Where will religion be in 100 years?

Jeremy1952

Recent neurological research indicates that much of what is perceived as spiritual experience is actually a turning off, rather than turning on, parts of our brains. For example, there is a specific area of the brain that monitors the boundary between self and non-self. When either mystics or control individuals meditate to a feeling of "oneness with the universe", pet scans reveal that this area of the brain shuts down.

Based on this research, I offer the hypothesis that speaking in tongues involves shutting down the part of the brain that converts the primitive language instinct into actual usable language. That is, what we hear as glossolalia is the activation of a normal part of the infant brain that is vestigial in adults.

Note: paragraph one is based on actual research. I made paragraph two up!

cinnamon321

I think that Jeremy could be on to something.
Here are 2 links explaining what the religious believe the causes of glossiolala to be. (For those interested)
www.barr-family.com/godsword/reasons.html
www.newadvent.org/ cathen/14776c.htm
My own musing regarding speaking in tongues is that when people get together in large gathers everyone exites everybody else and gets hyper-stimulated and into the moment. (mob-mentality) Being hyper-stimulated in a large group can cause people to do weird things. (Just look at what mobs of people do when somebody wins a basketball or football game in a large city!) When people are in a large energetic gathering, and are happy and excited to be there (for many different reasons..whether they really are there because they believe the stuff or not) I think they become so excited that somehow their reasoning capacity is slowed and they go along with everyone else and become euphoric off the group high so they may even believe their experience to be authentic. But also going along with this one has to feel like he or she belongs to the group. If somebody doesn't they may not experience any of these effects at all! Also, at some of these gatherings they take up serpents....and that would stimulate anybodys reasoning to shut down.....(although you may question their sanity beforehand)

cinnamon321

Oh yeah..and some people actually believe the speaking in toungues stuff....maybe they have more of a tendency for certain regions of their brains to get over-stimulated. Sometimes overstimulation of different portions of the brain can make people go into a trance-like state. Many prophets actually had epilepsy, and I don't see a reason why there couldn't be genes associated with stimulation thresholds somehow...some people more easily stimulated than others... r
I don't know if this can somehow be associated but I know that some people constantly seek out new and novel stimulation and others have a very low stimulation threshold. When exposed to too much stimulation those with low stimulation thresholds could begin to act extremely out of the ordinary and be the first to get a "high" in a large group gathering. The others with high stimulation thresholds would take a longer time to respond to the group high. I think maybe when preachers in large congregations pick out someone to miraculously "heal" (provided it is someone not put there BY the preacher), he or she picks someone with a low stimulation threshold who will react easily. Then after awhile, the mob mentality ensues.

Timothy Schoonover

Thats very interesting Cinnamon and Jeremy. Surely there has to be some research involving this specific topic within the fields of sociology/neurology/psychology. I would kill for a good book on the subject.

I can easily see how group dynamics might induce this sort of frenzied and unthinking response within its members, but these people do it in the privacy of their homes. It's not just a group behavior, its an individualistic behavior. Perhaps the group dynamics effectively conditions its members so thoroughly that they are able to perform tongue-speak in isolation, but I don't know. Jeremy's theory seems compelling and not at all at odd's with Cinnamon's. Would be cool if Massimo Pigliucci did an article on it.

Returning to the group behavior model, my experience within the church is not altogether dissimilar from other hyper-emotional group experiences such as rock concerts. In both instances I feel an accute discomfort resulting from my inability to "become one with the crowd." In church, individuals are throwing up their hands, praying outloud, crying, and gibababagoogaa'ing in an ecstatic bliss. Similarly, in concerts, individuals are jumping up and down, chanting lyrics, thrashing their heads and yelling. In either situation I feel that I cannot participate within the group activity because my actions are not motivated by my own individual consciousness, but rather the collective consciousness (unrelated to the Jungian idea) of the group. Speaking in tongues has been described to me by Christians as a "complete letting go" or a "surrendering" of one's will to the the will of God. This is not something that I've ever been capable of...in a sense I feel that I have some primitive and instinctual need to maintain control over my mental faculties at all cost. I do not say that arrogantly, and admit that I am, like everyone else, susesptible to deception and influence. However, those times when I am put in a situation where the autonomy of my mental processes is compromised, I react with an extreme sensation of discomfort.

Whether or not this means that "spirit-speaking" persons suffer from a biological or learned propensity to blur the distinction between the self and non-self, I am unwilling at this point to say. That is a serious indictment with far-reaching implications, but it is one in which if proven could effectively curtail much of the ridiculous religious (and non-religious) behavior that seems to pervade our society.

Jeremy1952

Timothy

Quote:
Whether or not this means that "spirit-speaking" persons suffer from a biological or learned propensity to blur the distinction between the self and non-self, I am unwilling at this point to say. That is a serious indictment with far-reaching implications, but it is one in which if proven could effectively curtail much of the ridiculous religious (and non-religious) behavior that seems to pervade our society.

Oh that you were right. However, we see time and again that religion is tremendously resistant to counter evidence, no matter how strong. The religious are simply interpreting the neurological evidence as the way the god thingy designed our brains to be aware of it.


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