samcdkey said:
This is interesting. From the second post:
Benedict XVI undoubtedly wants to achieve better relations with Islam, but there is an important proviso. It can be summed up in a single word: reciprocity. It means that if Muslims want to enjoy religious freedom in the West, then Christians should have an equal right to follow their faith in Islamic states, without fear of persecution.
I wonder: In which States do you think that it would be possible, and which not possible, for a Muslim to openly convert to Xianty OR Buddhism or a polytheistic form of Hinduism and not be persecuted or even killed?
- KSA
- Iran
- Pakistan
- Yemeni
- Kuwait
- Lebanon
- Egypt
- India
- Malaysia
- Indonesia
This is what I don’t get: One would think, for a religious system where a single deity will pass judgment as to one’s eternal place in the scheme of things - based primarily on belief and choices taken here in the temporal (I actually abhor this aspect of religion) that such would be the
importance to have the liberty to believe and act as one wished, that said freedoms would be venerated, enshrined even, within the religious books used for guidance. I find it ironic that the opposite is typically the case in societies where monotheists govern.
Each of our brains are different, responding to external, internal, chemical and emotional cues slightly differently. Some parts of the brain experience neurogenesis (new neurons) throughout life while other do not. In the areas that do - said neurogenesis is associated with wellbeing. One effect (perhaps the primary) of antidepressants is to increase neurogenesis in the hippocampus. It is reasonable to suggest that some religious belief together with a happy stimulating environment probably increases neurogenesis. And ergo, in a stagnate environment where the rules are set and the cage is built there is a loss of neurogenesis and an actual shrinkage of some areas of the brain. Age is also associated with a shrinking brain. So that said, I have to wonder, in a society where the religion is “perfect” and daily life is regulated, couldn't this stifling belief lead to loss of normal neuronal proliferation and ultimately a depressive state? A mental cage is still a cage, without room to freely spread ones wings there is undoubtedly a loss of neurons, a loss of actual brain and a resultant depression.
Sam, you are lucky to live in a vibrant multi-religious society.
Any philosophy or religious teaching that says it is “perfect” and that it should not change is probably doomed to fail simply because biochemically any animal in such an environment, mental or physical, will not generate as many neurons compared with an animal within a stimulating environment and will thus have less well-being. That’s why I often ask monotheists: What enlightenment have they achieved from their religion that hasn’t been expressed by (hence pinched from) an earlier polytheistic belief? What individual enlightenment have they received from their belief that they can share with us so that we my use it to make our lives better?
Even though I’m agnostic-atheist, I have an appreciation for some religious beliefs. If I think it is helpful to society based on what we know of human physiology and psychological wellbeing. For example, without all the religious mumbo-jumbo, the meditative state found in Buddhism/Hinduism can effect an actual physical change within the hippocampus, which is correlated to happiness and does so to such an existent that the normal hippocampal shrinkage (and subsequent grumpiness associated with the aged) is reversed. Many meditative monks have brains with hippocampuses much larger than their peers – the size of peoples in the prime of their lives – many of these monks are pretty happy.
To me that’s an “enlightenment” to be shared.
Michael
"
In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder." - Victor Frankenstein
