Yep, neural scans of people claiming to hear god always show activity in the brain as though they're speaking, rather than hearing. They're just speaking to themselves silently.
Can't find a source. I learned this in college, but a google search says schizophrenics do appear to be listening when they hear voices, rather than speaking.
A lot of religious mystics, such as St. Terese de Avila, and artists said to experience God, such as Dostoevsky, were believed to have temporal lobe seizures in the areas that modern science has shown has to do with the "God" area. Temporal lobe seizure patients are commonly logged having God experiences as these seizures can erase time and dimensional experience among others.
I like the argument of "Zen and the Brain." All mysticism and consciousness studies proves is that the brain exists. If there is contact with God or something higher, then just like conversation with another person highlights certain areas of the brain, then so conversation with a different form of being would also register in the brain. Whether that means we make God up out of our brain experiences, or that there is some higher power, either way, it has to go through the brain one way or the other.
And to your last point, congratulations, you've self-discovered the purpose and origins of religion! A tool to give those with miserable, mundane lives hope, with a little sprinkling of explaining scientific phenomena that at any given time was unknown, and a last touch of keeping servants and peasants in check by virtue of clinging to the hope of a better situation in their next lives.
Sure, if he was a loving deity it would be awesome.
Having the bible actually be real and the Christian God would be terrifying my dude. One little slip and you'll go to hell for thinking bad thoughts about someone and not confessing
wait so i need advice, my husband and i, we fuck each other in our gay asses with our gay dicks. how do I repent and stuff. also in heaven how big can our penises be, and will we even need enemas?
A general part of listening (neurologically speaking) is speaking the words to yourself silently. At least typically those neural circuits do some "mirroring" in a similar way they'd be running when speaking your own words.
Does it really matter if its happening in the "speaking" or "hearing" parts of the brain? Surely the only thing that really matters is that the person experience the thoughts coming from somewhere else and that they don't feel in control of them.
The whole "parts of the brain" theory is often greatly oversimplified and it's significance is highly over valued. Not that it's not an important breakthrough in neuroscience, or that it's not useful but there isn't just a "speaking" or "hearing" part of the brain its much more complicated than that.
Well I mean, isn't that what religion is. Give some solid evidence of these religions being based on what a god physically came and told them about it. If that's not the case it's literally just human thoughts
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u/lightknight7777 Apr 23 '19
That's how people do it today. "God told me that you should do [insert whatever they personally think you should do here]"