The Nucleus Accumbens

Neuroscience is continuing its advances and testing-down the exclusivity of religious convictions (feelings) and their purported source—god is losing his grip—the cat is climbing out of the bag.

“Based on fMRI scans, the researchers found that powerful spiritual feelings were reproducibly associated with activation in the nucleus accumbens, a critical brain region for processing reward“.

Spirituality can be reproduced in the laboratory or academic study. An interesting note—when a challenge threatens the belief, you then endanger the source of the addiction—And the source of the religious addiction lies in your own neurons and endocrine system. Threaten any addict, sit back and hear the excuses, the lies, and the deceit. The threat in this addiction also stimulates the fight or flight—adrenaline—hence the argument—in the face of facts.

Interestingly I can reproduce the same neurological affects of religion with medication, sex, lies, meditation, junk food—and the spirit of god, of course. It’s no wonder endocrine and in-doctrine , are so similar

This article HERE has some additional insights.

It is so clear that our minds are easily manipulated by an array of influence. Best be careful out there—awareness and acceptance of these facts is a push towards reality.

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Geno-Phenotypes vs Religious Nurture- A change in Physiology

I can’t help but notice from day to day how so many can completely ignore the contradictions of religion. Could it be faulty wiring, or are they compelled in some way by their physiology to align with obvious duplicity due to faulty programming? Where but institutionalized patients in state hospitals can you see such a broken bridge between reality versus what is believed? —Religious conditioning

A genotype is an organisms full hereditary information, while phenotype is the organisms actual observed properties. Additionally, an extended phenotype would include what the organism does, such as nest building for birds or dam building for beavers, who change their environment due to genetic programming.

Religious genotypes, phenotypes, and morphology could easily be expounded in analogy with more time, but your natural conclusion can easily see what I am alluding to. It’s obvious to everyone that has not been indoctrinated. The constant denial of the obvious is more than a decision to believe, but they are forced to ignore simple logic by physiology. Here’s how-

A key difference between a religious genotype and natural organic genotypes is one of nurture versus nature. While family traits can be passed on from generation to generation with no effort but copulation, religious traits must be routinely hammered into the newcomer without their choice or consent. After several years of indoctrination, subjects begin to take on the traits of the abuser parent and lose the natural discernment of contradiction due to shifted nueropathways. While religion through fertility is a common occurrence, retracting from nurtured thought duplicity is quite rare. The ability to ignore contradiction has become physiological.

Neurotheologist Dr. Andrew Newberg writes; “As to what’s going on in their brains, he says, “It depends to some degree on what the practice is.” Practices that involve concentrating on something over and over again, either through prayer or a mantra-based meditation, tend to activate the frontal lobes, the areas chiefly responsible for directing attention, modulating behavior, and expressing language.

In contrast, when practitioners surrender their will, such as when they speak in tongues or function as a medium activity decreases in their frontal lobes and increases in their thalamus, the tiny brain structure that regulates the flow of incoming sensory information to many parts of the brain. This suggests that their speech is being generated from some place other than the normal speech centers” The Metaphysical Mind

Research also shows that routines and habits actually create new neuro-pathways. A study in the Oct. 20 issue of Nature, led by Ann Graybiel of MIT’s McGovern Institute, now shows why. “Important neural activity patterns in a specific region of the brain change when habits are formed, change again when habits are broken, but quickly re-emerge when something rekindles an extinguished habit — routines that originally took great (pressure) effort to learn. We knew that neurons can change their firing patterns when habits are learned, but it is startling to find that these patterns reverse when the habit is lost, only to recur again as soon as something kicks off the habit again,” said Graybiel, who is also the Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Neuroscience in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS).

Forcing religious habits into young minds through repetition has a two-fold effect One, essentially taking away freewill of the indoctrinated, and two, manipulating/changing actual neuro-physiology in each subject. Undoing these manipulations requires a long break in the routine to readjust the neurons to achieve clarity.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it”. Why? Because his neurophysiology has been manipulated—It almost takes a miracle, or some good luck.

Here again we see contradiction in the religion of freewill. They appear to be the ones without it. After physiological changes in the brain seal it by indoctrination and repetition, they simply cannot undo the connections. We would just as well teach a beaver to build a birds nest. No matter what you do, he’ll still end up back at the water.

God is Shrinking

Denying evidence has the Christian god stuck on a Tilt-a-Whirl going round and round. The more science deniers deny, the smaller the gaps that give room for any god at all. Their god is shrinking. Science doesn’t know everything, but it does know quite a lot. Data continues to grow, and as it does, false premises and pseudoscience themes are stuck in first gear on a round pedal car track, re-explaining themselves over and over, honing the wording to satisfy religious sophistry and maintain fear in its loyals.

When worn out explanations keep repackaging themselves, never coming out of immaterial spirit (what is that) mode and dualism to explain the explainable when perfectly viable research and answers in neuroscience grow steadily year after year, the religion that has bound the minds of men for millennia is finally making its way out the door. Soon. Very soon.

The Bible cannot be taken literally any longer. It is far from inspired truth and those that cling to its allegorical power too will fade. Soon the Bible will only be found in the mythology section along side the rest of the immortals that have gone missing.

Horace Eye

Although this is fairly new to me, I thought this quite interesting to think on, and wondered if anyone else has run across this. Deeply inspiring or convincing someone in such a way to cause conversion by apparent supernatural means, appears to have been understood by the Egyptians prior to our time. Conversion takes place when the senses are overloaded, and a feeling, many times indescribable, causes belief, faith, understanding or enlightenment. This can be done in several ways, through truth, through deception, lies, and medications, during emotional and traumatic experiences. Not sure if you’re aware of this, but there is a completely different realm of enlightenment associated with this, and it may be the sole source of spiritual awakening, thought, and inspiration. The Horace eye is nearly identical to the hippocampus of the human brain, and is composed of the five senses surrounding the pineal gland, which interprets light and darkness and houses serotonin as a precursor to secrete melatonin to regulate sleep patterns. Surely can’t cover all of this in a few minutes, but when thought of in this manner, spirituality takes on an entirely new spectrum. Rene Descartes believed the pineal gland to be the “principal seat of the soul, and the Egyptians used this story of Horace and the symbol to remind where enlightenment comes from, When activated, the pineal gland causes a sensation of euphoria and oneness, or wholeness. I have thought for some time now, the power that is called god, and the ability to spiritualize ourselves, likely comes from within. Neurotheology advances will surely be including this deep seated and mysterious part of the brain. In modern times, pineal calcification and atrophy are believed to be more advanced than in earlier times. Prior to pineal atrophy, I’m just imaging what might have been, when our pineal glands were larger and possible healthier. Still a lot to learn.

New Portable EEG

Edinburgh University, Scotland has developed a prototype EEG and has tested it on 95 volunteers over the age of 65. The study is recording brain activity in everyday situations in different urban settings from busy streets to parks.

I am imagining the implications here, and as an irreligious writer I am eager to get this device into the hands of neurotheologist researchers. Can we strap this baby on to some Pentecostal regulars and mega church parishioners? Can we get Mel to volunteer to wear this during a blog fight? This image shows average brain regions for 22 subjects during testing. Blue areas represent brain regions more active when telling the truth, red areas, when lying. How much red inside the head? Can we get some prayer? Can somebody please record the conversion process and confirm what part of the brain started this mess? Oh the implications are grand, and to get this everywhere to corroborate the overwhelming evidence that brain function creates spiritual experience? The floodgates are about to open. The field is ripe, and ready to harvest. Maybe we can end this debate once and for all. Here is a great 2 min video of right brain left brain with separated corpus callosum.