[Buddha-l] the advent of the meditation machine?

[curt]

Joy Vriens wrote:
> Perhaps before looking for its roots, we could determine what are those "religious feelings" and what exactly is religion? Or perhaps it would be easier and simpler to discuss what religion is not. For starters, I would suggest religion is NOT spirituality.
>
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>   

In fact - all discussions of the "roots" of religious experience hinge 
on "what exactly is religion?" One does not look for "roots" just any 
old place - one looks where one expects to find them.

Science fetishists attempt to present the unsuspecting public with a 
fait acompli by proclaiming they are hot on the trail of the "roots of 
religious experience" - when in fact all they are doing is snowing 
people with a self-fulfilling prophecy. The "roots" that they "discover" 
(the firing of neurons) are no different from the "roots" of ALL 
experiences - religious or otherwise. That such "roots" are there was 
never in doubt. Whether or not that is "all there is" was the original 
question - and no light has been shone on it.

The problem is that the question of whether or not the firing of neurons 
is the "unmoved mover" behind religious experiences is *not tested* by 
experiments that merely confirm that neurons are firing. Therefore it 
remains an unexamined article of faith.

Curt Steinmetz