onegoodmove

One of the best discussions of the temporal lobe/religious experience link I've come across is also one of the earliest - It's in Ramachandran's Phantoms of the Mind - chapter 9 or something like that; towards the end.

Essentially the way it appears to work is that there's a part of your brain which deals with the feeling of 'significance'. If this wasn't working, then everything would just be of a kind of shade-of-grey kind of neutral importance: wallpaper patterns and people assuming equal significane. It looks like this area can be disrupted - by drugs for example - and that in certain cases such as a chap with a tumour Rama discusses, can be ridiculously over-powered so that everything becomes a 'religious experience'.

Essentially it looks like this has to do with RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, but that it explains religion per se is nonsense (and not what is claimed by neuroscientists, I should add). Religious beliefs are just that - beliefs. But 'the feeling of being in the presence of God', say, appears to be linked to the activity of this brain region. In other words, it plays on you pre-conceptions like everything else: This isn't something that Jebus put in our brain to bring us closer to him - South Sea Islanders don't see the judeo-christian god when they have seizures (well... I suppose they might now, I don't keep track of missionary activity).

The supposition (might have a good body of evidence now, I don't know) is that different people have different levels of function in this area which might correspond to attraction of religiosity. Famously when Dawkins was zapped with a kind of 'brain stimulator' device he said he didn't feel a thing, while many others had reported communing with God, or Jesus or whereever.

It seems a very good explanation for the Saul/Tolstoy phenomena where epileptics have profoundly 'religious experiences' as a result of their seizures.

Dear God is a good song. Not my favorite.....(been a fan since I got Drums and Wires when it first came out).

Actually some of us are resentfull of that song because they pulled Skylarking off the shelves to put that song on there (taking off the wonderful Mermaid Smiles).

hope I don't offend with this one Mac http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGw8ltXLOi8

The God report

Yes, but "Mermaid Smiled" is on the Rag & Bone Buffet disk and it's easy to piece together the original album if you're so inclined.

I heard it first with "Dear God" in the slot so it just sounds right to me. In fact, "Dear God" was the first XTC song I ever heard, and was why I bought the album.

Personally I think they could have cut "Dying" or "Sacrificial Bonfire" instead (man are those depressing songs), but I've always felt Moulding's songs were weak anyway - look at "Big Day" which is just a gloomy echo of "Earn Enough for Us", or any of his songs on the last few albums for that matter.

duncan, im curious. i have an interest in the names of what you refer to as the judeo-christian god. jebus-have to admit i haven't heard that one. wheres it from?

oh, maybe you meant jesus. never mind.

No 'God Spot' in the Human Brain

I think the methodology they used is pretty meaningless. I totally agree that ASC (altered states of consciousness) are not taking place in any single spot in the brain, but might disagree with them about regions and mechanisms of activation.

Other research has implicated the temporal lobe (temporal lobe epileptic seizures have much in common with some religious experiences), and also suppression of the parietal leds to feels like oceanic vastness--common in states of deep meditation.

Those nuns would save themselves a hell of a lot of time and effort if they just tried DMT.