Stacey/Dan Martin

<< Is there a brain structure or function which governs "God"? If a person
who is
religious can become an atheist because of depression, does it mean that
faith, or the perception of God, or spirituality, is controlled by some
function of the brain, which depression interrupts? >>

<<If the answer to any of that is "yes," does it mean that God does not
exist,
that our perceptions are delusions which plague some but not others, or does
it mean he/she/it *does* exist, and has created these structures or
functions in order to have contact with us?>>

<<My religion's hagiography is replete with saints whose visions could be
just
as easily described as hallucinations; were they just nuts, or can severe
fasting account for them?>>

Wow... What fascinating questions! You've reminded me of a book a friend
recommended to me recently. I'm going to try to borrow it today. It's
called "Lying Awake" by Mark Salzman. The blurb on Amazon says the book
"...probes the nature of spiritual illumination." It's about a middle-aged
cloistered nun in LA who is languishing in a spiritual drought. That is
until she begins receiving intense, rapturous mystical visions.
Unfortunately, they're accompanied by excruciating headaches and blacking
out. She learns she has a form of epilepsy that commonly brings this type
of experience about. Now she's faced with the decision of whether ot go
ahead with surgery and risk obliterating her spiritual life and her art, or
"...cling to a state of grace that may actually be a delsuion ignited by an
electrochemical imbalance. At the bottom there lurks a profound meditation
on the mystery of artistic inspiration."

Thought some others may be interested in checking this out as well.

-Stacey



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