Re: understanding neuroscience

GBurch1@aol.com
Sun, 5 Sep 1999 18:20:47 EDT

In a message dated 99-09-01 14:51:58 EDT, bradbury@www.aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) wrote:

> Its fascinating to me to observe what happens in my mind when

> I enter a church. All kinds of old feelings, beliefs, memories
> come bubbling up from the basement of my mind. I normally
> rarely think about these things, but I have no doubt that
> many of my early beliefs (Catholic) are still part of my
> programming. As the years go by, probably because I don't
> think about them much, the memories do seem to fade.

The same sort of thing will happen to me from my own Catholic upbringing, especially if I encounter the full blown "Magic Show" (as I used to call the Mass when I was an altar boy); it's almost like some kind of weird drug rush.

Interestingly, the memories don't fade for many people, but just go into a dormant state. I think a big part of the resurgence in religious fervor in America now can be attributed to the reactivation of religious memes implanted in childhood among the Boomers by life situations they're just now encountering: Parenting and middle age career and physiological stress. A whole panoply of programming was implanted in them, just waiting to be activated by these predictable events in the stages of a typical human life.

     Attorney  :::  Vice President, Extropy Institute  :::  Wilderness Guide
      http://users.aol.com/gburch1   -or-   http://members.aol.com/gburch1
                         "Civilization is protest against nature; 
                  progress requires us to take control of evolution."
                                      -- Thomas Huxley