Justification for Religion
Skeptic:-
Religions consist of people who believe and follow people who claim to have spiritual experiences which they interpret as revelations from God. But neuro-psychological experiments show that religious experiences can be reproduced by stimulating various parts of the brain.
There are all kinds of mental states:- lucid dreaming, hallucinations, schizophrenia, illusions? As Steven Pinker said.... the mind is what the brain does.
Comment:-
If I or you see a table will there not be neuro-psychological causes for this? Will this prove that the table I see does not exist?
Suppose an ape were able to speak and a human being were to say to him:- "I can see a world of culture, of ideas, of art and science and literature, of political and economic organization."
And if that ape made the same assumptions as this skeptic, he might reply:-"Nonsense. Apes are the highest form of intelligence, at the top of the evolutionary ladder. It is not possible to go any higher. Therefore, what I see is true and what I cannot see is false. There is not much genetic difference between ape and man. What you see is all an illusion to do with neuro-psychology.
Arguing against the ape would be futile.
He would be right - instruments are certainly required and they may be defective and produce distorted images - but he would be wrong in the assumption that the instrument always generated its own images and did not respond to external stimuli.
The neuro-psychological researcher applies stimuli to the brain of the subject in the laboratory to produce results. The question is: What stimuli exist when the subject who reports these experiences are not in the laboratory and what affect do they have on their lives. Is it beneficial or harmful?
Skeptic:-
If you look into statistics, you will see that people who do not believe in religions are generally sure of themselves, have a good scientific and humanistic culture, belong to a community of free men, are young persons. But believers in the religions are people who have an anxious nature, are generally insecure in themselves, have a low culture, are superstitious, have had a religious education, belong to a community of the faithful who brain wash them, and are older persons.
Comment:-
It is true that some insecure, inadequate, neurotics and psychotic people seek consolation in religion and use it like crutches. But this is not true of all religious people and the same types can also be found in many other walks of life.
It is possible to argue with greater justification that the young are inexperienced, relatively ignorant, impulsive and tend to be arrogant and full of self-opinion. The older they get the wiser they get. They see the obvious uncertainties and foolishness of ordinary life and Religion gives them a better sense of values and greater stability.
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