Every once in a while, I encounter studies that deserve a category of their own. If I were feeling churlish, I might place them in a “No Sh*t” file; if I were feeling humorous, I might place them in my Bart Simpson “D’oh” folder.
It is an uncontroversial truism that learning affects perception and experience. This [...]
Tags:cultural conditioning·cultural patterning·Dutch atheists·Dutch Calvinists·ESP·indoctrination·instruction·learning·paranormal·perception·precognition·psi·sweat lodge·teaching
There are many who believe that near death experiences (“NDE”) provide evidence of the existence of a spirit-soul and that those who have these close encounters with death have glimpsed another realm. Over at Brain Blogger, Jennifer Gibson discusses some recent studies of NDEs in a post titled “Light at the End of the Tunnel [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·American Indians·Asian Indians·Brain Blogger·Buddhist·carbon dioxide·Christian·consciousness·cultural imprinting·cultural patterning·Glenn Roberts·hallucinations·heaven·Hindu·Jennifer Gibson·Jesus·John Owen·Krishna·metaphysical realm·metaphysics·Muslim·NDE·near death experience·pan-human neurology·Siddhartha·soul·spirit·supernatural·The Near Death Experience·Vishnu·Wakan Tanka·Yamdoots·Yamraj
Most anthropologists date the appearance of anatomically modern Homo sapiens to approximately 150,000 years ago. It was at about this time that the skeletal structure of Homo becomes indistinguishable from modern humans. This does not mean, however, that human evolution simply stopped; evolution encompasses changes not only to skeletal structures but also to brain chemistry, [...]
Tags:accelerated human evolution·anatomically modern Homo sapiens·cultural imprinting·cultural patterning·earliest organized religions·fertility selection·group level selection·John Hawks·Neolithic Revolution·recent adaptations·recent human evolution
Today’s title riffs on the seventh installment of William Saletan’s Slate series on the memory researcher, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus. In several places in the article, one could simply replace words or phrases and the result would be an accurate description of the ways in which religious cultural inputs create imaginary worlds for believers of most [...]
Tags:cultural inputs·cultural patterning·Elizabeth Loftus·imagination·implantation·indoctrination·memories·memory·sin·suggestion·taboo·Ur-God·William Saletan
