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https://news.yale.edu/2018/05/29/where-b...xperiences

RELEASE: Yale scientists have identified a possible neurobiological home for the spiritual experience — the sense of connection to something greater than oneself. Activity in the parietal cortex, an area of the brain involved in awareness of self and others as well as attention processing, seems to be a common element among individuals who have experienced a variety of spiritual experiences, according to a study published online May 29 in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

“Spiritual experiences are robust states that may have profound impacts on people’s lives,” said Marc Potenza, professor of psychiatry, of the Yale Child Study Center, and of neuroscience. “Understanding the neural bases of spiritual experiences may help us better understand their roles in resilience and recovery from mental health and addictive disorders.”

Spiritual experiences can be religious in nature or not, such as feeling of oneness in nature or the absence of self during sporting events. Researchers at Yale and the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia University interviewed 27 young adults to gather information about past stressful and relaxing experiences as well as their spiritual experiences. The subjects then underwent fMRI scans while listening for the first time to recordings based on their personalized experiences. While individual spiritual experiences differed, researchers noted similar patterns of activity in the parietal cortex as the subjects imagined experiencing the events in the recordings.

Potenza stressed other brain areas are probably also involved in formation of spiritual experiences. The method can help future researchers study spiritual experience and its impact on mental health, he said.

Lisa Miller of Columbia is first author of the study.

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The common cliche "belonging to something larger than yourself" comes into play here. It would be interesting to see if the sense of inclusion in groups or organizations or nations triggers the same spiritual circuitry as God does. The sense of being a part of an encompassing whole. Of surrendering your ego over to a purposeful emotionally-stimulating collective identity, much as religious adherents might mystically unite with God or their church.

Well, leftists do seem to have made a religion of their politics. Sadly, not to the same beneficial results as actual religious belief.

(Jun 7, 2018 08:33 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Well, leftists do seem to have made a religion of their politics. Sadly, not to the same beneficial results as actual religious belief.

Like conservatives don't take refuge in their own encompassing party identity.

Most conservatives just have more fundamental principles that their politics serve, rather than their politics being the fundamental thing. That's why the Republican party tends to be more divided.

If conservatives are expressing their moral principles thru politics, then they aren't more fundamental than that. They are as superficial as what they are engaged with.

Why, are your convictions no more fundamental than any single expression of them? O_o
Are you claiming that you're as superficial as anything you engage with? O_o

The problem with projecting is that it always exposes more about the person doing it.

Quote:Why, are your convictions no more fundamental than any single expression of them?

They just aren't. Politics itself is a superficial concern for self empowerment and comformity to group opinion. It is a cheap substitute for applying morality to your actual life. A crude obsession for being right and living by an us vs them mindset.

(Jun 8, 2018 02:46 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:Why, are your convictions no more fundamental than any single expression of them?

They just aren't. Politics itself is a superficial concern for self empowerment and group opinion. It is a substitute for applying morality to your actual life.

You really should have heeded what I just said about projecting.
Big government leftists do rely on government to the exclusion of personal moral responsibility. Just look at how catastrophic anthropogenic climate change deniers have more eco-friendly behavior than its true believers. Conservatives are about smaller government because they know people are capable of being moral and responsible...and that morality enforced by the state is no morality at all.

Always playing the blame game. That's what your morality amounts to. Always judging and telling others how to act. That's not morality. That's called being a prick.