And if that's not enough, the Wikipedia article is obviously biased, as revealed by the use of quote marks around the word "death" in "near death experience," e.g. near "death" experience. That use of quote marks reveals the bias that the word "death" should not be used in the term "near-death experience," because (according to the biased view) death is only death after the body has been fed to the worms. Once again, this is at odds with the consensus of medical science that death is defined as the absence of brain activity.

It also reveals a complete lack of familiarity with the subject matter. The term "near-death experience" was chosen by Kubler-Ross, Moody, Ring, et. al., precisely to specify that these experiences occurred "near" death but that it was not known at the time whether they occurred "during" death as per the definition of the absence of brain activity!

In fact, at the time those individuals were writing (mid 1970s), the standard medical definition of death, enshrined in law in most states, was cardiopulmonary death: cessation of heart activity and breathing!

So, according to the definition of death in those days, Kubler-Ross, Moody, and Ring, could very easily have claimed that those individuals were dead, dead, dead: they had their characteristic experiences after their hearts & breathing had stopped. Instead they did the right & proper thing and claimed merely that their patients were "near" death. They were "near" death, they were not near "death." Subtle but important distinction.

Advances in resuscitation techniques kept pushing back the frontier, with the results we see today. It is highly probable that as resuscitation techniques continue to improve, and as "standstill" procedures become more common (here come the ageing Boomers, unwilling to forego their eternal youth, no doubt plenty of guinea-pigs for such experiments), we'll see longer and longer periods of brain death before resuscitation, and more and more of these cases, and increasing degrees of overlap with reported experiences and verifiable observations.

As a result we will also see an erosion of the claim of exclusive legitimacy made by various religions in their more extreme manifestations. Those of us who are familiar with the NDE research can already see this coming, via the reports of pediatric NDEs: whereas adults usually have religious imagery that corresponds to the denomination in which they were raised, children have cross-denominational imagery, most often Christian children meeting with Buddhist and Muslim entities.

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Yo, Yap:-)

Of course it doesn't prove the existence of God! Failure to disprove is not proof of the converse.

In fact, the existence of God as defined in Western monotheism or the Abrahamic traditions (Judaic, Christian, and Islamic) is one of the very small number of points that is entirely outside the realm of empirical science.

The reason being, an omniscient God would be aware of all characteristics of an experiment, and an omnipotent God would have the ability to alter the outcome of the experiment to suit Its intentions.

Think of those editorial cartoons showing lab mice talking to each other about trying to outsmart the scientist:-)

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Jason scores again!

Strictly speaking, agnosticism is the only scientifically supportable position with respect to the existence of God, because strictly speaking, as per above, the experiment can't be done. Thus, religion, as with aesthetic beauty, remains in the eye, or mind and heart, of the beholder, or the believer. And thus the separation of church and state remains an essential for a truly free society.

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However we can do the experiment re. consciousness and the brain. And the further modern medicine can extend the limits of shutting down the brain temporarily, the greater the opportunities for observing what happens to consciousness during that period.
.