Hmm. Maybe I just need to reread it again later when I'm not so foggy, but a blanket "spirituality is caused by brain damage" statement is not what I got from that article. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that this research is saying a) they've found the part of the brain that deals with spiritual experiences and b) when the people they studied had brain tumours in that part of the brain, causing significant increases in spiritual experiences, those experiences then went away after they removed the tumour. Which isn't the same as "everyone who is spiritual is brain damaged", but rather "effects caused by brain tumours go away when the brain tumours are removed, and also we've found the part of the brain that deals with spirituality". I'm not a fan of religion, but I'm also not a fan of fallacies.
I didn't say "caused by". I said "corresponds to".
The study says neither that greater brain damage leads to greater spirituality, nor that greater spirituality leads to greater brain damage.
The study says that where you find great brain damage, you find great spirituality, and where you find great spirituality, you find great brain damage. Which caused/influenced/whatever the other is not discussed in that study.
Yes pre-operative brain tumor patients are shown in that study to have more spirtuality/spiritual experiences or feelings than they do post operatively, but that's a specific study on some of those patients. By the way he's phrased the post, he suggesting it as a general rule.
And yet, despite my tendency to point out religious "thought" as both irrational and antifactual, not one person has yet managed to intelligently defend it[1], regardless of any alleged "fallacies" I may be employing.
Put another way: If you want me to stop calling you stupid for being religious, demonstrate that your religion isn't stupid.[2]
[1]: Without retreating behind "we cannot possibly know because I am presuming in advance that the answer cannot be known", of course. Which is a defense, but I take issue with it's mischaracterisation as an "intelligent" defense.
[2]: For the record, no person in human history has ever, to my knowledge, successfully demonstrated a non-stupid religion.
I'm not trying to show/prove that religions are not stupid. I think that relions are often if not as a general rule silly and/or stupid. I just also think your phrasing of the post was fallacious and misleading.
"The study says that where you find great brain damage, you find great spirituality, and where you find great spirituality, you find great brain damage."
Actually, the study only supports the first case. It does not support the second AT ALL. In order to study that you would need to perform the same tests on ST scores on a population of people along the whole spectrum of "spirituality." That means you need militant atheists and young earthers along with moderate religious people.
I would be very surprised (but also very amused) if that study showed that young earthers all suffered from serious untreated brain damage. That would be awesome.
Yup. And, more importantly, in 100% of all cases, religious experiences touted as "divine" can be duplicated by converting to a different, contradictory religion.
There's a simple conclusion suggested by both all study of religion AND all study of religious experiences. I'm just sayin'.
I can't remember if it was here or elsewhere, but I remember reading that there are some people who actually get hooked on the high of religious conversion, and become serial convertees
Neuroscientists have known that stable personality traits are altered by damage to parts of the brain ever since Phinius Gage. I think the point of this article is that this static personality traits (most P traits are considered stable your whole life) can change with brain surgery. That doesn't account for people that are spiritual who had not have brain surgery, so spirituality itself is not correlated with brain damage. This personality trait can change with brain damage, and the percentage of people who are spiritual that have brain damage is probably no different to the rest of the population.
Titles like "spirituality directly corresponds to amount of brain damage" are very unscientific and biased, which im guessing is exactly what you don't like about religion.
The majority all localisation advancements in neuroscience have come from lesion studies. Moiread is right, this study simply points out that spiritual experience is linked to the parietal lobe, just like auditory processing is in the temporal lobes and without an intact hippocampus you can't make permanent memories.
If you wanted to question the intelligence of someone with spiritual experience you would probably be looking at lesion studies in the frontal lobe.
Seems that after having removed the tumors and some of the surrounding brain tissue, the patients feel more at one with the universe.
The brain is far more plastic than we thought even two decades ago. I am sure if the former cancer patients concentrate hard on living selfish, isolated lives, they will be able to regrow those parts over time.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-15 11:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 12:10 am (UTC)The study says neither that greater brain damage leads to greater spirituality, nor that greater spirituality leads to greater brain damage.
The study says that where you find great brain damage, you find great spirituality, and where you find great spirituality, you find great brain damage. Which caused/influenced/whatever the other is not discussed in that study.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 12:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 01:13 am (UTC)Yes pre-operative brain tumor patients are shown in that study to have more spirtuality/spiritual experiences or feelings than they do post operatively, but that's a specific study on some of those patients. By the way he's phrased the post, he suggesting it as a general rule.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 01:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 01:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 02:18 am (UTC)Put another way: If you want me to stop calling you stupid for being religious, demonstrate that your religion isn't stupid.[2]
[1]: Without retreating behind "we cannot possibly know because I am presuming in advance that the answer cannot be known", of course. Which is a defense, but I take issue with it's mischaracterisation as an "intelligent" defense.
[2]: For the record, no person in human history has ever, to my knowledge, successfully demonstrated a non-stupid religion.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 10:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 01:35 pm (UTC)Actually, the study only supports the first case. It does not support the second AT ALL. In order to study that you would need to perform the same tests on ST scores on a population of people along the whole spectrum of "spirituality." That means you need militant atheists and young earthers along with moderate religious people.
I would be very surprised (but also very amused) if that study showed that young earthers all suffered from serious untreated brain damage. That would be awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 12:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 01:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 01:26 am (UTC)There's a simple conclusion suggested by both all study of religion AND all study of religious experiences. I'm just sayin'.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 01:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 02:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 04:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 06:36 am (UTC)Titles like "spirituality directly corresponds to amount of brain damage" are very unscientific and biased, which im guessing is exactly what you don't like about religion.
The majority all localisation advancements in neuroscience have come from lesion studies. Moiread is right, this study simply points out that spiritual experience is linked to the parietal lobe, just like auditory processing is in the temporal lobes and without an intact hippocampus you can't make permanent memories.
If you wanted to question the intelligence of someone with spiritual experience you would probably be looking at lesion studies in the frontal lobe.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 01:57 pm (UTC)The brain is far more plastic than we thought even two decades ago. I am sure if the former cancer patients concentrate hard on living selfish, isolated lives, they will be able to regrow those parts over time.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-20 01:17 am (UTC)