And you don't begin to understand what an intelligent dialogue is, so go away troll.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

And you don't begin to understand what an intelligent dialogue is, so go away troll.

Pointing out that you are not being accurate in your descriptions of scientific concepts is not trolling.

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

Pointing out that you are not being accurate in your descriptions of scientific concepts is not trolling.

To Eric it is. And we all know Eric is the sole holder of all truth and what not. On a less snarky note I'm surprised to see this thread still going. I had assumed it was beaten to death already by those who uphold science and reason.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

To Eric it is. And we all know Eric is the sole holder of all truth and what not. On a less snarky note I'm surprised to see this thread still going. I had assumed it was beaten to death already by those who uphold science and reason.

You have no interest in science and reason; just in insulting those who question dogma. And vandal gave no intelligent response at all to my comments. Just saying I am not accurate conveys no information. Vandal is a troll, and you are close to being one too kinser.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

You have no interest in science and reason; just in insulting those who question dogma. And vandal gave no intelligent response at all to my comments. Just saying I am not accurate conveys no information. Vandal is a troll, and you are close to being one too kinser.

Eric - You are discussing science with at least one scientist - Vandal. Now, you can have opinions, but you can't have the opinion that his views are bogus, unless you have scientific reason that they are. You don't, so he may make that argument in reverse, if he wishes. Science has very strict rules. Not all scientists follow them. That they are not always followed doesn't make them bogus either.

If the subject was mystical thought, I would place the shoes on the opposite feet ... but it isn't. Not all knowledfge falls in the scientific domain. What does is typically defined there. Feel free to own the rest. There's plenty to go around.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Eric - You are discussing science with at least one scientist - Vandal. Now, you can have opinions, but you can't have the opinion that his views are bogus, unless you have scientific reason that they are. You don't, so he may make that argument in reverse, if he wishes. Science has very strict rules. Not all scientists follow them. That they are not always followed doesn't make them bogus either.

Vandal has shown no evidence that he is anything but a troll. But you are welcome to view him any way you like, and I have been and still am willing to discuss in depth these issues with any non-troll.

If the subject was mystical thought, I would place the shoes on the opposite feet ... but it isn't. Not all knowledge falls in the scientific domain. What does is typically defined there. Feel free to own the rest. There's plenty to go around.

Yes indeed, and remember this is not a science thread, but a thread about three areas of knowledge (including mysticism) and their possible relevance to turnings. That's why I started this thread long, long ago.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Vandal has shown no evidence that he is anything but a troll...

...and quite a fair bit that he's not a scientist.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

...and quite a fair bit that he's not a scientist.

... based as it is on your own keen and extensive knowledge of the field(s) he's discussing.

FWIW, I don't think he's a PhD scientist, but that doesn't disqualify him in any way from wearing the title of 'scientist'.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

... based as it is on your own keen and extensive knowledge of the field(s) he's discussing.

Nah. Based on the way he discusses them. It's pretty obvious he's doing no more than parroting things he's read-but-not-quite-understood. That's sufficient to disqualify a person from even deserving to call themselves a 'science enthusiast'...

Agnosticism and Atheism: Five Misconceptions, Five Quotes By Okla Elliott

Originally Posted by Justin '77

...and quite a fair bit that he's not a scientist.

Not anymore. Now, I'm a science educator.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

You have no interest in science and reason; just in insulting those who question dogma. And vandal gave no intelligent response at all to my comments. Just saying I am not accurate conveys no information. Vandal is a troll, and you are close to being one too kinser.

You have already demonstrated that you ignore all information anyone shares with you. I've been dealing with anti- science types for long enough to recognize a waste of my time.

However, it is relatively simple to chime in every time you are making stuff up and point that out for others who might actually be interested. If they are, they are free to request further information from me themselves.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Vandal has shown no evidence that he is anything but a troll.

Can you point to a single instance where I presented inaccurate scientific information?

But you are welcome to view him any way you like, and I have been and still am willing to discuss in depth these issues with any non-troll.

Translation: non-troll = someone who accepts Eric's inaccurate misrepresentations of basic science as accurate

Yes indeed, and remember this is not a science thread, but a thread about three areas of knowledge (including mysticism) and their possible relevance to turnings. That's why I started this thread long, long ago.

Too bad you spent so much time promoting complete pseudo-science and misrepresentations of actual science.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Nah. Based on the way he discusses them. It's pretty obvious he's doing no more than parroting things he's read-but-not-quite-understood. That's sufficient to disqualify a person from even deserving to call themselves a 'science enthusiast'...

Got any evidence of that beyond your say so?

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

Got any evidence of that beyond your say so?

It's actually your sayings that constitute the evidence and make the point. For me, it's sufficient merely to draw attention to them.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

It's actually your sayings that constitute the evidence and make the point. For me, it's sufficient merely to draw attention to them.

So, no. You don't have anything beyond your say so.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

It's actually your sayings that constitute the evidence and make the point. For me, it's sufficient merely to draw attention to them.

You haven't actually done that yet, Justin. Just sayin' . . .

I've seen some amazingly irrational and closed-minded statements coming from Vandal, but not in the area of science, more in areas that are beyond the scope of science. I haven't seen him get the science substantially wrong yet. If you have, perhaps you should, as you said, draw attention to it.

Vandal has contributed nothing to this thread but name-calling. He brings no science.

Prayer May Reshape Your Brain ... And Your Reality
by BARBARA BRADLEY HAGERTY

Third of a five-part series
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=104310443
(click link for full article)


Untold hours in meditation may rewrite neural connections in the brain — and how you see the world.

Scientists are making the first attempts to understand spiritual experience — and what happens in the brains and bodies of people who believe they connect with the divine.

The field is called "neurotheology," and although it is new, it's drawing prominent researchers in the U.S. and Canada. Scientists have found that the brains of people who spend untold hours in prayer and meditation are different.

I met Scott McDermott five years ago, while covering a Pentecostal revival meeting in Toronto. It was pandemonium. People were speaking in tongues and barking like dogs. I thought, "What is a United Methodist minister, with a Ph.D. in New Testament theology, doing here?"

Then McDermott told me about a vision he had had years earlier.

"I saw fire dancing on my eyelids," he recalled, staring into the middle distance. "I felt God say to me, 'You be the oil, and I'll be the flame.' Then [I] began to feel waves of the Spirit flow through my body."

I never forgot McDermott. When I heard that scientists were studying the brains of people who spent countless hours in prayer and meditation, I thought, "I've got to see what's going on in Scott McDermott's head."


Focusing Affects Reality

A few years later, Andrew Newberg made that possible. Newberg is a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of several books, including How God Changes Your Brain. He has been scanning the brains of religious people like McDermott for more than a decade.

He has found that people who meditate, from Franciscan nuns to Tibetan Buddhists, go dark in the parietal lobe — the area of the brain that is related to sensory information and helps us form our sense of self.

On a spring day in Newberg's laboratory, the neuroscientist settles McDermott in a darkened examination room and asks the pastor to pray for someone else — that is, intercessory prayer. A few minutes later, at the moment Newberg believes McDermott has reached the peak of his prayer, the researcher injects the minister with a dye that shows the blood flow in his brain.

Twenty minutes later, McDermott emerges beaming. He has enjoyed intense spiritual moments like this ever since he was in his 20s.

"The first thing that got me was I could hear God's voice," the pastor said. "And it so enamored me — I mean, it changed me dramatically. I couldn't wait to pray!"

McDermott has prayed at least two hours a day for the past 25 years.

I ask Newberg what kind of impact that would that have on the pastor's brain.

"The more you focus on something — whether that's math or auto racing or football or God — the more that becomes your reality, the more it becomes written into the neural connections of your brain," Newberg says.


'I Think We're Wired For The Supernatural'

Now it's time for Newberg to take a peek at McDermott's neural connections, sliding him into a SPECT scanner, which will create an image of which parts of McDermott's brain lit up and which went dark while he prayed.

A few minutes later, Newberg has preliminary results on his computer screen. He notes some areas of increased activity in the frontal lobes, which handle focused attention — precisely what Newberg would expect from a person praying intently. But he adds that this needs further analysis — and he'll need to find more volunteers to do this kind of interpersonal prayer before he can come to any conclusions.

Afterward, I ask McDermott if any of this challenges his beliefs. Not at all, he says.

"I think we're wired for the supernatural," he says. "I think we're meant to sense a world beyond our five senses. Come on! Taste and see that God really is good."

Newberg says he can't prove that McDermott or anyone else is communing with God, but he can look for circumstantial evidence.

"What we need to do is study those moments where people feel that they're getting beyond their brain, and understanding what's happening in the brain from a scientific perspective, what's happening in the brain from their spiritual perspective," he says.

Then he'll compare the mystical feelings with the brain physiology.


A Sense Of Oneness With The Universe

Newberg did that with Michael Baime. Baime is a doctor at the University of Pennsylvania and a Tibetan Buddhist who has meditated at least an hour a day for the past 40 years. During a peak meditative experience, Baime says, he feels oneness with the universe, and time slips away.

"It's as if the present moment expands to fill all of eternity," he explains, "that there has never been anything but this eternal now."

When Baime meditated in Newberg's brain scanner, his brain mirrored those feelings. As expected, his frontal lobes lit up on the screen: Meditation is sheer concentration, after all. But what fascinated Newberg was that Baime's parietal lobes went dark.

"This is an area that normally takes our sensory information, tries to create for us a sense of ourselves and orient that self in the world," he explains. "When people lose their sense of self, feel a sense of oneness, a blurring of the boundary between self and other, we have found decreases in activity in that area."

Newberg found that result not only with Baime, but also with other monks he scanned. It was the same when he imaged the brains of Franciscan nuns praying and Sikhs chanting. They all felt the same oneness with the universe. When it comes to the brain, Newberg says, spiritual experience is spiritual experience.

"There is no Christian, there is no Jewish, there is no Muslim, it's just all one," Newberg says.

A little theological dynamite there — but, remember, the research is just beginning.


More In This Series
The God Chemical: Brain Chemistry And Mysticism
May 18, 2009
Are Spiritual Encounters All In Your Head?
May 19, 2009
Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?
May 21, 2009
Decoding The Mystery Of Near-Death Experiences
May 22, 2009

Oh Oh Oooh, and I Pray!

by Richard Schiffman, Journalist

If you want to achieve maximum health, here are a few things that you should do: exercise regularly, eat nutritious and minimally processed foods, drop those extra pounds -- and pray. That's right, regular prayer and meditation has been shown in numerous scientific studies to be an important factor in living longer and staying healthy.

Prayer is the most widespread alternative therapy in America today. Over 85 percent of people confronting a major illness pray, according to a University of Rochester study. That is far higher than taking herbs or pursuing other nontraditional healing modalities. And increasingly the evidence is that prayer works.

It doesn't matter if you pray for yourself or for others, pray to heal an illness or for peace in the world, or simply sit in silence and quiet the mind -- the effects appear to be the same. A wide variety of spiritual practices have been shown to help alleviate the stress levels, which are one of the major risk factors for disease. They also are powerful ways to maintain a positive outlook and successfully weather the trials which come to all of us in life.

The relationship between prayer and health has been the subject of scores of double-blind studies over the past four decades. Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiovascular specialist at Harvard Medical School and a pioneer in the field of mind/ body medicine discovered what he calls "the relaxation response," which occurs during periods of prayer and meditation. At such times, the body's metabolism decreases, the heart rate slows, blood pressure goes down, and our breath becomes calmer and more regular.

Full article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richar...b_1197313.html


Oh Oh Oooh, and I Pray!

What is prayer?

Prayer has a very personal meaning arising from an individual's religious background or spiritual practice. For some, prayer will mean specific sacred words, for others, it may be a more informal talking or listening to God or a higher power.

The word "prayer" comes from the Latin precarius, which means "obtained by begging, to entreat." Prayer is rooted in the belief that there is a power greater than oneself that can influence one's life. It is the act of raising hearts and minds to God or a higher power.

There is no one set way to pray. Forms include spoken prayers, silent prayers, and prayers of the mind, the heart, and union with God. Prayers may be directed (e.g., prayers for specific things) or non-directed, with no specific outcome in mind.


Specific types of prayers include:

Intercessory prayer - praying for someone else

Distant healing prayer - praying for the healing of someone or something at a distance

Petition prayer - asking God or a higher power for something

Centering prayer - centering on a word or phrase for a minimum of 20 minutes in silence, usually in order to open to the sacred

Contemplative prayer - opening to union with God or the sacred

Meditation - In Christianity, the ultimate goal of meditation is often union with God. In Buddhism, meditation is practiced to expand awareness and gain insight into the nature of passing phenomenon. Meditation may be practiced by sitting in silence (often while following one's breath), doing intentional movement, or using visualization, imagination, or a specific object or mantra as a focus.


How might it benefit your health and wellbeing?

Prayer is important in a healthcare context simply because it is used so widely. "Surveys indicate that nearly 90% of patients with serious illness will engage in prayer for the alleviation of their suffering or disease" (Jonas, W. 2003). Among all forms of complementary medicine, prayer is the single most widely-practiced healing modality (Glazer, S. 2005). Prayer is the second most common method of pain management (after oral pain medication), and the most common non-drug method of pain management (Puchalski, C. 2004).

The following explanations have been offered as to how prayer helps improve health:

The relaxation response - prayer elicits the relaxation response, which lowers blood pressure and other factors heightened by stress

Secondary control - prayer releases control to something greater than oneself, which can reduce the stress of needing to be in charge

The placebo response - prayer can enhance a person's hopes and expectations and that in turn can positively impact health
Healing presence - prayer can bring a sense of a spiritual or loving presence and alignment with God or an immersion into a universal unconsciousness

Positive feelings - prayer can elicit feelings of gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, and hope, all of which are associated with healing and wellness.

Mind-body-spirit connection - when prayer uplifts or calms, it inhibits the release of cortisol and other hormones, thus reducing the negative impact of stress on the immune system and promoting healing.


What does the research show?

Several studies correlate prayer with improved health and well being. "Patient spirituality and religiosity have been shown to be correlated with reduced morbidity and mortality, better physical and mental health, healthier lifestyles, fewer required health services, improved coping skills, enhanced wellbeing, reduced stress and illness prevention" (McCord, G. 2004). Similarly, it is well documented that hope, belief, and faith positively influence health outcomes (Palmer, R. 2004).

A well-noted study by Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiovascular medicine specialist at Harvard Medical School, documented the potential healing benefits of spiritual practices, such as prayer and meditation (as well as hypnosis and other relaxation techniques). Benson demonstrated that the body responds to these practices with what he calls the relaxation response, which consists of "a lowering of the heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate; a reduced need for oxygen; less carbon dioxide production" (Dossey, L. 1993). In effect, the relaxation response is the opposite of the stress response and can be consciously used to modulate the impact of stress.

http://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/...actices/prayer


Oh Oh Oooh, and I Pray!

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Vandal has contributed nothing to this thread but name-calling. He brings no science.

and

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

I've seen some amazingly irrational and closed-minded statements coming from Vandal, but not in the area of science, more in areas that are beyond the scope of science. I haven't seen him get the science substantially wrong yet. If you have, perhaps you should, as you said, draw attention to it.

Could be. He thinks verbs convey "agency". I'm not a grammarian, but I fail to see how anyone could write a coherent English sentence without the use of at least 1 verb.

The verbs I used. Could, be (with an implied "it".) convey, am, fail to see, could write

And...
Mr. 10 years after could use a bit of mind expansion by listening to that 10 Years After song I posted on the other thread.

Originally Posted by Eric

Meditation - In Christianity, the ultimate goal of meditation is often union with God. In Buddhism, meditation is practiced to expand awareness and gain insight into the nature of passing phenomenon. Meditation may be practiced by sitting in silence (often while following one's breath), doing intentional movement, or using visualization, imagination, or a specific object or mantra as a focus.

Add: Laying back and rocking in a recliner to Rag's favorite hits^TM and see if I get some vibe hit. -< mantra.
to acheive
expand awareness and gain insight into the nature of passing phenomenon (which happen at random and are not under my control whatsoever.)

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Add: Laying back and rocking in a recliner to Rag's favorite hits^TM and see if I get some vibe hit. -< mantra.
to acheive
expand awareness and gain insight into the nature of passing phenomenon (which happen at random and are not under my control whatsoever.)

Well, only if they are 2T favorite hits (music during the "Awakening" had some connection to "expand awareness;" music during the "Unraveling" did not)

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Well, only if they are 2T favorite hits (music during the "Awakening" had some connection to "expand awareness;" music during the "Unraveling" did not)

Perhaps for you. But not for me. I do see an obvious pattern though.

Eric = Standard meditation as specified in prior post. Boom
Rags = Non standard meditation with some connection to "real" stuff like uraninite. Umm. Go check my avatar. Rags is left handed even, like said avatar. May be Joneser, but I'd need more data points to know for sure.
Vandal-72/Kinser = meditation or whatever is bunk. Xer

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Perhaps for you. But not for me. I do see an obvious pattern though.

For anyone. But the best music for meditation, is meditative music. It's my specialty for my radio shows. But I can guarantee that the noise/heavy metal rock from the 3T is the worst possible music to meditate by. If you are meditating to that stuff, you're not meditating. Try playing it to your plants and see what happens too. They will wilt and die.

Eric = Standard meditation as specified in prior post. Boom
Rags = Non standard meditation with some connection to "real" stuff like uraninite. Umm. Go check my avatar. Rags is left handed even, like said avatar. May be Joneser, but I'd need more data points to know for sure.
Vandal-72/Kinser = meditation or whatever is bunk. Xer

I think uraninite is your innovation, and far be it from me to knock it; but connection to "real" stuff is "standard meditation." That is what works for any generation. People here like to attribute anything to a generation, but that's just for people here to be obsessed with. Vandal and kinser are not entitled to characterize what works for their generation. They are simply missing out, period and end of story. Sorry if I'm being too serious, but I am sincere in what I say about things, generally. If people mock it, that's their loss.