God Helmet?

Excaljnur said:

The reason why I posted this in the Philosophy forum is because it deals with whether I can know something, the study of knowledge, Epistemology. If I can never know when I am in the presence of God or if I am just inside my own head, then why pray? Instead of trying to whimsically explain that 10-90 percent of my prayers go unanswered due to Gods Will, depending on how vague or specific I interpret the answers, why not just stop praying about ramdon stuff like healing friends, well-being, gratitude or love. Why not just narrow my prayer topics to verification in belief in God only? If God has a plan for us, then all we can do is acknowledge His existence and thank him for ours. Prayer seems superfluous; living in good faith, according to the teachings of Christ--except prayer--seems more than sufficient.

The complete uncertainty with which I can say I genuinely experienced the presence of God baffles me. It really leads me to question the personal part of a personal God.

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Inasmuch as epistemology is open-ended in secular philosophy, and inasmuch as there are some fundamental Protestant and Catholic concepts about even that, you would have still been better served to your particular questions if you'd placed this in the Catholic forum area.

I'm quite sure that whatever physiological changes occur in the brain during prayer at the moment a person "feels the presence of God" can be reproduced or induced by some other means. MRI scans done during deep meditation show the same results regardless of the subject of the meditation.

I'm not sure of Catholic teaching, but I don't pray just to gain a "feeling." Being a Christian is not about just sitting and "being Christian."

Now, I do know for sure that Catholic teaching has much to say about doing good works, and as I've said recently in a Protestant thread, regardless of differences in doctrine regarding the spiritual mechanics of how we become saved, their isn't any conflict between Paul and James about what the saved person should look like and how he should behave.

For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. --- Ephesians 2

We each have a to-do list that has been waiting for us to become saved to pick it up, and IMO discovering what's on that to-do list ought to be a major part of our prayer life. 'Way too many people spend all their prayer time seeking a "feeling" or petitioning for the satisfaction of our own desires (even if those desires seem "godly") rather than asking, "Lord, what do you want me to do tomorrow?"

I have gotten a response to such a prayer as specific as, "I'm going to send a man to you to feed. His name is John," and then the next day had a total stranger walk up to me and say, "My name is John, and I haven't eaten in three days."

When stuff like that starts to happen, all doubt goes away.

Excaljnur said:

In 1999, Michael Persinger created a device called the God Helmet that recreated the neural brain patterns monks experienced during an interaction with the Infinite while meditating, and of Carmelite nun's neural brain patterns while they said they experienced the presence of God praying. The experiment was replicated in 2004 and verified in a double-blind experiment to NOT cause the experience of God or of the Infinite. There is plenty of contention and debate surrounding whether the experiement was accurately replicated. A couple reasons explain why the original and the replicated experiments produced different results. The first is an innaccurate replication. The second is the power of suggestibility that, in the original experiment, caused people to believe they had experienced something supernatural.

The reason why I find this disconcerting is that people believed they had experienced the real presence of God. The power of suggestibility is vastly well documented in marketing, persuasion, hypnosis, motivation techniques, therapy, etc. Considering that a device can replicate the same feeling of God's real presence if you fully believe it will, isn't it safe to assume that the same behavior is present when I pray to God? I am expecting to experience His real presence after all. How do I know that my belief that I am experiencing God's presence is not the real reason why I feel his presence? Explained another way, in prayer I have convinced myself that His presence is real despite the strong possibility that he may not be there at all? This resembles the power of suggestion quite well.

Now, I am inclined ot believe that at least most of the time I think I am experienceing God's presence, I really am, but it doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't know when He is there or if He is there, if He is there less than half the time or if he is there at all. Is there any criteria that enables me to know for a fact that I am in the presence of God OR if I am convincingly imagining His presence?
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Not that I am aware of, other than correlating your experience with external, objective evidence. In the absence of that evidence, the most parsimonious explanation is that your imagination is the source of your experience.

Excaljnur said:

In 1999, Michael Persinger created a device called the God Helmet that recreated the neural brain patterns monks experienced during an interaction with the Infinite while meditating, and of Carmelite nun's neural brain patterns while they said they experienced the presence of God praying. The experiment was replicated in 2004 and verified in a double-blind experiment to NOT cause the experience of God or of the Infinite. There is plenty of contention and debate surrounding whether the experiement was accurately replicated. A couple reasons explain why the original and the replicated experiments produced different results. The first is an innaccurate replication. The second is the power of suggestibility that, in the original experiment, caused people to believe they had experienced something supernatural.

The reason why I find this disconcerting is that people believed they had experienced the real presence of God. The power of suggestibility is vastly well documented in marketing, persuasion, hypnosis, motivation techniques, therapy, etc. Considering that a device can replicate the same feeling of God's real presence if you fully believe it will, isn't it safe to assume that the same behavior is present when I pray to God? I am expecting to experience His real presence after all. How do I know that my belief that I am experiencing God's presence is not the real reason why I feel his presence? Explained another way, in prayer I have convinced myself that His presence is real despite the strong possibility that he may not be there at all? This resembles the power of suggestion quite well.

Now, I am inclined ot believe that at least most of the time I think I am experienceing God's presence, I really am, but it doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't know when He is there or if He is there, if He is there less than half the time or if he is there at all. Is there any criteria that enables me to know for a fact that I am in the presence of God OR if I am convincingly imagining His presence?

The reason why I posted this in the Philosophy forum is because it deals with whether I can know something, the study of knowledge, Epistemology. If I can never know when I am in the presence of God or if I am just inside my own head, then why pray? Instead of trying to whimsically explain that 10-90 percent of my prayers go unanswered due to Gods Will, depending on how vague or specific I interpret the answers, why not just stop praying about ramdon stuff like healing friends, well-being, gratitude or love. Why not just narrow my prayer topics to verification in belief in God only? If God has a plan for us, then all we can do is acknowledge His existence and thank him for ours. Prayer seems superfluous; living in good faith, according to the teachings of Christ--except prayer--seems more than sufficient.

The complete uncertainty with which I can say I genuinely experienced the presence of God baffles me. It really leads me to question the personal part of a personal God.

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Congrats on your 5th post...I happen to think you made the right choice by posting this in the philosophy section. You've raised a couple of really good questions, although they might have been better explored by separating them into two different threads.

The first question, if I have it right, is how can you know you're experiencing god in some way and not simply imagining that you're experiencing god in some way? The problem occurred to you because of the god helmet experiments which seem to show (either through magnetic fields or the placebo effect) that the "presence of god" can be induced with or without god's presence.

I would say you cannot "know"...but that certainly doesn't stop people from guessing. In order to "know" the experience that you call the "presence of god" is in fact god's presence.... that experience would have to be in some way substantially different from an experience that is entirely imagined.

Let's switch gears here for a moment...what is an imaginary experience? The ones that come to mind for me all relate to feelings. For example, let's say that a young newlywed couple tells someone that they can feel each other's love. Can they? Of course not... you cannot feel someone else's feelings. You can however, imagine that you feel the love someone else has for you. All you're really feeling though, is your own emotions... and you're attributing them to an outside source.

So when I said this...

"In order to "know" the experience that you call the "presence of god" is in fact god's presence.... that experience would have to be in some way substantially different from an experience that is entirely imagined."

Experiencing god's presence would have to be something more than a feeling, a thought, or a sight or sound you could've imagined.

Your second question seems to be about the efficacy of prayer. My problem with the standard explanation of "when/how does god answer prayer?" is that it mirrors what we would expect to happen if there were no god at all.

I would suggest that if you want to find out if god answers prayers...ask him to do something that cannot reasonably happen. Ask him to have Obama elected president for the third time. Buy a lotto ticket with the numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 and ask god to make those the winning numbers. I'm not saying to ask for the flat out impossible, like super-powers or time travel, just ask him for what is so unbelievably unlikely that god answering prayer seems like a fairly reasonable answer.

Persinger seems to have made the startling discovery that conscious experience is usually accompanied by brain activity.

If you new which parts of the brain to stimulate, you could doubtless induce a conscious experience which would involve the sound of waves breaking on a sea shore. Does that mean that such an experience is always illusory - even when you are actually standing on a sea shore?

lesliedellow said:

Persinger seems to have made the startling discovery that conscious experience is usually accompanied by brain activity.

If you new which parts of the brain to stimulate, you could doubtless induce a conscious experience which would involve the sound of waves breaking on a sea shore. Does that mean that such an experience is always illusory - even when you are actually standing on a sea shore?

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No, but when such experiences happen with no external correlations, then the illusory explanation would be more parsimonious.

Great question imo.

I'd like to throw 2 cents in, to show a "rabbit hole" perspective type of answer to your question:

As others have said, without some sort of external evidence that relates back to what you believe to be the "presence of God", or influence, or whatever ... Occam's Razor would suggest it's merely your imagination, or the result of expectation and the feelings and thoughts that arise from it, or perhaps a biological cause is triggering a response of some kind, or perhaps you are being influenced, power of suggestion, etc. I mean, these types of things happen all the time. I show you a picture of a cute puppy ... you get feelings and sensations. I show you a beautiful woman (I'm assuming), you get slightly different feelings and sensations. I show you pictures of an atrocity ... you get the idea.

Going down the rabbit hole a bit ... take RDKirk's example: he thinks he receives some spiritual information or insight (by "God", or the Holy Spirit, or an "angel" I presume) and there is a correlation in reality. Take his own example: he believes he is told something: "I'm going to send a man to you to feed, his name is John" and then the next day a guy named John shows up, claiming he hasn't eaten in three days. Coincidence ? Occam's Razor would say yes, coincidence. People look to look for patterns. Pareidolia, apophenia, confirmation bias. If I tell you "44 !" you're going to start seeing the number 44 in things. You may even see combinations of the number ... a receipt for $34.44 cents. The number "44" is in there, even though the number itself is much large. Or you may see 4 things laying next to another 4 things. "Is that a sign ?" IOW, you may start to LOOK for certain things, or even place yourself in situations you wouldn't normally do so in order to try and make them happen (self fulfilling prophecy). The term "coincidence" may apply, because a coincidence is considered unique BECAUSE the odds of a coincidence happening are often lower than other events. That's what makes them stand out in the first place. So is it just a coincidence ? All in your mind ? Are you thinking you are remembering something that you already were told before hand, when in reality you actually didn't think that at all the day before ... you are thinking it NOW and retrofitting it subconsciously ? The mind and memory ... isn't always the most reliable. It's shocking how unreliable it is. I believe with training and discipline a person can work on their memory (consider fields where one's memory and ability to recall facts and discern more reliable observations are necessary for example) but the average person doesn't seem to be that great at recalling basic everyday facts about events that happened.

Now ... lets go down the rabbit hole even more. Let's say the thing that correlates in reality, is more than just a guy coming up to you named John, after you think you've heard a command tell you, "I'm sending someone named John to you." Let's say what correlates in reality is something extraordinary: like, what most people would consider a "miracle". Let's say you feel what you recognize to be the presence of "God", you say a prayer, and then the next thing you know, something "miraculous" has happened. Let's say you prayed, "God please, I want to go to Hawaii," and then the next thing you know, you open your eyes, and you are in Hawaii. I mean, for real, no doubt ... there you are.

Is this proof of "God" ? Did you experience "God" ? Is it a miracle ?

How do you know you're not delusional ? There is a saying: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. How would you prove you weren't delusional ? That you know fully well why and how you suddenly got to Hawaii … but you've dissociated. Ever seen Fight Club lol ? I would tend to think that frontal lobe epilepsy would be a stretch in such a case ... but pure delusion ? How many people vanish in front of others and end up in new places ?

And yet, if you WEREN'T delusional, and for all intent and purposes everything seemed to be kosher … and all the explanations you could think of simply weren't satisfactory to conclude conclusively the mechanism behind how you got from point A to point B in such a manner … is that now proof or evidence that you did in fact hear God ?

What if it's just physics you have yet to explain ? If, imo, you want to keep it "intellectually honest" … why rule out other pseudo-science theories ? How about extraterrestrial intervention ? Time traveling advanced humans ? What about OTHER gods ? How would you KNOW conclusively ?

Take it yet another step further down the rabbit hole … let's say you start to have all these things happen all the time, seemingly hard to explain events, some even miraculous. They all form this pattern that starts to look, walk, talk, and act like it's "the real deal". Let's say, on occasion, you even seem to be able to take part in the effects. Maybe you can't produce them on demand, but … it's like they surround your life. Even other people involved in your life start to experience them … and as a result, some of these people even start to believe in things they didn't before. And lets say, they claim "God is speaking to me too !" or let's say there even comes a point where the voice speaking to you, IDENTIFIES itself as "God". "Yes I'm God" …

Let's say delusion is more or less ruled out. It seems to be too much for coincidence. Let's say you can even back up what you say with eye witnesses, written accounts, so on and so forth.

How do you honestly KNOW this is God still, and that there still isn't another explanation you have yet to discover ? I mean, you even have other people telling you, "This is God ! I know it ! I didn't even believe before, but now I do !" … how do you KNOW for a fact it's the God you think it is ? Again … why not some other "God", or entity, or as yet to be explained technology, or ability of human beings for that matter ? Ever heard of the theory of the bicameral mind lol ? There is even a theory that viruses or bacteria, in large numbers, are sapient and can control humans to do their will lol … I mean, some of these theories may can be ruled out, but some of the more unfalsifiable ones, how are they not viable ? And at what point, even if a large majority suddenly decides, "Yup, it's God !" how do you know THEY aren't all missing something still, some key factor ?

The point is … imo, it largely boils down to belief, trust, faith … no matter how mundane or extraordinary. And consider flipping the perspective for a moment ... what if the mundane ACTUALLY is filled with "spiritual" stuff all the time ? Consider the God helmet itself ... how do you know that the "God helment" isn't merely duplicating the exact same thing the actual presence of God causes in how a human being responds to the presence lol ? At what point would it be meaningless to try and distinguish the difference, verses meaningful to do so ? There seems to be a threshold where people are content to believe that something has an extraordinary origin … that threshold is very low for some, high for others. Hence, the rabbit hole. Some only look at the rabbit hole for a split second, and already see aliens/gods/supernatural/etc. Perhaps they are prone to for some reason, bias, or maybe there's another explanation. Some have to go down it quite a bit before they think, "I can't dismiss this anymore. This is the real deal, reality is not what I thought," etc. But imo, if you are not content to just believe … since you may be wrong, you may misidentify, you may miss the boat … if you are not content to just "believe" and you want to know … I may argue that faith or belief or trust will play a part no matter how far down that rabbit hole you wish to try and go. Because each time you think you get an answer, it will arguably satisfy you for a bit until you realize that "answer" only opened the door to more questions.

I'm not saying all of that to encourage a delusional person to "just have faith" ... nor am I saying all of that to discourage someone who may have experienced something real and extraordinary and try to convince them they are delusional. I'm saying all of that to throw two cents in there concerning a person's search for what may or may not actually be true concerning a thing they are trying to explore the truth on.

Sidenote: and in my experience, the threshold at which a person thinks, "Yeah, if this and that would happen, then I would definitely know for sure and believe," ... that idea most people have in their minds of what their own personal threshold would actually be, isn't very realistic, in my experience.

Just consider this, God is present whether or not we feel him there. It's a mistake to become attached to mystical experiences because of this. There's a risk of missing God where he actually wants to be found.

FireDragon76 said:

Just consider this, God is present whether or not we feel him there.

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Considered, and dismissed. Gods could be imaginary, whether we we believe to sense them, or not. Self-deception is very convincing.

FireDragon76 said:

It's a mistake to become attached to mystical experiences because of this. There's a risk of missing God where he actually wants to be found.

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There is also the risk of mistaking illusion for reality.

Davian said:

Considered, and dismissed. Gods could be imaginary, whether we we believe to sense them, or not. Self-deception is very convincing.

There is also the risk of mistaking illusion for reality.

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I wasn't addressing you. Next time I'll try to make that clearer. I'm out of the convincing atheists business, but I don't mind sharing some observations with other believers.

Excaljnur said:

In 1999, Michael Persinger created a device called the God Helmet that recreated the neural brain patterns monks experienced during an interaction with the Infinite while meditating, and of Carmelite nun's neural brain patterns while they said they experienced the presence of God praying. The experiment was replicated in 2004 and verified in a double-blind experiment to NOT cause the experience of God or of the Infinite. There is plenty of contention and debate surrounding whether the experiement was accurately replicated. A couple reasons explain why the original and the replicated experiments produced different results. The first is an innaccurate replication. The second is the power of suggestibility that, in the original experiment, caused people to believe they had experienced something supernatural.

The reason why I find this disconcerting is that people believed they had experienced the real presence of God. The power of suggestibility is vastly well documented in marketing, persuasion, hypnosis, motivation techniques, therapy, etc. Considering that a device can replicate the same feeling of God's real presence if you fully believe it will, isn't it safe to assume that the same behavior is present when I pray to God? I am expecting to experience His real presence after all. How do I know that my belief that I am experiencing God's presence is not the real reason why I feel his presence? Explained another way, in prayer I have convinced myself that His presence is real despite the strong possibility that he may not be there at all? This resembles the power of suggestion quite well.

Now, I am inclined ot believe that at least most of the time I think I am experienceing God's presence, I really am, but it doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't know when He is there or if He is there, if He is there less than half the time or if he is there at all. Is there any criteria that enables me to know for a fact that I am in the presence of God OR if I am convincingly imagining His presence?

The reason why I posted this in the Philosophy forum is because it deals with whether I can know something, the study of knowledge, Epistemology. If I can never know when I am in the presence of God or if I am just inside my own head, then why pray? Instead of trying to whimsically explain that 10-90 percent of my prayers go unanswered due to Gods Will, depending on how vague or specific I interpret the answers, why not just stop praying about ramdon stuff like healing friends, well-being, gratitude or love. Why not just narrow my prayer topics to verification in belief in God only? If God has a plan for us, then all we can do is acknowledge His existence and thank him for ours. Prayer seems superfluous; living in good faith, according to the teachings of Christ--except prayer--seems more than sufficient.

The complete uncertainty with which I can say I genuinely experienced the presence of God baffles me. It really leads me to question the personal part of a personal God.

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Could be as simple as the following.

When one desires and has a strong enough need to experience God, they will indeed, feel that they are experiencing God. Whether that be the Christian God, another God, or even being abducted by aliens and taken aboard their spacecraft.

The mind is more than capable, of meeting the needs of the psyche and in most cases, if this helps you cope with life and makes you a better person, there is nothing wrong with it.

FireDragon76 said:

I wasn't addressing you. Next time I'll try to make that clearer. I'm out of the convincing atheists business, but I don't mind sharing some observations with other believers.

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Believers in the same god as you, of course.

FireDragon76 said:

I'm out of the convincing atheists business ...

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Me too. However, if seeker's ask what seems to be a sincere question, I still try to answer. Or, if atheists throw up strawmen, it seems in keeping with C.S. Lewis' tenet to knock it down.

FireDragon76 said:

I wasn't addressing you. Next time I'll try to make that clearer. I'm out of the convincing atheists business, but I don't mind sharing some observations with other believers.

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I would agree, that would be a tough business to be in, for people that have not had the personal experiences you have had with your God.

What about Muslims or Hindu's? Are you still in the business of convincing them that Christianity is the only true path?

bhsmte said:

What about Muslims or Hindu's? Are you still in the business of convincing them that Christianity is the only true path?

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I'm not a Christian fundamentalist. I've never really belonged to a Christian faith tradition that emphasized drive-by evangelism or proselytism. So I probably would not do so unless it were pertinent and relevant.

Muslims and Hindus believe in the same God I do, as far as I am concerned.

Muslims and Hindus believe in the same God I do, as far as I am concerned.

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What is your position on whether these people that do not believe Jesus was God and what happens to their chances of salvation?

Excaljnur said:

If some of your family were atheists, you'd never leave the atheist convincing business, you'd just kee getting better at it.

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Some in my family are atheist. We don't talk about religion, doing so is pointless.

bhsmte said:

What is your position on whether these people that do not believe Jesus was God and what happens to their chances of salvation?

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That's God's business, not mine. I don't pretend to know for sure.