I recently started reading a book titled "Why God Won't Go Away." This book is about a theory that religion is a natural outcome of the functioning of the human brain. It starts with a description of an experiment in which a Buddhist man went into a meditation trance and had a brain scan done at the moment in which he attained the state he described as "being at one with the Universe."
The results of the scan showed an interesting phenomenon. The section of the cerebral cortex that is used for determining the body's orientation in space was highly active at that moment. The writer's theory was that through the process of meditation, the subject was able to shut down all normal sensory inputs to that section of his brain, causing him to attain a feeling of floating freely with no boundary between him and his surroundings. The short version of the first chapter was that meditation, if done correctly, is a way to blow your own mind.
I was reminded of many other items I've seen regarding people's beliefs of "supernatural occurrences." Such as "near death experiences" and "hearing disembodied voices." An awful lot of these things are simply explainable by the way the human brain works, when placed in unusual situations.
Military fighter jet pilots sometimes go through the exact same experiences described by many victims of "near death experiences" when they encounter high-gravity training. They pass out due to loss of blood flow to the brain and often will see "tunnels of light," or have the sensation of floating out of their bodies. The experiences are not supernatural. They are a natural, obviously repeatable process of the brain.
The same is true of "hearing voices." The condition known as schizophrenia is well known to lead to this event. No one these days would seriously try to argue that sufferers of this malady are actually hearing from supernatural beings, yet this is very likely what happened with many of the people who wrote the Bible - particularly the weirder parts. I think it's very important to recall that in the Middle East, there is a cultural norm that people revere those who are insane. Obviously, people who "hear voices" or are able to "leave their bodies" are viewed ignorantly to be more attuned to the supernatural, so their words carry more weight than scientists, unfortunately.
Given the amount of research into the working of the brain, and the purely natural, verifyable processes that go on in it, one has to wonder why anyone would think they could be taken seriously when they say "I talked with God" or "I performed an astral projection." Such things are merely the results of oddities in brain functioning, not having anything to do with an actual "supernatural world."
But this leads to another thought. Many people have read my work and contacted me, telling me that they are praying for God to make itself known to me. It's obvious that these people are satisfied that they have indeed contacted God (in whatever guise) and they want me to do the same. Again, for whatever reason they might have... I don't know for sure.
But there's a problem here. Everyone I've talked with seems to think that God normally talks to people through purely mental events. I've heard people say they go into trances and make a connection with an infinite being full of love and warmth. I've been told there's a "still small voice" that talks with you. I've heard a lot of strange things... but everything I've heard about exactly how God talks to people, it's all very much like the events that have been documented as brain flutters of one sort or another.
So if it turned out, against all logic and known possibilities, that there really is a God, it certainly won't be able to contact me in "the usual ways." Assuming that the creator and manager of the entire universe develops a desire to have a word with me, it would definitely need to do something unprecedented if it wanted me to take it seriously. After all, if I start hearing a voice when I can see no one, how could I honestly come to any other conclusing than that my brain is malfunctioning? Even if the voice tells me something only I would know, that would mean nothing for obvious reasons. Perhaps giving me some knowledge that no one knows would make a difference in establishing some credibility, but that has so far never happened to anyone that I'm aware of. By the same token, if I were one day to enter a state where I feel disconnected from the world and floating in the presence of a vast entity -- why should I think it's not simply a matter of my brain accidentally having stumbled into an unusual state of consciousness?
The point is that the events that most people I know who say they have had what they accept as contact from "beyond" are not acceptable to me. If God exists and decides to convince me of that, it will necessarily need to do something different to convince me. What might that be? I'm not very sure. Presumably, if it has infinite wisdom and information at its disposal, it will be able to puzzle out something. Until such time as that happens, I'll be content to remain skeptical of the reality of any "supernatural beings." Also, in the meantime, I don't want to hear any more about such silly things as "just give it a try... you'll be blown away!"
Sorry -- I'll blow my own mind in ways that seems good to me, rather than going looking for the ways other folks do it.
