Incredible story that may have just been a medical situation. Even today in the 21st century the disease of Religion is destroying progress everywhere. You can't make this stuff up, or maybe you can. Legends of Santa Claus and the tooth Fairy worked when I was a child, and to see the massive amounts of ignorance in Adults today just blows my mind. If you want to believe in any super being controlling the worlds destiny you are free to believe that. I think the best explanation today for life being formed here on planet earth just might be based in reality in the theory several comets passed through earth gravitational field losing parts of their tails that contained life or the building blocks of life dispersing across the globe. Impacts as well scattered this life that originated from all over the universe our galaxy or even our own solar system. That makes more sense then the man in the sky theory, but Religions still thrive on the weak minded populations for whatever reasons, my guess is control! Even today here in America, the Religious right has brain washed their masses for whatever reasons they need. They've even been stupefied to the point they believe we can just keep using up Earths natural resources to our own doom because Jesus will come back and save them. They even tell their flocks that Israel must start Armageddon for the return of their imaginary King. Take for example of Religious blindness in this story as seen from a scientific standpoint.
It started out as an ordinary day for Saul back in A.D. 36. He wanted to murder disciples of a man who claimed to be the Messiah, and he was on his way to Damascus to do so. Then, on the way to Damascus, a light flashed all around Saul. He fell to the ground and heard a voice that claimed to be Jesus Christ. The voice told him to continue to the town, a task likely made no easier by the blindness Saul experienced when he got up. Saul remained blind for three days, until a disciple named Ananias laid hands upon him. Saul's sight was restored, and he immediately became baptized. After his experience, Saul became a powerful preacher for Jesus; today, he's better known as St. Paul.
Paul's story is interesting not just to biblical scholars, but to neuro-
scientists as well. Some scientists claim that the account of this conversion, found in the book of Acts, contains enough evidence to diagnose Paul with temporal lobe epilepsy. The flash of light, the voices and the fall to the ground are the evidence of a seizure, according to these neuroscientists, with the blindness a result of the postictal state that follows a seizure [source: Brorson, Brewer]. While most doctors agree that it's impossible to diagnose epilepsy definitively in someone who lived so long ago, Paul would join some other religious figures reputed to have brain disorders, including Moses and St. Teresa of Avila [sources: BBC, Begley].
The link between epilepsy and the Lord doesn't end with that list, though. In one study, researchers examined how certain words affected those with epilepsy compared to those without. The words were divided into three groups: neutral words, like "table," erotic words, such as "sex," and religious words, such as "God." In those without epilepsy, erotic words produced the biggest change in body chemistry, but in people with epilepsy, religious words created the biggest emotional effect. Sexual words had a much lower response [source: BBC]. Like the story of Paul, this study seemed to suggest that the temporal lobe has something to do with religious feelings.
These examples represent the intersection of science and religion, a field currently known as neurotheology. The goal of neurotheology is to determine what's happening in the brain during a religious experience. Obviously, the field can be a bit controversial; those with deeply spiritual beliefs about the connection between a person and his or her maker aren't thrilled about reducing religion to something happening in the brain. But the work of the scientists does seem to show that there's some connection with our gray matters and our pray matters. So, is nirvana all in our noggin? Are we simply responding to brain firings when we drag ourselves out of bed on Sunday morning? Read on to find out what God might be doing to your brain.
P.S.
Take for instance our current political climate, I can't remember in my lifetime Religious stances being sprayed about as if they are fact. Is it a coincidence that the Capitalistic Mainstream Media even gives these fools a platform to spew their vile hate? I think not, it's all by design and not GODS design but the slave masters who refuse to change and are holding on to the death grip of control in their waining days. I'm not even going to ask you politely to stay the hell out of my Government or Politics anymore, I'm just going to lambaste your 15th century mindset everywhere I can. If by chance there really is a GOD and he sent his only son down to earth to teach the word of GOD, then please explain why you don't act like Jesus. You should be feeding the hungry, curing the sick, taking care of mother earth, housing the homeless, treating your neighbors (The World) the way you would want to be treated. If Jesus does come back he will bite your heads off and spit them to hell where all Devilish people will go according to the book. Do what you've been told to believe in, and maybe then I will respect you as people or even better decent human beings. For now you've become more than a nuisance, your a blight on the World like the locus or plagues for told in your book.
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kennymotown
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