Download or read book Faith Supernatural Beliefs and Our Symbolic Brain written by Herman Kagan and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-06 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We have been endowed with a symbolic brain that helps us adapt to and survive in our natural and man-made worlds. However it is open to both true and false beliefs both of which have impacts on our well-being. Supernatural beliefs may lead to disastrous consequences but continue to exist because they actually serve human survival through their reliance on faith and reduction of stress. So our symbolic brain's readiness for supernatural beliefs is a mixed blessing-but a blessing nevertheless. BOOK REVIEW A cleareyed look at the psychological and biological foundation of supernatural beliefs. In this accessible text, Kagan (The Psychological Immune System, 2006) undertakes to explain the seemingly inextinguishable human predilection toward faith in the supernatural. He discusses his subject in clear language with plenty of examples, drawing from the research and publications of psychologists, evolutionary biologists and neurologists, as well as other thinkers. Facts and hypotheses from these disciplines weave together into a well-structured argument. By supernatural beliefs, Kagan means to refer to everything from religion to belief in magic or aliens. Such a large definition at first seems untenable, but Kagan ties everything together well enough to convince readers that it's all related and relevant. He covers plenty of ground, from making sense of global warming to how professionals determine when supernatural beliefs have crossed the line into pathology. Kagan also frequently refers to his theory of the psychological immune system, which he developed in his first work: "I envision our symbolic brain as an important tool used extensively by our psychological immune system (Psy-IS) in its quest to protect, preserve, and enhance the life, property, and identity of ourselves and those we love and are bonded to." The symbolic brain provides the psychological immune system with material to accomplish these aims. Comfort, aspirations, and the cessation of anxiety and pain can result from supernatural beliefs, he says, which fits well with the functions of the psychological immune system. His knowledge of psychology enables him to consider the general mechanisms that underlie particular beliefs, and his keen interest flows through the book's easy-to-follow structure. The extensive reference list for further reading will appeal to lay readers eager to follow the argument Kagan coherently assembles. An excellent introduction to the science behind our beliefs.

Download or read book The Believing Brain written by Michael Shermer and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2012-06-07 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist and science historian, Michael Shermer upends the traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first and explanations for beliefs follow. The brain, Shermer argues, is a belief engine. Using sensory data that flow in through the senses, the brain naturally looks for and finds patterns - and then infuses those patterns with meaning, forming beliefs. Once beliefs are formed, our brains subconsciously seek out confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive-feedback loop. In The Believing Brain, Shermer provides countless real-world examples of how this process operates, from politics, economics, and religion to conspiracy theories, the supernatural, and the paranormal. Ultimately, he demonstrates why science is the best tool ever devised to determine whether or not our belief matches reality.

Download or read book The Believing Brain written by Michael Shermer and published by Times Books. This book was released on 2011-05-24 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shermer demonstrates how our brains selectively assess data in an attempt to confirm the conclusions (beliefs) we've already reached. Drawing on evolution, cognitive science, and neuroscience, he considers not only supernatural beliefs but political and economic ones as well.

Download or read book Why We Believe What We Believe written by Andrew Newberg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-09-12 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WHY DO YOU BELIEVE THE THINGS YOU BELIEVE? Do you remember events differently from how they really happened? Where do your superstitions come from? How do morals evolve? Why are some people religious and others nonreligious? Everyone has thoughts and questions like these, and now Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman expose, for the first time, how our complex views emerge from the neural activities of the brain. Bridging science, psychology, and religion, they demonstrate, in simple terminology, how the brain perceives reality and transforms it into an extraordinary range of personal, ethical, and creative premises that we use to build meaning, value, spirituality, and truth into our lives. When you come to understand this remarkable process, it will change forever the way you look at the world and yourself. Supported by groundbreaking research, including brain scans of people as they pray, meditate, and even speak in tongues, Newberg and Waldman propose a new model for how deep convictions emerge and influence our lives. You will even glimpse how the mind of an atheist works when contemplating God.Using personal stories, moral paradoxes, and optical illusions, the authors demonstrate how our brains construct our fondest assumptions about reality, offering recommendations for exercising your most important muscle in order to develop a more life-affirming, flexible range of attitudes. You'll discover how to: Recognize when your beliefs are altered by others Guard against mental traps and prejudicial thinking Distinguish between destructive and constructive beliefs Cultivate spiritual and ethical ideals Ultimately, we must always return to our beliefs. From the ordinary to the extraordinary, they give meaning to the mysteries of life, providing us with our individual uniqueness and the ability to fill our lives with joy. Most important, though, they give us inspiration and hope, beacons to guide us through the light and dark corners of the soul

Download or read book The Believer s Brain written by Kenneth M. Heilman and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About 90% of people have faith in a supreme being, but our yearning for the divine, and whatever it promises, involves a large divergence in mental states and behaviors. Some adhere to doctrine, supplication, and fastidious religious practices; others have a strong sense they are part of something greater and more universal. However, all religious and spiritual paths are mediated by complex brain networks. When different areas of the brain are stimulated, a person can have a variety of experiences, but there is no specific ‘God spot’ where stimulation enhances religiosity or spirituality. Functional brain imaging shows that there are specific areas of the brain that ‘light up’ when subjects perform certain religious activities, but imaging only provides anatomic correlations, not functional explanations. The Believer's Brain takes a step beyond these singular methodologies, providing converging evidence from a variety study methods of how humans’ brain networks mediate different aspects of religious and spiritual beliefs, feelings, actions, and experiences. Although the book reveals how our brain is the home to the religious and spiritual mind, understanding this gift will not diminish our spirituality or our love or our belief in a supreme being, but will increase appreciation of the apparatus that mediates these mental states.

Download or read book The Battle Between Honesty and Deception A Grand Debate written by Herman Kagan and published by Atlantic Publishing Company. This book was released on 2020-08-30 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether we like it or not, deception is something we have to deal with almost every day. We are bombarded with advertisements for great deals, but the catch is always in the fine print. Deception has become a norm but does that mean honesty has ceased to exist? A Grand Debate takes a look at honesty versus deception by delving deeper into research done by professionals in the scientific and medical fields. Written in a conversational style, two people go head to head in a discussion to prove which is more prevalent in society today. Who will win the final battle?

Download or read book More Than Discourse written by Donald A. Crosby and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2014-06-12 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious life involves more than prosaically stated beliefs. It also encompasses attitudes, emotions, values, and practices whose meanings cannot be adequately captured in verbal assertions but require effective expression in forceful images, portrayals, and enactments of a nonliteral sort. Indeed, the world's religious traditions are each marked by rich and distinctive symbols. In More Than Discourse, Donald A. Crosby discusses the nature of symbols in religion and investigates symbols appropriate for religious naturalism or what he terms Religion of Nature. This is a religious outlook that holds the natural world to be the only world; it is sacred but without any supernatural domain or presence underlying it. Warning against a too-literalistic approach to any religion by either its adherents or its critics, Crosby discusses the nature and roles of religious symbols, how they work, and their particular kinds of truth or falsity. A set of criteria for evaluating the effectiveness and meaning of religious symbols is provided along with explorations of specific symbols Crosby finds to be highly significant for Religion of Nature.

Download or read book Science of the Supernatural written by Dale Spears and published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2022-11-03 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science of the Supernatural takes the findings of science and applies them to the doctrines of religion. It tells how the natural and the supernatural are just two different parts of the same real universe. It shows why the spiritual realm is unseen by us and yet is as real as the elements that make up the earth. It explains why we mortals canaEUR(tm)t see the spiritual realm, and yet, the spiritual realm can affect us.We can contact God and get answers and sometimes even get what are called miracles from him.It shows how creation came from what we call nothing and how the creation, as given in Genesis, is God organizing what is already there. It tells why the fall of Adam left us in such sad state and how it will be for our benefit in time. It explains how God works with this fallen world. And it explains how to not only search for God as so many do but how to actually find him.Marvelous and wonderful truths are found when the theories of science are applied to the doctrines and truths of religion. They fit together quite well.

Download or read book Supernatural Agents written by Iikka Pyysiainen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-27 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cognitive science of religion is a rapidly growing field whose practitioners apply insights from advances in cognitive science in order to provide a better understanding of religious impulses, beliefs, and behaviors. In this book Ilkka Pyysiäinen shows how this methodology can profitably be used in the comparative study of beliefs about superhuman agents. He begins by developing a theoretical outline of the basic, modular architecture of the human mind and especially the human capacity to understand agency. He then goes on to discuss examples of supernatural agency in detail, arguing that the human ability to attribute beliefs and desires to others forms the basis of conceptions of supernatural agents and of such social cognition in which supernatural agents are postulated as interested parties in social life. Beliefs about supernatural agency are natural, says Pyysiäinen, in the sense that such concepts are used in an intuitive and automatic fashion. Two dots and a straight line below them automatically trigger the idea of a face, for example. Given that the mind consists of a host of such modular mechanisms, certain kinds of beliefs will always have a selective advantage over others. Abstract theological concepts are usually elaborate versions of such simpler and more contagious folk conceptions. Pyysiäinen uses ethnographical and survey materials as well as doctrinal treatises to show that there are certain recurrent patterns in beliefs about supernatural agents both at the level of folk-religion and of formal theology.

Download or read book How to Believe Your Way to Supernatural Faith written by Chris Cree and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2021-09-27 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unbelief is the single biggest barrier to experiencing the supernatural in the Kingdom of God. For example, scripture tells us Jesus could do no mighty works in His hometown because of the people's unbelief. When His disciples could not heal a man's son, Jesus later told them unbelief was the reason for their challenge. Fortunately, each of us has the ability to change what we believe. The more our beliefs line up with the truth of God's word, the more effective our faith becomes. How to Believe Your Way to Supernatural Faith addresses these topics and more: What Truth Is The Truth About Sin The Importance of Covenants The Value of Hope What Faith is Why You Don't See More Miracles

Download or read book To Believe Or Not To Believe The Social and Neurological Consequences of Belief Systems written by Rahasya Poe and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2009-11-06 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To Believe or not To Believe: The Social and Neurological Consequences of Belief Systems An in-depth look at how we limit our conscious evolution by maintaining rigid belief systems that no longer serve us and are lacking any logic or reason considering today’s advances in physics, neuroscience, and recent archaeological fi nds. Neuroscience has shown that people who meditate have much higher brain coherence than people who don’t; this balance is thought to be the gateway for spiritual enlightenment, which could be viewed as a bioneurological event. Through a better understanding of reality and our relationship to it, humankind will be able to see through the veils of illusion that keep us in constant confl ict with one another. Included are interviews with Dr. Bruce Lipton, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Dr. Andrew Newberg, Fred Alan Wolf, Neale Donald Walsch, Lynne McTaggart, Gary Zukav, Amit Goswami, Shakti Gawain, Dan Millman, Byron Katie, Alberto Villoldo, PhD, Drunvalo Melchizedek, Peter Russell, Timothy Freke, and Rollin McCraty of HeartMath. The book’s message refl ects the words of Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

Download or read book Religion Supernaturalism the Paranormal and Pseudoscience written by Homayun Sidky and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2019-11-30 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Religion, Supernaturalism, the Paranormal, and Pseudoscience" provides a comprehensive rejoinder to the challenges posed to science, scientific anthropology, evolutionary theory and rationality by the advocates of supernatural, paranormal, and pseudoscientific perspectives and modes of thought associated with the current rise of irrationalism, antiintellectualism, and emboldened religious fundamentalism and violence. Drawing upon H. Sidky’s scientific anthropological background and ethnographic field research of supernatural and paranormal beliefs and practices in several cultures over three decades, the book answers several important questions: Why do humans have a proclivity for the supernatural and paranormal thinking? Why has humanity remained shackled to sets of ideas inherited from a violent past that have no basis in reality and which bestow an illusionary solace, promote bloodshed, endless cruelties and fervent hatreds, and have come at a high cost? Why have ancient superstitions been held as sacred, inviolate truths while other aspects of the archaic belief systems of which they were a part have long been discarded? Why have not humans outgrown religion and paranormal beliefs?

Download or read book Faith Opens the Door to the Supernatural written by Mark Hankins and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Symbolic Species The Co evolution of Language and the Brain written by Terrence W. Deacon and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1998-04-17 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."—New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.

Download or read book Born to Believe written by Andrew Newberg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-10-02 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born to Believe was previously published in hardcover as Why We Believe What We Believe. Prayer...meditation...speaking in tongues. What do these spiritual activities share and how do they differ? Why do some people believe in God, while others embrace atheism? From the ordinary to the extraordinary, beliefs give meaning to the mysteries of life. They motivate us, provide us with our individual uniqueness, and ultimately change the structure and function of our brains. In Born to Believe, Andrew Newberg, MD, and Mark Waldman reveal -- for the very first time -- how our complex views, memories, superstitions, morals, and beliefs are created by the neural activities of the brain. Supported by groundbreaking original research, they explain how our brains construct our deepest convictions and fondest assumptions about reality and the world around us. Using science, psychology, and religion, the authors offer recommendations for exercising your brain in order to develop a more life-affirming, flexible range of attitudes. Knowing how the brain builds meaning, value, spirituality, and truth into your life will change forever the way you look at yourself and the world.

Download or read book The Biology of Religious Behavior written by Jay R. Feierman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-06-08 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a fresh and detailed take on the evolution of religious behavior from a biobehavioral perspective, promoting a new understanding that may help build bridges across the religious divide. There has been much recent interest in the study of religion from the perspective of Darwinian evolution. The Biology of Religious Behavior: The Evolutionary Origins of Faith and Religion offers a broad overview of the topic, written by internationally recognized experts. In addition to its primary focus on religious behavior, the book addresses other important aspects of religion, such as values, beliefs, and emotions as they affect behavior. The contributors approach the evolution of religion by examining the behavior of individuals in their everyday lives. After describing various religious behaviors, the contributors consider the behaviors with reference to their evolutionary history, development during the lifetime of the individual, proximate causes, and adaptive value. Happily, this foray into understanding religion from a biobehavioral perspective demonstrates that, at the biological and behavioral levels, what unites the different religions of the world is far greater than what divides them.

Download or read book Faith Through the Prism of Psychology written by Eugene Subbotsky and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-29 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faith Through the Prism of Psychology introduces readers to the structure and function of the inherent ability of our Self to invest objects with reality — existentialization (EXON). The author moves away from traditional ideas of existence and faith, arguing that it is an inherent ability of an individual mind to invest entities (both objective and subjective) with reality. The book treats faith as a psychological ability of the mind to upgrade the existential statuses of imaginary entities, such as ghosts or gods; the working of faith is operationalized and analyzed in empirical psychological studies. It presents a new model of investing objects with existence, with such structural elements as the belief in object permanence (BOP), magic/ordinary distinguisher (MOD), magic/trick distinguisher (MTD), imaginary/perceived distinguisher (IPD), BOP defense mechanism (BOP/DM) and realities distinguisher (RD). It will be essential reading for anyone interested in existence from psychology, philosophy, art, theology or psychotherapy backgrounds.