Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

QUICK TAKES

   ** Robert Epstein - Your brain is not a computer   The "information processing" metaphor (IP), now dominate, when it is finally abandoned ("the IP metaphor is not even slightly valid"), will be seen as silly.

   ** David French's speech to homeschool graduates  - How to Live a Life of Privilege    Truly valuable reflections, observations, and exhortations.

   ** Andrew Strattaford - War on Cash - Besides the privacy it affords, cash serves "as a vital element in the preservation of the rights of the individual against the presumption of the state."

   **  Rod Dreher - "Transgender McCarthyism"  - Useful coverage of an asserted "right" that has left many of us further questioning the sobriety/sanity of the contemporary culture mindset

   **  Tyler Streckert - What It's Like to Be Gay at Wheaton College  -  "During my student years at Wheaton, I became healthier mentally, intellectually, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. When I tried to keep my orientation secret, I isolated myself from the very people who would love and accept me."  Streckert has devoted himself to celibacy.

IS THERE A BIOLOGICAL BASIS FOR RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE? (ANDREW NEWBERG)

Michael Gerson brings us up to speed on research experiments. 

. . . It is typical work for Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine -- perhaps the nation's leading expert on the biological basis for religious experience. More exotic subjects of his brain scans have been nuns at prayer, Buddhist monks during meditation, Pentecostals speaking in tongues and entranced Brazilian mystics who write out messages from the other side.

These subjects have little in common theologically. But the activity of the brain during intense religious experiences is often (though not always) similar. The frontal lobes are activated, indicating attention and focus. The thalamus shuts down normal sensory input. And the parietal lobes -- which ground us in time and space -- are less active. In this state, people describe a sense of timelessness, a suspension of self, a feeling of bliss and oneness with the universe.

Keep reading...