You make an interesting point here. As for the differences in mystical experiences and having origins in different parts of the brain...I think if one mystical experience is valid, the other one should be valid, too. I do not trust the objective validity of spiritual experiences produced in the temporal lobe because stimulations of the temporal lobe do not always convey reality accurately (body distortions). So, a similar mystical experience may occur in another part of the brain, but why would one mystical experience be real and the other false?
Oh, absolutely, but seizures and hallucinations aren't mystical experiences themselves, they're biological malfunctions. I don't deny that the malfunctions can possibly, occasionally trigger a mystical state, but they're not the same thing. Neurotheology shows that quite clearly. I'm a bit bewildered as to why you're lumping them together.
You make a point in that there COULD be a spiritual reality that matches these mystical experiences, but at this point I see no reason to think that.
And why would you? You're an atheist.
That's my entire point, really. The science - all science - provides no convincing evidence for or against God.
Given the fact that some humans seem to be more predisposed to religiosity/spirituality than others -- see above links -- speculating on such matters may be an outgrowth of our genetic hardwiring.
Thank you kindly for the links. I'll read them when I'm done here.
Something that ties in to that nicely is Smith's notion of spiritual personality types. I strongly suggest reading his book,
Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief, but I found an
interview that touches on the idea as well.
Excerpt:
Some people are what you might call polytheistic in the sense that a more finite God rivets their attention as opposed to an abstract, universal deity.
MK: Do you mean that they need a 'personal' God?
HS: That's right. This notion of spiritual 'personality type' feels original to me because I haven't picked it up anywhere else. You can study all the major religions - Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism - and slice them as traditions. Additionally, cutting the other way and across all of them are these recurring four spiritual personality types.
The first is the atheist for whom the obvious, the mundane, is all there is. And you find those people everywhere. You even find the atheist in tribal/oral cultures; and as you know, there are some who are just 'meat-and-potatoes' people. (laughs)
And then you get the type we were just talking about, the polytheists. These are people who really come to life religiously in the broadest sense in terms of concrete spirits. For example, each shaman in a tribe has their own personal 'guide,' a spirit that helps, guides, and empowers them. But there's no thought that this guide is the only spirit or that this personal spirit created the world.
So we've got the atheists and the polytheists. Then come the monotheists where it all comes together in a single universal being, but it's a personal God. You mentioned this person earlier.
Beyond these three spiritual types you get the mystics where again there is a 'world spirit' However, for the mystic the personal imagery of the monotheist becomes too anthropomorphic to really seem real.
So I'll give you a little test. On one hand you have the atheist who believes in no God. Next there's the polytheist that has many Gods, and after this person is the monotheist who has one personal God. Now the test: What does the mystic say?
MK: Can I answer with an analogy?
HS: By all means.
MK: For me, a rough analogy would be that the universe is composed of spirit that is analogous to an amorphous block of 'clay.' The 'clay' can be used to make a beautiful figure or pot, or to create something hideous or disgusting. Everything is created from this material, nice people, bad people, beautiful sunsets, and natural disasters. The mystic sees the clay as the creative stuff of the universe, inert in the sense of not having intrinsically dualistic qualities of good or bad - what Huang Po might call the 'One Mind' or the pregnant void from which all things are possible. In short, it is the spirit or stuff that permeates the entire matrix of our universe, both manifest and unmanifest.
HS: I'll mount the ladder again. Atheists have no God. The polytheists have many Gods and the monotheists have one personal God. The mystic - only God.
For example, there is a part of the brain in the temporal lobe that becomes active when one thinks of God and matters of faith -- this same area becomes hyperactive during seizures. Perhaps we would not have a God concept were it not for this part of the brain being there. But then we get into the chicken or egg argument -- which came first, God or the brain?
To me, the more important question is: if God doesn't exist, why would our brains perceive that it does?
The thing that I find astonishing - even as a believer - is that trance states are described almost identically across cultural and religious lines. When I trance, I'm having the same basic experience as a Hindu mystic on the other side of the world, with a totally alien cultural framework. Despite that vast difference in framework, we could sit down and discuss our experiences and understand one another. Such an elegant mystery, no?
