My Mom had a couple of strokes in her life due to complications with Lupus. I remember when she was going through the horribly painful chemotherapy also. I came across this presentation by a woman who is a Brain specialist scientist and was able to articulate what she was going through. Her operation was very similar to what my Mom had. I found it fascinating how she experienced an out of body situation. The story seems similar to people that claimed to go to Heaven and back. My Mom described something similar, like a dream state when she couldn't talk. Does this debunk atheists? No, but I still found it interesting that a scientist found something spiritually enlightening through her right brain. There might be something substantial to explore more.
Maybe, people that seek God are just more right brained then most atheists. Maybe God reveals the right brain to us as we seek Him. These questions I cannot answer myself but I look forward to the discoveries that comes to us in our never ending search to find the truth. When we find the truth we will find God. One question that always comes to mind is, why? Some believe we evolved to this point, so the question is why? Why are we designed like this with two brain hemispheres? Are our brains are simply designed to experience God?
I, too, recommend Jill Bolte Taylor's talk: it is an amazing glimpse into a different world, the world of an incomplete brain, excitingly and movingly told.
ReplyDeleteAbout our two hemispheres: why we have two is almost certainly a simple consequence of being bilaterally symmetrical organisms. We don't know much about hemispheric specialization in other animals, or how it came to be that we have the apportioning of tasks to left and right that we do; but in our primate lineage, there has been a general trend to more and more specialization, and more complex instincts, and this division of labor in the brain is part and parcel of that. No appeal to God is necessary.
Oh, and Dan: this is wildly off-topic here, but in case you're interested in a very clear and accessible explanation of what's wrong with the notion of divinely created "kinds" of organisms, go here.
ReplyDeleteOK Zilch for you I will read it in it's entirety to understand your point of view. I am sure the flaws will be quite apparent and I will be happy to point them out for you. lol
ReplyDeleteAt least you didn't just point to talk origins. Whew!
Thanks, Dan. As I've said before, though, I don't really care what you believe: it's how you behave that's important to me. And now that I feel that I know you a little, your well-being, and that of your family, is also important to me.
ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteNow you base all you understand on one video of one person.
There are many reasons for out of body, or near death experiences. Much testing has been done and you could actually look them up just like anybody else that is interested in it but you are totally guilty of only "believing" stuff that supports your belief.
Suffice to say the brain plays many tricks on the minds of even healthy people.
One out of ten people have those experiences in their life. It is rather common when surgeons are working in the brains of people under anethstetic and even without anethstetic.
All you have to do is eat a psyliciben mushroom and you will have one too.
The compunds mimick receptors in the brain and can actually be produced by a brain under stress.
Froggie- I ate plenty of psilocybin shrooms in my wayward youth, and never had an out-of-body experience. But then again, I never had real hallucinations either, as most of my friends did: I think I'm just too boringly rational.
ReplyDeleteWhy are we designed like this with two brain hemispheres? Are our brains are simply designed to experience God?
ReplyDeleteThis puzzles me, Dan.
You've railed against science in the past. And you definitely try to discredit anything discovered (or claimed) by science that contradicts your understanding of the Bible.
Having pointed this out, why would you be curious about how we're designed? You should be able to read the Bible and get all the answers you want - correct? Given that science is fallible and full of anti-Christian (and anti-God) people, how would you go about trying to discover the reasoning behind our design?
It seems to me that the Bible, having answers to all of our questions and problems, is an effective curiosity killer. We can't know the mind of a perfect being (seeing as we're fallen and all), so why even be interested in knowing such things?
Are you conceding an interest in science?
Whateverman "Having pointed this out, why would you be curious about how we're designed? You should be able to read the Bible and get all the answers you want - correct?"
ReplyDeleteGood point but I am not curious about how we are designed but finding of the truth.
After all God "formed man of the dust of the ground" (Genesis 2:7)
"Are you conceding an interest in science?"
More interest in truth and if science gets us truth then so be it. If scientists try lead us astray then i consider those particular scientists evil.