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Scientists Deliver 'God' Via A Helmet
prostoalex writes "Scientific American is reporting on scientific work done to map the euphoric religious feelings within the brain. As a result, it's now quite possible to experience 'proximity to God' via a special helmet: 'In a series of studies conducted over the past several decades, Persinger and his team have trained their device on the temporal lobes of hundreds of people. In doing so, the researchers induced in most of them the experience of a sensed presence — a feeling that someone (or a spirit) is in the room when no one, in fact, is — or of a profound state of cosmic bliss that reveals a universal truth. During the three-minute bursts of stimulation, the affected subjects translated this perception of the divine into their own cultural and religious language — terming it God, Buddha, a benevolent presence or the wonder of the universe.""
First post.
The effect described sounds like the euphoric feeling you sometimes get while on acid. Minus the hallucinations.
I, for one, welcome our new brain-controlling divine overlords.
Angry religious leaders @ 9.
Sensing something that is not there.... surely that classifes as hallucination
Engineering is the art of compromise.
This is proof that Science is a Tool of the Devil!
Oh, Jebus, curse these rotten, immoral Satanic Scientists to the ever-lasting hell they deserve!
Ok, so it isn't the quite the same... but it sounds similar to the "Penfield Mood Organ" from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
If it doesn't harm the brain, sign me up for one. As a born-again atheist (raised in a religious household,) I'd like to have some of those euphoric "divine" feelings that I've never experienced - even if I know its just electrically induced.
(And yes, I've tried recreational chemistry.)
...maybe the fields actually force "God" to show up in the room while it's switched on.
(Hey, no less crazy than any other hypothesis out there)
I grok helmet.
It's like the force. I mean, make it seem like something is there that isn't. But unfortunately this is profoundly less useful as it stands, or it can be used to induce a different religion in folks.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
Sounds like a hop skip and a jump from Niven's wireheads.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Bugs Bunny: [singing] Oh, mighty warrior of great fighting stock! Might I inquire to ask-Eh, [eats a carrot] what's up, Doc?
Elmer Fudd: [singing] I am going to kill the Wabbit!
Bugs Bunny: [singing] Oh, mighty hunter, twil be quite a task. How will you do it? Might I inquire to ask?
Elmer Fudd: [singing] I will do it with my spear and magic helmet!
Bugs Bunny: [singing] Your spear and magic helmet?
Elmer Fudd: [singing] Spear and magic helmet!
Bugs Bunny: [singing] Magic helmet?
Elmer Fudd: [singing] Magic helmet!
Bugs Bunny: Magic helmet.
Along with several of the rest of his stories: http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm
...after seeing the volunteer scream "Oh, GOD! Oh, GOD!" while being stimulated.
I think they discovered a G-something, but not exactly God.
via the original wired article..: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/persinger.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=
- Aetheral Research -
funny, i dont feel the need to talk about my non-belief until someone tries to 'educate' me on their belief system. its not exactly a catch-22 when large, well-funded groups have dedicated their resources in an attempt to un-secularize my country.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
It sounds as though you're more afraid of this work than its authors are 'afraid of [religion]'. Slashdot has been known for biased summaries in the past, but this one is [miraculously!] almost straight synopsis, as is the article. Neither makes any moral or philosophical assertations. [In fact, the article asserts that the technology could be used to make non-theists happier!]
:Cheers.:
How is this not news that matters? Isn't this a little more important than articles about the latest nuance in the Linux Task Scheduler? Might it not help us understand that whole religion bit that's been, you know, an integral part of the human experience for all of observable history?
Perhaps a little introspection as to what about this article so upsets you would yield some overall personal benefit.
Perhaps life really is full of possibilities.
Just because you can replicate the sensory experience of something by "poking" at the brain doesn't mean that a real outside stimulus is false. For instance, I think you could probably make the brain experience the sensory perception of color by "poking" at the visual cortex. That doesn't change the fact that there are real world stimuli that evoke this experience as well. In short, showing that the brain is capable of experiencing something because of a different, artificial stimulus does not predict or rule out the primary "natural" source of that experience. Although it does present an interesting question for evolutionary theory - why does this perception ability exist?
Of course not. Judging by past occurrences of when a rational explanation has explained away something previously seen as divine, there will likely be an extended period of denial and attacks, even personal, on the people investigating this. This will be followed by a schism in the religions, where the mainstream will accept it but say it's irrelevant as [religious manuscript] is symbolic and not to be taken literal, and, anyhow, it doesn't disprove anything. The fundies, on the other hand, will continue to struggle in denial for centuries until eaten by the crocodiles.
What's dangerous is if someone manages to come up with a cure for this, or other religious afflictions. Or, even worse, a vaccine or other preventative measures. Then I predict all hell will break lose.
Regards,
--
*Art
Is it bad that I read that and went "Holy crap! New nuance in the Linux task scheduler?" Then i went back to the main page to check, and found you were only joke.
Not funny.
What if a unit was developed that didn't have to be worn and could affect large groups of people... I think we'd see a mysterious increase in church attendance
First of all, this is an old experiment, I remember reading about it a long time ago. But while it's interesting from a neuroscience point of view to discover the location of these experiences within the brain, it doesn't give us any philosophical insight into the existence or non-existence of God. On the one hand, it could be that the religious experiences that people have had throughout history were caused by random events stimulating this bit of the brain. But from the theistic perspective, it seems obvious that if God exists He would build the brain with some capacity to detect His presence under certain circumstances -- just as we can't say that the fact the experience of seeing colour is caused by certain brain regions being stimulated means that colour doesn't exist except in our heads, we can't say that this experiment proves that God is just in our heads either. So: philosophically uninteresting.
but perhaps, and I am just saying perhaps, this is a communication region in the brain, and stimulating it analogous to stimulating the nerve of the ear, or stimulating the region of the brain interpreting signals from the eye. It would seem if you wanted a religious explanation, this could be the "communication center" for an other state of being than the one we're currently in. Like I said, this will be an unpopular opinion.
We're Catholics here. For us, God is more like the feeling of working for a really, really great supervisor rather than the euphoric high with the helmet thing. For that, I need about 48 oz of cold beer.
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target.
They're pretty much saying:
"The God Consciousness is X, and these guys here have found it!"
Well, how do you know?
"Well, because we found it! They, like, 'feel' it. God is X! Kewl, eh? Ipso Facto, we are teh shit!"
The word "feeling" or similar appears about 15 times in that article. Not exactly 'scientific'.
Wake me when someone with a clue has something to say about spirituality, mmmkay?
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Google has more on neurotheology
This seems like more proof of what I personally believe, that there is nothing mysterious or supernatural in our universe. Everything in human history about religion and spirituality is just our minds and imaginations running around playing tricks. Religion is a Ouija board; and we're all moving our own hands and pretending there's something great and magical out there that's doing it. Our minds are so primitive and easily tricked that we can even induce this feeling artificially. People have been doing it for a long time, long before this device. LSD users report the same kind of experiences as well as hallucinations. I'm not trying to say that having these experiences is a bad thing, but take it for what it's worth. It's an interesting or novel change in your perception, but it's transient, and only "real" insofar that it really happened to you, outside of your own mind everything is chugging along normally and the world is no different, no more mysterious or wondrous than it was before.
There's plenty of wonder in the world to be experienced without using a Ouija board.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
This proves nothing. If I can make a drug that causes you to think that a dog is in the room when there isn't one, it does not prove the non-existence of dogs.
Imagine if you could get a machine that could give a whole room full of people the feeling of god at the press of a button. Has amazing potential for abuse. What if it fit in your pocket and worked within a proximity - then everyone around you would feel your presence! hmmm, I wonder if my wife would then show me respect? Probably not :-(
I wonder how it would apply to sales, getting a job, meeting the oppsite sex, a president negotiating with another one. Certainly would add value to face time.
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
I am somewhat concerned that they may be in charge of Gundam.
And if not, why not?
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
The results of the experiments are consistent with the mind-numbingly banality of the reports of God, Satan, Heaven, Hell and astral travelling trips.
There's a good reason people can spend an hour describing what they did on a day out at the beach, whereas people who claim to have experienced Heaven can't bear to describe it for more than a few minutes. Heaven's all 'wonderful,' you see, but nothing in the recount of Heaven is anything to write home about. Quite a lot of recounts of Heaven are pretty tasteless, rather Hellish, even.
In contrast, one who is recalling a day out at the beach will have no trouble identifying what it was about the experience that made them happy.
Therefore it's far more plausible that in a Heaven NDE, the 'Wonderful' button was being directly stimulated so that nothing in the experience need be interesting at all.
It's a wirehead thing.
Blancmange
Researchers failed to repeat the "God Helmet" experiment. It is therefore pseudo-science, even though it may agree with your prejudices. It's funny how people only see what they want to see...
You're confusing the mechanism of perception with the existence of a source.
Brain surgeons have long known that stimulation of the temporal lobe can make people hear voices. That doesn't count as proof that 'voices' don't really exist, though.. unless you're writing the Cliff's Notes summary of The Matrix.
One could just as well ask why such a center exists in the brain if nothing exists to stimulate it.
If for example I had a "taste box" that made everything taste like chocolate...it doesn't prove that nothing exists that tastes of chocolate.
And for all the theists I know, only a small fraction would tell people they are going to burn in hell or go around forcing people (forcing what exactly?). The overwhelming majority don't do that and either silently disagree (by respecting your beliefs) or state their beliefs in a civil, non confrontational way. On what you say about a double standard I think you're reading different semantics to what they mean. You can respect (accept someone has a POV in a civil manor), but disagree with them.
Why aren't the NSA and the CIA all over this?
Forget waterboarding and all those other physically traumatic methods of torture. They ought to be all over this stuff looking for ways to convince their secret prisoners that their god is speaking to them directly, ordering them to give up their secrets to the interrogators.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Correct. There is *nothing* that can prove nor disprove the existance of God...including the "good book". I can not show you something that will undeniably prove it to you. The "good book" does indeed state the existance of God but it talks about it through faith, not proof.
But you're missing the point. The only thing believers have had to hold up as evidence of the existence of God are these experiences.
Now these experiences can not only be explained, but duplicated in a laboratory.
If that's all there is to back up belief, it doesn't prove that something doesn't exist, but on the other hand there isn't anything left that can't be rationally explained and duplicated to believe there is one.
This is the most ridiculous argument anyone has ever made. In no other area of human "thinking" (I'll use the term loosely here) would anyone seriously claim that something exists when there is no reason to even suspect that it might.
Believing in "god" makes less sense than believing that there is a 747 jumbo jet at the center of the Sun. At least in the case of the 747 those actually do exist.
The Farewell Tour II
Tact
:-)
1. The sense of touch; feeling.
2. The stroke in beating time.
3. Sensitive mental touch; peculiar skill or faculty; nice perception or discernment; ready power of appreciating and doing what is required by circumstances.
( http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tact )
Tack
1. small nail with a flat head
2. loose seam used to temporarily fasten pieces of cloth
3. (nautical) part of a sail (Wikipedia) specifically the lower corner on the leading edge of the sail relative to the direction of the wind.
4. (nautical) direction, hence approach try a different tack. Specifically a course or direction that enables the vessel to head upwind. See also reach, gybe.
5. part of the harnessing for a draft animal or riding animal, e.g. a horse pulling a wagon, or a riding horse. Includes bit, bridle and reins.
( http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tack )
Tack No. 4
People miss this one all the time, you adopt a tack, tact is what I lack
Can't we all just get along
His example was just as valid as any other could be:
"Another device from the novel is the "Penfield Mood Organ," named for neurologist Wilder Penfield, which induces emotions in its users. The user can dial a setting to obtain a mood. Examples include "awareness of the manifold possibilities of the future," "desire to watch television, no matter what's on it," "pleased acknowledgement of husband's superior wisdom in all matters," and "desire to dial." Many users have a daily schedule of moods. The Mood Organ also has a setting for depression states, which contradict its original purpose to cheer up its user." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep%3F
A device which can make you see god also sounds like the mercerism box in DADOES?
Its not the rarest meme in sci fi but YGBM (you gotta believe me) technology is well explored in a book I picked up called Rainbow's End, Vernor Vinge was the author I think.
Can't we all just get along
True, it just tells us that there is probably nothing "magical" or "divine" about the experience itself. Indeed, if the experience can be triggered in a laboratory, it is reasonable to assume it happens "naturally" outside of the laboratory as well -- it doesn't necessarily follow that the such natural experiences accurately correspond to actual phenomena any more than is the case when people put on this helmet. Feeling as if you're in the presence of a god, demon, ghost or lurking shadow monster is something most of us can say we've experienced, but empirical evidence for gods, demons, ghosts and shadow monsters is decidedly lacking. The most rational explanation for such experiences is they are all "in our heads" so to speak. That doesn't mean it's the correct explanation, but it's the one I'm going with for the time being.
It is an interesting question, but it should be asked with the proper emphasis, in the proper context. Being capable of sensing the presence of empirically unverifiable entities is an ability in the same way that being fooled by an optical illusion is an ability. So instead of asking "why" we have evolved this "ability," I would ask how we have evolved this attribute.
It could be that this attribute itself conferred some useful survival and reproductive benefit, or it could be a neutral or slightly counterproductive "side effect" of attributes that are too advantageous to have been eliminated by natural selection. Humans, like many animals, have an agency detection system of sorts
Combining these two attributes (overactive agency detection + social simulation, projection and empathy) it's not hard to imagine why people might sometimes have experiences such as those described in the article and that they would take the shape of religious icons that have been conditioned from youth to treat as real, true and important. Given the self-propagating and self-reinforcing (what you might call "memetic") quality of these beliefs and their consequential social importance, it may indeed be in one's best interest (from a survival and reproductive point of view) to at least give the appearance of earnestly believing in them, which the occasionally "feeling" of an invisible "presence" would help produce. So it could be a component of a sort of evolutionary feedback loop.
For more on religion from a sociobiological perspective, and its potential implications, I recommend Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Dennett and Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought by Pascal Boyer. The preceding is mostly a crude reformulation or extension of the ideas contained within those volumes.
Big deal. The sybian has been around for years, and gives you the same effect.
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
It's not entirely a new phenomenon, and your mentioning acid reminds me of the rampant ergotism, a.k.a. St Anthony's fire they had at times in the middle ages.
Short version: it's produced by the toxin a parasitic fungus that grows on certain kinds of grain and grass. Eating contaminated grains produces LSD-like hallucinations, but also extreme vasoconstriction that often (but not always, if the dose is low enough) results in gangrene. Which in turn often resulted in death.
Apparently, the problem was big enough at times that (A) they had a monk order (the Order of St. Anthony) specialized in trying to save people affected by the result, and (B) outbreaks of whole freakin' cities dancing euphorically in the streets and having mystical/religious visions and revelations.
Kinda makes me wonder how many of the prophecies and martyrdoms that the the various religions were based on, well, were just the result of hallucinations. I mean, obviously some people lied their arse off to gain an advantage or revenge in the name of religion, but I'm willing to admit that some were genuinely honest and relating miracles and stuff they actually witnessed. Or, rather, and this is the important part: thought they witnessed, while on an ergot trip. Or while they were delirious with fever, or having a bad heat stroke (having visions and revelations in the desert sure was common), or any other kind of hallucination and delirium.
For example, at the risk of offending the French, I wonder about Joan d'Arc. Went and fought for the good ol' Salic law that women can't inherit anything at all, and got burned at the stake... all supposedly because of a divine vision commanding her to. Could it be that the poor girl had just eaten a bit of bad rye?
How many other saints and prophets had?
Or given a tightly knit group that travelled and ate together (e.g., monks in the same monastery, or let's say... 1 guy and his 12 apostles?) it only takes one contaminated meal for _all_ of them to have an acid trip together.
Or here's another thought: almost 1% of the population are schizophrenic, and at least _some_ forms of it are characterized by hallucinations. And in the ancient times and middle ages, it could only be worse, since they didn't have psychiatrists and neuroleptics: once started on the road to madness, the only way was towards worse. Stuff like hearing voices, seeing ghosts, etc. Given thousands of years and populations of millions of people, odds are good some will eventually have delusions of divine miracles and messages.
Briefly: Is it still a miracle if it only happened in someone's drug-addled brain?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You are right, the existence of such part strengthens the 'intelligent design' theory a bit. But of course weakens the 'true god' theory.
A real god wouldn't need such design, but a super alien could use it.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Given that there is apparently an organ in the brain for sensing God, I would say that the burden of proof is on those who say it is for something other than sensing God.
1. Evolution. Animals that can think eat the ones that can't.
2. Evolution. Populations of moral animals survive better than populations of immoral ones.
3. You can't model the Big Bang with Newton's Third Law, so don't try. And since "time" and "cause and effect" are aspects of this universe, it doesn't make sense to ask what happened "before" the Universe or what "caused" it.
4. Hopefully, the fact that you love your family manifests itself in observable facts about the real world, something that religious statements usually lack.
You're welcome.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
There is no trace of evidence that chocolate actually exists, but many people talk incessantly about the wonderful substance of chocolate, and how they can often taste it, which is proof to them of chocolates existence.
The chocolate helmet shows that there are perfectly scientific explanations to the taste of chocolate that need not involve invisible Magical Hershey Bars or the great Girardelli factory in the sky.
Give me liberty or give me kill -s 9
Our ability to think and reason, and our sense of right and wrong, can be adequately explained by evolutionary psychology.
Science can't explain how or why the initial conditions of the universe came about. But religion can't either. All it does is replace those unknowns with totally unsubstantiated story, and in doing so creates even more unknowns. For example, religion can't explain how or why an omniscient personal God came about.
I presume there's evidence that you love your three daughters, so you can "prove" it to me. Otherwise, no, I wouldn't believe it. If I claim the plate of spaghetti I am about to eat loves you, but I can't prove it, should you believe it? I certainly hope not, because there's no evidence that my spaghetti even exists, let alone that it has exhibited love for your daughters.
"But I don't hear answers from any other quarter."
You must be living in a special world, never heard of various other relogions offering similar ancient stories which to me are not distinguishable (since i shed of my childhood Christian indoctrination) ?
"you don't think your existance is a good reason to at least contemplate it?"
Um, I've looked at myself, contemplated the existence of the Hebrew God, and read a bit here and there about the background of biblical stories. When I add all up my conclusion for now is that there is abundant evidence that the bible is a collection of subjective and heavily edited material. Resulting in a strange mix of violence and orders to kill quite a few people I rather not kill, such as name-calling children, teenagers in puberty, and people spreading other beliefs.
Looking at it from a philosophical pov i think the alternatives given by modern biology are a lot more coherent. This magnetic machine does not disprove God, something which is impossible by definition, but it is another indication that there is a God-shaped hole in the brain waiting to be filled with whatever religion available.
What none of the posters here seem to realize - especially those that ask why evolution developed an ability like this one - is that it is really not something being turned on by the helmet, but rather off! The helmet interrupts the area of your brain that controls self awareness (and keeps track of where your body ends) so that you feel at one with the universe, one with whatever god you have been thought is the real deal. Studies of buddhist monks and catholic nuns deep in meditation or prayer have showed a concentrated effort can effectively shut down the brain activity in these areas resulting in the same type of experience.
"There's someone in my head but it's not me." - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
In his book, Phantoms in the Brain, neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran mentions this device in his discussion of psychological disorders. IIRC, he compares the sensation to those symptoms that are exhibited by individuals with a messiah complex.
I don't think the problem is that those people with these religious sensations, it is with the people that don't. Clearly, non-religious people are depressing the world, describing something as beautiful and intense as a walk in the park and reducing it to something mundane. Thanks to the "god helmet", we can finally hunt down these mutants that are wrecking society and adjust their thinking.
This is my sig.
I don't think the church can be called "new".
Deleted
The article referenced a number of studies investigating a variety of "spiritual experiences", and the increase/decrease in activation of several locations in the brain. The emphasis on spiritual and/or religious "experiences" was an interesting approach, but the authors point out a difficulty:
Other research problems abound. None of the techniques, for example, can precisely delineate specific brain regions. And it is virtually impossible to find a perfect so-called reference task for the nuns to perform against which to compare the religious experience they are trying to capture. After all, what human experience is just one detail different from the awe and love felt in the presence of God?I suggest it would be interesting to investigate something for which there IS a control, and for which there is a greater ability to find matching experiences of it: Flow. See, especially: religion and spirituality
Disclaimers: IANAN (I am not a neurologist). I DO experience "flow" regularly when writing computer programs. I have had a couple "spiritual experiences" in my life, but do not subscribe to any particular religion, nor do I believe there is some "great power" that reaches down and intervenes in my life, or of anybody else.
Background: When writing computer programs, I regularly experience periods where I lose all sense of what is around me except the task at hand. These periods _feel_ brief, but when I look at the time, invariably an hour or two has passed. If I do get interrupted while in the "flow", there's a feeling of a sudden inrush of external awareness, AND a sense of "dropping" the balls (concepts and interrelationships between them) I was juggling. It's like I can only focus on so many things at once; but, being in the flow, I free my mind of awareness of the "outside" so that I can be aware of more aspects of the program I am working on.
Others have told me they felt this feeling when they were involved in sports -- they could ignore the crowd, all the other inputs and distractions, and become one with the play at hand. Still others have shared with me about having this feeling when they were listening to music. At the same time, they could selectively listen to individual instruments or the whole piece and the interactions between those instruments, all within the flow of the whole composition. Yet others still have told me about playing MMORPGs and how it felt when they became immersed in the game. And, yes, I've heard others use similar terms to describe how it felt for them when they had a "spiritual experience". (My own experience supports that, too.)
Question 1: Could it be that a "spiritual experience", a sensing of God, a feeling of oneness with the universe, etc. ... could these be akin to a "flow experience" with respect to something commonly described in religious terms?
Question 2: Are there any researchers here who would like an able and willing volunteer to investigate this? I'd volunteer in a heartbeat to be hooked up to an fMRI, or SPECT, or whatever to see what was going on when I was working on writing a program!!! Given the /. population, I suspect I'm not alone and there would be a large number who would also volunteer for such a study.
Summary: Inquiring minds want to flow! ;^)
These types of self-pitying posts always show up in any discussion mentioning Christianity, and they're bullshit.
Obviously from the eyes of any atheist, Islam is just as wrong as Christianity is, but since most Slashdot posted are Westerners, obviously any discussion about religion is going to turn to the most popular religion in the West, which is still Christianity, simply because it has a much, much greater impact on our daily lives than Islam does, fear-mongering about Islamism aside.
There's no need to tag posts about Islam with "flyingspaghettimonster", since the absurdities of Islam are readily apparent to most people in the West already. The very same absurdities in Christianity are overlooked by most Westerners, simply because they're Christian themselves, so yes, tagging stories about Christianity with it is still necessary.
Also, has it ever occured to you that maybe you perceive any discussion about Christianity as an attack simply because it strikes closer to home?
Get over your persecution complex already.
Actually, I went to the Atheist Alliance meeting last week in Washington. There weren't that many fat people there. :)
The point was also made, in every speech critical of religion, that Islam is far worse than Christianity. In fact, we've been making this point for a while. You really should get out more. We all knew damn well that the dog wasn't sniffing for Christian bombs. The main criticisms of Christianity now being made by atheists are that Christianity is degenerating into a fundamentalist/political movement similar to Islam, and that the state sponsored privileges that Christians are now demanding play right into the hands of radicalizing Imams who want to recruit terrorist fanatics in the West; support for religious schools and faith-based programs, and laws against the criticism of religious beliefs.
We'll be happy to turn our attention to Islam, as soon as Christians get out of our way.
5) Virgin births are rampant throughout ancient mythology, and most sun gods underwent a virgin birth on December 25 (it being the traditionally accepted date when the days visibly begin to grow in length). Many also had 3 wise men follow a star in the east to see the birth. It was practically a requirement of godhood in an age when sun gods were generally considered the most important deities. If you didn't have the trappings of a sun god, you would not have been accepted by Roman society. (This also explains why the Christian sabbath is Sunday.)
Astrologically, the story is explained by the belt of Orion (the three wise men) pointing to Sirius (the brightest star in the sky) which was low in the eastern sky where the sun rose on the winter solstice, all of which occured under the sign of Virgo (the virgin).
Incidentally, the sun gods as a rule traveled the world with their 12 disciples, were then killed, placed into a cave for 3 days, and then resurrected, thereby saving humanity. Astrologically, this is just esoteric symbolism for the sun traversing the 12 signs of the Zodiac, finally losing the war against the forces of darkness on the Winter Solstice, remaining in this darkest mode for 3 days where the sun spent more time "under" the earth than over it, before being reborn again, initiating a new year and new crops, which were essential to the survival of humanity.
The most prevalent sun god during the Roman Empire was probably Mithras, who had Persian origins. The story of Mithras had all of these elements, but also borrowed them from earlier traditions. The oldest one we know of, and possibly the original, was the Egyptian god Horus. The sun-disk on Horus' head was adopted directly into Christian iconography, eventually evolving into the modern halo. Horus was called Iu-em-hetep, or Iusa in Egyptian, a name which evolved to Yeshua (Hebrew), then Iesu (Greek, who had to drop the trailing 'a' which would have implied the feminine), then Iesus (Latinate form of Iesu), then finally Jesus around the 1600s when the letter J came into usage.
The current Christian version of the sun god story comes from the Council of Nicaea, which at its heart was an attempt to establish a universal Roman religion to eliminate the religious feuds that were occupying the empire at that time. As a universal religion it had to incorporate the essential elements of all the major competing sects of the day, so sun god symbolism figured heavily in the resulting unified doctrine. Constantine's miraculous "conversion" however, was more likely political expediency - an attempt to centralize and control worship from Rome. And it worked, for over 1000 years. Still doing a half-decent job today, in fact.
An equally valid observation, then, is that Dr. Sagan may be implying that the soccer mom's UFO abductee cousin is psychotic because there are difficult truths he doesn't (or doesn't WANT to) understand
Er, no. The notion that untold hundreds of thousands of people used to be routinely visited in the night by sex-crazed demons, and then right about the time 1950's sci-fi/horror movies jumped on the flying saucer meme and used cheap costumes to portray bubble-headed aliens - surprise! - those people shifted over to "I routinely get levitated out of my bed, through the wall, to a giant space ship that hovers over my house, where I'm proctologically examined..." - gee, shocking. Especially given the complete and utter absence of any evidence that anything like that ever happens to anyone, ever..
So, what's more likely? Some not uncommon wiring/chemistry problems that cause people to experience some semi-waking paranoia and delusions which they articulate in terms of popular mythology... or, a planet infested by high tech alien proctologists that don't actually leave any evidence of all of the horrible things they do? That's not, I'm afraid, "equally valid."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Given that there is apparently an organ in the brain for sensing God, I would say that the burden of proof is on those who say it is for something other than sensing God.
That's not a given. There's an organ in the brain that when stimulated gives people an experience they relate to religion. That almost certainly means that other religious activities are what stimulated their brain in that way before, otherwise they would not have connected the artificial stimulation with their previous experiences. What should be investigated is how those religious practices stimulate the brain in the first place.
Frankly, a sensor for the presence of a god who is supposed to be omnipresent doesn't sound very useful.
Slashdot: the finest source of religeous facts.
Engineering is the art of compromise.