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Brain Surgery Linked To Sensation of Spirituality
the3stars writes "'Removing part of the brain can induce inner peace, according to researchers from Italy. Their study provides the strongest evidence to date that spiritual thinking arises in, or is limited by, specific brain areas. This raises a number of interesting issues about spirituality, among them whether or not people can be born with a strong propensity towards spirituality and also whether it can be acquired through head trauma."
One critic's quoted response: "It's important to recognize that the whole study is based on changes in one self-report measure, which is a coarse measure that includes some strange items."
Well, a lobotomy reduces the patient's capacity for introspection and self-consciousness. So what you write is true of lobotomies.
That said, it's premature to characterize these results as "blissful ignorance". In fact the researchers pinpoint two areas: the right angular gyrus and left inferior parietal lobe. It's intriguing that both of these areas are related to arithmetic abilities, but that's all the result is -- intriguing. We don't know whether it's the same thing going on in both cases, or whether either case is related it any way to what we think of as "spirituality".
You can look at the things these areas of the brain are supposed to do and make all kinds of interesting conjectures, but it could be something as simple as some of these patients not being able to understand the sense of the questions being put the them, or others not being able to monitor the kinds of emotional sensations they're being asked to report on. One area is believed to be used in the understanding of metaphors, the other in terms of bodily awareness.
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That's very true however FWIW I read somewhere that Newton had claimed he'd gained many of his initial insights about physics and mathematics while in process of re-translating the bible to English. Only having read a couple recent popular English translations myself, it seems a bit strange as a source for that type of inspiration but I'd also read that he was not the only huge figure in science that claimed this.
I think maybe it is possible that there are times in human history when in certain societies being extremely religious may have actually been an enlightening pursuit... perhaps one of the only few available. Keep in mind there wasn't a lot of funding of public libraries or schools or even literature going on outside the walls of the church back then.
I can certainly vouch for this.
In my early teen years I was diagnosed with a form of this epilepsy. The thing not mentioned in the post above is that such form of spirituality goes away somewhat if the condition is dealt with quickly, as happened in my case. Few years later I stumbled upon some info and came to realize that I'm almost a textbook example (for short summary, see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschwind_syndrome )
What many of you can't really grasp, without experiencing it, is how real it feels - basically the question about existence of spiritual part of reality doesn't come into it at all; it's just present, that's...obvious. Only after it lessens the grip, you might ask yourself "what was that all about"?
The thing that it's often exploited by religious "guidance" certainly doesn't help to escape. And with TLE being one of more underdiagnosed forms of epilepsy (heck, it was almost a chance in my case), I wouldn't be surpised if statistically significant number of deeply religious people had a mild form. In case of such, you end up arguing against what is...very much real.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I think it's more subtle and complex than that. Religion is like a virus that has benefits to its host. It transmits certain successful memes and in exchange it replicates itself. It cannot be denied that simply telling people to "be good" does not motivate them to act wisely. But giving a loving environment to practice kindness and support for each other is what religion excels at. As an atheist, I wish I had more such structures for myself. I turn to mens teams and personal development for finding more evolved and kind people.
Currently hooked on AMP
people can be born with a strong propensity towards spirituality and also whether it can be acquired through head trauma
Weeellll... that's one way to get it I guess.
Definitely adds a very interesting potential to the story of Saul (St. Paul) who was famous for persecuting the Christians before he was thrown from his horse on the road to Damascus, and saw "a light from heaven", after which he heard Jesus speak to him and was converted. The official story is that he saw the light first, and was then thrown from his horse - but head trauma has a funny way of messing with the memory of the sequence of events...
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Here is an interesting lecture by Robert Sapolsky, "Evolution, religion, schizophrenia and the schizotypal personality", http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/06/evolution-religion-s.html
It's an interesting talk about how while schizophrenia may be the result of a full expression of a recessive gene, the schizotypal may be a mild expression of the same gene, leading to people like shamans. That would tend to support your "born with a strong propensity"...
His recent graduation day talk at Stanford was, while not related (on the uniqueness of humans), even more interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrCVu25wQ5s