10.14.2002 || 01h00

Uhm, religion or science?

Michael Persinger says that religion is a cognitive virus that creates more problems than it solves -- or maybe not. According to him, the belief in a great hereafter is an enabler for actions like flying planes into officeblocks. Accordingly, he's built a helmet that induces religious experiences, or more accurately uses magnetic fields to stimulate the temporal lobes -- in essence, epileptic seizures without all the jerking and bumping. Apparently, this is the same basic process that people like Mohammed or Moses or Joan of Arc experienced when they thought they were talking to god.

So, if religion basically occurs within the mind, as opposed to being an external experience of the divine, that means that there may not be a blessed hereafter waiting for those who martyr themselves to a cause, even a religious one.

Over the past 30 years, Persinger has applied for grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada 30 times. He has been turned down every time.

I don't know, I'd think this was an important enough subject to explore in greater depth, whether Persinger turns out to be a paradigm-killer or a kook.



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