handofdave wrote:
Brain activity doesn't prove God exists, it just proves something is going on in the brain. But to reduce very powerful experiences to 'brain activity' is misleading.
I'm sorry, but that's science! OK, you could argue that this is where science falls short, but without that rigour the discipline of science would be meaningless.
Perhaps I should explain where I'm coming from here, as I feel that you are lumping me in with dogmatic scientists who will not even allow the possibility of something existing without "proof".
I have a generally scientific mind set. I do not think it is right to simply have "faith" in things, let alone to build a whole belief system around such assumptions. I have, however, had something which could only be described as a "religious" experience on more than one occaision. For years I have tried to reconcile this with a scientific viewpoint. Hence my interest in discussing the subject.
I think that there is something "going on under the bonnet" of reality, but as yet have not determined what that something is. I suspect it is something deep-rooted in the quantum world, but until someone comes up with a god-o-meter and can show what energies/particles/dimensions are involved, I don't want to have "faith" in it. After all, it could just as easily have been caused by abberant brain activity or chemistry.
To summarise, a dogmatic scientist would deny there is anything going on here without absolute "proof", but an open-minded scientist would say that perhaps there is something going on, but until we see some evidence we have no idea what it actually is.
