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More specifically, what is different inside your head when you do- for example- dulia instead of latria? I’ve spent just a little bit of time exploring some of the research that’s been done with fMRIs to show what happens when people are praying, meditating, speaking in tongues, etc.
The main focus of the people doing this work is to explore the connection between the physical and the spiritual, and with that in mind, the most interesting thing they could ever run across would be a situation in which a spiritual…experience, for lack of a better word, results in zero change in the magnetic resonance image. This kind of result would lead to the conclusion that the spiritual experience was not in any way connected to the physical activity of the brain.
That hasn’t happened, though, and no one really does expect it to happen. The general rule of thumb- for the time being- is that a person who explains a spiritual activity of some sort in a good amount of detail will be able to see brain activity that corresponds to the description of what they felt in a way that makes a good deal of sense. I’m going to throw a couple of sources out there that outline some of this research in more detail.
salon.com/books/int/2006/09/20/newberg/print.html
In this first one, we get to take a look at Franciscan nuns when they pray and Tibetan monks when they meditate on a sacred object or person. There are some similarities- activation of the frontal lobe and a lack of activity in the parietal lobe. There was a notable difference, though. The nuns activated their language areas while the monks did not. That makes sense because the nuns were focusing on words and praying verbally while the monks were not. This is something else that came up: There are certain parts of the brain whose activation can be caused by a whole host of different things. However, religious experiences tend to involve a lot of different parts of the brain. So you have to take the entire brain as a whole in order to make sense of why an experience or sensation is the way it is. This interview thing only glosses over the very basic information about large sections of the brain. It’d be great if I could look at more detailed material that allows for a better understanding of what happens in the brain in various situations.
Anyway, it goes on…When people speak in tongues, there is a decrease in frontal lobe activity. This lends support to the claims that they aren’t focusing on it and doing it “on purpose”- or, perhaps more accurately, “with intent.” The language areas of the brain also saw a decrease in activity, and that corresponds with the analysis of what people say when they speak in tongues: This kind of thing does not appear to be done in anything that resembles a language.
This is another link having to do with Newberg’s work. It tells you more about exactly how the experiments were done, and it gets into the limbic system quite a bit more.
alternative-doctor.com/soul_stuff/brain_god.htm
This next link will probably give you a lot more good material to work with.
scan.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/nsn050v1
It’s a study that uses an fMRI to compare the activity of prayer to other interactions. In one scenario, the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer was compared to that of a nursery rhyme. In another, a personal prayer was compared to improvised requests made to Santa Claus. All participants in the study are Christians who believe God both hears and answers prayers. It goes without saying that they don’t believe Santa hears or answers their requests. This source does not directly explore exactly what I’m asking about, but it sure is closely related.
The “sound bite” conclusion of this study is that aside from being directed at a different being, extemporaneous prayer to God is quite comparable to talking to another person. There are many different ways to pray, of course, and this only explores one of them. This is actually addressed at the end of page 6 and the beginning of page 7. One of the most disconcerting conclusions is that the subjects actually think of God as they do a human. Their formal beliefs about God involve divinity, “the three O’s,” threeness and oneness, and no body for two members of the Trinity, but their actual practice of extemporaneous prayer is done as if they have a human respondent in mind. But these are Danish Protestants, so you probably don’t have to be too worried about it. (Kidding).
If anyone else has interesting and informative sources that would shed some light on this kind of topic, I’d love to see them. I’m also wondering what you think you would see if you compared the brain of a Catholic doing Latria to that of a Catholic doing Hyperdulia or Dulia. Apart from a different “target,” are you actually doing anything differently? As you look at some of the conclusions drawn from the intersection of “what the subjects felt,” “what they saw on the fMRI,” and “how we make sense of this,” what is it that you feel (differently), what do you suppose you would see (differently) on an fMRI, and how would you make sense of that?
I’m exploring this question under the assumption that, with a little exploration, you can probably figure out what you’re doing differently in these three different scenarios and make a pretty good guess as to how your MRIs (or PET scan or SPECT or whatever it takes to see it) would look. I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, though, because I don’t know what it is you do differently when you venerate a person as opposed to worshiping God (in the more modern sense of the term). I don’t know what it feels like. I don’t know what it means to venerate a person, and if I did try it, I wouldn’t know what to do apart from doing something very similar to what I do when I worship God and direct it at a person. So what do you do…differently? How does it feel…differently? And how would that look if you took an image of your brain’s activity in each of these three situations?
If you can find any research that actually puts this to the test, that would be the best link you could possibly give me right now. I glanced through the references on the pdf (the last link) and couldn’t find anything good right away.
Let me know if this starts a beneficial kind of thought process, and please do submit more relevant links. I’ll start with just these and see what else I can find. Hope this assists you in thinking about what goes into doing these things and expressing it to people who haven’t done it. I also hope to learn something. All I know so far is that these are 3 different “acts of honoring” that have different destinations. I’m quite familiar with the destinations. I’m a bit hazy on the acts, though. What goes on inside your head? I mean that in the most literal way possible.
The main focus of the people doing this work is to explore the connection between the physical and the spiritual, and with that in mind, the most interesting thing they could ever run across would be a situation in which a spiritual…experience, for lack of a better word, results in zero change in the magnetic resonance image. This kind of result would lead to the conclusion that the spiritual experience was not in any way connected to the physical activity of the brain.
That hasn’t happened, though, and no one really does expect it to happen. The general rule of thumb- for the time being- is that a person who explains a spiritual activity of some sort in a good amount of detail will be able to see brain activity that corresponds to the description of what they felt in a way that makes a good deal of sense. I’m going to throw a couple of sources out there that outline some of this research in more detail.
salon.com/books/int/2006/09/20/newberg/print.html
In this first one, we get to take a look at Franciscan nuns when they pray and Tibetan monks when they meditate on a sacred object or person. There are some similarities- activation of the frontal lobe and a lack of activity in the parietal lobe. There was a notable difference, though. The nuns activated their language areas while the monks did not. That makes sense because the nuns were focusing on words and praying verbally while the monks were not. This is something else that came up: There are certain parts of the brain whose activation can be caused by a whole host of different things. However, religious experiences tend to involve a lot of different parts of the brain. So you have to take the entire brain as a whole in order to make sense of why an experience or sensation is the way it is. This interview thing only glosses over the very basic information about large sections of the brain. It’d be great if I could look at more detailed material that allows for a better understanding of what happens in the brain in various situations.
Anyway, it goes on…When people speak in tongues, there is a decrease in frontal lobe activity. This lends support to the claims that they aren’t focusing on it and doing it “on purpose”- or, perhaps more accurately, “with intent.” The language areas of the brain also saw a decrease in activity, and that corresponds with the analysis of what people say when they speak in tongues: This kind of thing does not appear to be done in anything that resembles a language.
This is another link having to do with Newberg’s work. It tells you more about exactly how the experiments were done, and it gets into the limbic system quite a bit more.
alternative-doctor.com/soul_stuff/brain_god.htm
This next link will probably give you a lot more good material to work with.
scan.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/nsn050v1
It’s a study that uses an fMRI to compare the activity of prayer to other interactions. In one scenario, the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer was compared to that of a nursery rhyme. In another, a personal prayer was compared to improvised requests made to Santa Claus. All participants in the study are Christians who believe God both hears and answers prayers. It goes without saying that they don’t believe Santa hears or answers their requests. This source does not directly explore exactly what I’m asking about, but it sure is closely related.
The “sound bite” conclusion of this study is that aside from being directed at a different being, extemporaneous prayer to God is quite comparable to talking to another person. There are many different ways to pray, of course, and this only explores one of them. This is actually addressed at the end of page 6 and the beginning of page 7. One of the most disconcerting conclusions is that the subjects actually think of God as they do a human. Their formal beliefs about God involve divinity, “the three O’s,” threeness and oneness, and no body for two members of the Trinity, but their actual practice of extemporaneous prayer is done as if they have a human respondent in mind. But these are Danish Protestants, so you probably don’t have to be too worried about it. (Kidding).
If anyone else has interesting and informative sources that would shed some light on this kind of topic, I’d love to see them. I’m also wondering what you think you would see if you compared the brain of a Catholic doing Latria to that of a Catholic doing Hyperdulia or Dulia. Apart from a different “target,” are you actually doing anything differently? As you look at some of the conclusions drawn from the intersection of “what the subjects felt,” “what they saw on the fMRI,” and “how we make sense of this,” what is it that you feel (differently), what do you suppose you would see (differently) on an fMRI, and how would you make sense of that?
I’m exploring this question under the assumption that, with a little exploration, you can probably figure out what you’re doing differently in these three different scenarios and make a pretty good guess as to how your MRIs (or PET scan or SPECT or whatever it takes to see it) would look. I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, though, because I don’t know what it is you do differently when you venerate a person as opposed to worshiping God (in the more modern sense of the term). I don’t know what it feels like. I don’t know what it means to venerate a person, and if I did try it, I wouldn’t know what to do apart from doing something very similar to what I do when I worship God and direct it at a person. So what do you do…differently? How does it feel…differently? And how would that look if you took an image of your brain’s activity in each of these three situations?
If you can find any research that actually puts this to the test, that would be the best link you could possibly give me right now. I glanced through the references on the pdf (the last link) and couldn’t find anything good right away.
Let me know if this starts a beneficial kind of thought process, and please do submit more relevant links. I’ll start with just these and see what else I can find. Hope this assists you in thinking about what goes into doing these things and expressing it to people who haven’t done it. I also hope to learn something. All I know so far is that these are 3 different “acts of honoring” that have different destinations. I’m quite familiar with the destinations. I’m a bit hazy on the acts, though. What goes on inside your head? I mean that in the most literal way possible.