It seems that all major religions share the experience of transcendence. Personally in my religious indoctrination as a child, I never felt it. But lots of people have. It’s a feeling of being one with god where you lose your sense of self. I would guess if you ever felt like you were one with your god, that would strongly increase your faith. Right?

Well, now scientists at the University of Missouri have shown what happens during such experiences. When a person experiences transcendence, there is decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of  the brain. This area has to do with your senses, such as orienting yourself in space.

Note that people who have injuries to the right parietal lobe also report increased levels of spiritual experiences, which would further substantiate the findings of this study. Read more…

Ohmygosh, I am not feeling well. I feel like a used litterbox. Ew. I just grossed myself out there. Anyhoo, I’ve had something I wanted to share with you, but unfortunately I’ve not been up to posting it in the detail you deserve. Instead of holding onto it even longer, I’m going to be brief and let you know of this neat study.

The other day I heard of a study reported in the journal Science about holding warm or cold coffee. The researchers found that holding warm coffee led people to judge others to be more generous and caring. If they held iced coffee they’d think of them less nicely.

They also found that if asked to hold a warm pack, they’d be more generous and give something to someone. If they held a cold pack, they’d be more likely to keep something for themselves.

Which means, physical warmth leads us to see others as warmer, and leads us to feel more generous, while physical cold gives colder results.

The same researchers had previously shown that physical distance between people influences their judgments about that person.

How cool is that!? You can listen to the report of the news item and read more details at the Naked Scientists Science News.

I’ve been an atheist for around 8 years, most of which I’ve spent in the religious closet, so to speak. Before that, I was an agnostic, searching constantly for answers but not positive that there wasn’t some kind of god out there that created everything.

In all that time, I kept my godlessness relatively private, telling very few people. Mainly I wanted to avoid confrontation. I didn’t really know how to debate or defend myself, so I felt it was a personal issue and kept it to myself.

In the last 8 years though, I’ve watched this poor country polarize itself in politics and religion to an alarming degree and wallow in gross ignorance. I’ve realized relatively recently that being in the closet wasn’t helping anything.

I couldn’t be myself when talking to people because being a skeptical atheist is a huge part of my life. I guess when I fully and finally sloughed off the dead weight of god, religion and superstitions, I also lost a large part of the foundation of my belief system. It really rocked me. I realized a lot of what I believed was nonsense and lies.

So I’ve had to rebuild what I believe in, my atheist worldview, so to speak.

The thing is, being in the religious closet has only served to isolate me from other people of like mind, as well as keep ideas limited to just what I read or experience personally. Then I discovered the atheist and skeptical world. I realized I wasn’t alone, and I finally came out of the damned closet. Read more…

This will inspire you. It sure inspired me. 40 inspirational speeches in 2 minutes and 15 seconds. Let me know what you think of it.

I wrote a transcript because it’s so awesome: Read more…

Yesterday I wrote a post called the Burden of Proof Lies With The Claimant in which I talked about the burden of proof and who is responsible for it, namely the person making the claim or complaint. I talked about how theists believe in a god, so it’s up to them to prove that god exists, since it’s an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence, none of which has ever been forthcoming.

The first comment I got on the post was from a man named Brian. When I got up this morning  and read his comment I was inspired to reply. After a few minutes I realized my response was quite lengthy and decided a follow-up post was in order. After his comment you’ll find my thoughts.  So here is his comment in its entirety:

There are a string of points here, but let’s just just address one of them which is the position of unbelief.

You see the world though a pair of glasses of unbelief. Everything is skewed and interpreted from that framework.

My guess is that your belief that God does not exist is so strong that you would not change that under any circumstances.

If God turned the sea into blood, swiped the stars from the sky, turned the moon blood red and blocked out the light of the sun (which is exactly what He WILL do) there will be millions of people that STILL refuse to believe what the Bible says.

Read more…