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closeWhat I would prefer to know is ...
Posted by DanielEndy on 01 Oct 2009 at 22:39 GMT
A comparison of both stimulus categories suggests that religious thinking is more associated with brain regions that govern emotion, self-representation, and cognitive conflict, while thinking about ordinary facts is more reliant upon memory retrieval networks
http://plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0007272#article1.front1.article-meta1.abstract1.sec2.p1
It's not news that Religious experiences are more about emotion and facts are more about memory.
This feels like a manufactured argument to support the dispassionate 'Vulcan' approach to life.
Spirituality is clearly a more emotional experience. This is as revealing as saying Love is a feeling, not a fact.
This line of research would be much more valid and useful if it included the study of Love as well. Is there a difference between an emotional experience like love or humor and the emotions generated by religious or spiritual experience? Now that's an interesting correlation to investigate.
RE: What I would prefer to know is ...
mscohen replied to DanielEndy on 02 Oct 2009 at 21:59 GMT
No one study could hope to answer the greater questions that you are posing here. Sure: more studies of love and spirituality would be great and there have been, in fact, multiple neuroimaging studies in these areas.
RE: What I would prefer to know is ...
preternat replied to DanielEndy on 09 Oct 2009 at 06:57 GMT
I also had other questions that are unanswered here. Then I realized that this study is still significant. One step at a time!
I'm *really* out of luck! The kinds of studies I'm wishing for now would put primitive tribe members and leaders in the scanner. Not gonna happen. It'd also mess with their minds bigtime and provide bad data.