http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1295660/pdf/jrsocmed00058-0018.pdf

>> ^Boise_Lib:

I was privileged to visit once and the feelings of peace and joy are so great that they are indescribable in human words.
"Science suggests it could be the result of a series of biological reactions that help the body cope." (1:42) Can you show me the studies that suggest this--No, there are none. That is an incorrect use of the word "science". And, how would it be possible to evolve these mechanisms to cope with dying? Being dead means you are out of the gene pool--forever. If these experiences are just random neurons firing the resulting feelings of joy and peace are pretty damn lucky--Does anyone think that we're THAT lucky: I don't. I don't use the words "god" or "heaven" to describe what happened to me; when people hear these words they think they know what they mean and interpret them according to their own ideas. I don't Know what happened, but I believe all life is connected and there is something after we die. I'm not trying to evangelize, or create a new religion. My experiences are completely personal and subjective--I could easily be wrong. I don't think so--I have zero fear of death now.
I would vote for an atheist for president (the right atheist that is).
Anyone who calls themselves an Atheist Minister is a huge douchebag.
I got a huge belly laugh out of the glossolalia, that alone makes this video worth watching.

I was privileged to visit once and the feelings of peace and joy are so great that they are indescribable in human words.

"Science suggests it could be the result of a series of biological reactions that help the body cope." (1:42) Can you show me the studies that suggest this--No, there are none. That is an incorrect use of the word "science". And, how would it be possible to evolve these mechanisms to cope with dying? Being dead means you are out of the gene pool--forever. If these experiences are just random neurons firing the resulting feelings of joy and peace are pretty damn lucky--Does anyone think that we're THAT lucky: I don't. I don't use the words "god" or "heaven" to describe what happened to me; when people hear these words they think they know what they mean and interpret them according to their own ideas. I don't Know what happened, but I believe all life is connected and there is something after we die. I'm not trying to evangelize, or create a new religion. My experiences are completely personal and subjective--I could easily be wrong. I don't think so--I have zero fear of death now.

I would vote for an atheist for president (the right atheist that is).
Anyone who calls themselves an Atheist Minister is a huge douchebag.
I got a huge belly laugh out of the glossolalia, that alone makes this video worth watching.

[redacted]

>> ^Enzoblue:

Thing I learned in recent issue of Scientific American, 60% of a baby's energy resources are used by their brain. It's why they sleep a lot and don't move much, neurons are greedy early on.
solution: cut off their heads.

Thing I learned in recent issue of Scientific American, 60% of a baby's energy resources are used by their brain. It's why they sleep a lot and don't move much, neurons are greedy early on.

@SDGundamX

Empathy and mirror neurons:

>> ^berticus:

BOOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIING
>> ^ghark:
Seems more like propaganda than anything, there are myriad health problems associated with coffee. Several significant ones include a correlation (dosage dependant) between caffiene intake and heart palpitations, headaches, tremors and insomnia.
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/2/239.abstract
This is not even taking into account coffee's relatively high acidity (i.e. don't drink it on an empty stomach) and the long term effects it may have on the central nervous system. Brain scans do show significant differences in blood flow in the brains of drinkers and non-drinkers.
The major reason I don't drink it is because of its addictiveness, I prefer to choose what I put in my mouth-hole, rather than have some dopaminergic neurons tell me what I should be drinking.



*waves excitement wand over berticus

BOOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIING

>> ^ghark:

Seems more like propaganda than anything, there are myriad health problems associated with coffee. Several significant ones include a correlation (dosage dependant) between caffiene intake and heart palpitations, headaches, tremors and insomnia.
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/2/239.abstract
This is not even taking into account coffee's relatively high acidity (i.e. don't drink it on an empty stomach) and the long term effects it may have on the central nervous system. Brain scans do show significant differences in blood flow in the brains of drinkers and non-drinkers.
The major reason I don't drink it is because of its addictiveness, I prefer to choose what I put in my mouth-hole, rather than have some dopaminergic neurons tell me what I should be drinking.

Seems more like propaganda than anything, there are myriad health problems associated with coffee. Several significant ones include a correlation (dosage dependant) between caffiene intake and heart palpitations, headaches, tremors and insomnia.

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/2/239.abstract

This is not even taking into account coffee's relatively high acidity (i.e. don't drink it on an empty stomach) and the long term effects it may have on the central nervous system. Brain scans do show significant differences in blood flow in the brains of drinkers and non-drinkers.

The major reason I don't drink it is because of its addictiveness, I prefer to choose what I put in my mouth-hole, rather than have some dopaminergic neurons tell me what I should be drinking.

>> ^nock:

Actually, it blocks nerve transmissions temporarily. As far as I know it does not permanently destroy neurons. Extensive use can lead to muscle atrophy as the muscles will not be utilized enough to maintain their bulk. It is approved for use with certain conditions causing muscle contractures and for cosmetic purposes. The mother should not be administering this medication as too much (I think the maximum allowed dose is 100 units) or improper (think arterial) injections can cause death from phrenic nerve paralysis.
>> ^xxovercastxx:
For anyone who doesn't know how Botox works, it's a neurotoxin. That means it damages and eventually destroys neurons, effectively shutting off the muscles that they control.
Don't like the way your nose wrinkles when you smile? Turn off the muscles that trigger it.
Generally a pretty stupid thing to be using for something as trivial as wrinkles but shockingly stupid to be using on a kid who isn't old enough to understand the repercussions.



Neurotoxins, by definition, cause nerve damage. A single proper dose of Botox will not destroy neurons but repeated use over time can.

Botox is serious shit. The LD50 on the medical strain is 1ng. For comparison, black mamba venom is 250-320ng.

Actually, it blocks nerve transmissions temporarily. As far as I know it does not permanently destroy neurons. Extensive use can lead to muscle atrophy as the muscles will not be utilized enough to maintain their bulk. It is approved for use with certain conditions causing muscle contractures and for cosmetic purposes. The mother should not be administering this medication as too much (I think the maximum allowed dose is 100 units) or improper (think arterial) injections can cause death from phrenic nerve paralysis.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

For anyone who doesn't know how Botox works, it's a neurotoxin. That means it damages and eventually destroys neurons, effectively shutting off the muscles that they control.
Don't like the way your nose wrinkles when you smile? Turn off the muscles that trigger it.
Generally a pretty stupid thing to be using for something as trivial as wrinkles but shockingly stupid to be using on a kid who isn't old enough to understand the repercussions.

For anyone who doesn't know how Botox works, it's a neurotoxin. That means it damages and eventually destroys neurons, effectively shutting off the muscles that they control.

Don't like the way your nose wrinkles when you smile? Turn off the muscles that trigger it.

Generally a pretty stupid thing to be using for something as trivial as wrinkles but shockingly stupid to be using on a kid who isn't old enough to understand the repercussions.

@enoch

The definition of god for me is mostly irrelevant, I reject anything that would even remotely fit the description, including some kind of "consciousness giving birth to the universe from itself" whatever excactly you mean by that.

Consciousness is a wonderful thing, but it seems overwhelmingly likely that it is a feature or consequence of having a large collection of neurons, in the form of a physical brain. In our case, that brain is the product of 3 billion years of evolution of millions of different lifeforms. In other words, consciousness, as far as we can tell, is a late arriver in the universe. A complex sturucture with literally billions of decreasingly complicated ancestral prototypes.

To assume that such conscious thought or even an almost infinitely more complicated type,existed before the universe itself, is one hell of an assumption, and its one that there really is no evidence for. Not only does the universe appear to behave as if it didnt have consciousness, or a conscious creator, but if it did, that would pose a big problem. Where did such a consciousness come from? did it evolve in a different meta-universe? It all seems to be a pretty far-fetched fantasy with no basis in reality, as far as I can see.

Neat stuff. Today I read an article that showed that carbon nanotubes behave the same way human (neuron) synapses do. The implications of that in 20-30 years is stupefying; for humans, computers, electronics (including artificial hands that would have feeling--but, you could tone down pain to a "notice" level and not the current, "holy ^%&king %^&$"" level), and possibly A.I. (like neural nets, but brains have around 10 billion neurons each with 10k or so synapses each; it'll take awhile...).

Brain reconstruction (obviously you'll be missing the old stuff, but still)?

Ummm...I was referring to this: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/TL;DR
>> ^kceaton1:

Terse/Deal.
Submit->OK.
>> ^doogle:
Teal Dear.
I meant: tl:dr.
>> ^kceaton1:
This is why you DON'T cut your education funding and allow parents to pull children out of school or allow kids to decide not to go. It's also a reason why we might want to continue education past your formative years, as you're a literal "crazy idiot" as a teenager due to the chemicals pumping in your veins. Yet, we're fairly good at memorization during this time and procedural types of learning (like apprenticeship for basically anything). Education is the greatest gift you can give your children no matter what you believe and, truly, if you listen to me let them form their own opinions and try to keep them NEUTRAL in stances on any subject (including even your own religion) as taking a side can injure development. If they do become sidetracked into an academic arena (math, science, English, or even sports) give them full support in these areas and let them know of possible opportunities for the present (if they excel, possibly a low level "advanced" book to help their thirst or a class if it can be found) and the future (such as jobs: fireman, astronaut, college, which college, classes to take, books to read).
Pre-adolescence is also a great time to be taught anything. It's also the time that you're the most susceptible to people forcing ANY opinion as "fact" and ANY "fact" as knowledge; experience, perhaps being a better way to teach at this age--along with below, finding a direction or what you excel at (yes, I know you may not now this till you're much older, due to how the brain sets itself up). Whether it be good or bad: religion, politics, abuse, swimming, dancing, sports, science, computers, etc... Pre-adolescence is perhaps the most important time in your life to get an idea for direction, as this helps you mitigate problems that you face during adolescence (stay on course). This is of course a luxury for some as self-discovery is not a perfect process and can as always be entirely, never found.
If you wait to learn in your twenties or after adolescence you begin to form extremely superior ideas and opinions that as a adolescent, due entirely to having a brain that isn't shit-canning itself at a lot of turns. Things that need to be memorized are better in these "primitive" years; but, like religion and learning to form an opinion that makes sense, this requires someone usually to be above normal intelligence at that age or for you to be in your twenties when the fog of hormones and neurotransmitters has cleared up and allowed you to maake FAR more rational decisions.
Unfortunately, we have a lot of people that formed their opinions early, to the point that they are nearly unchangeable. I don't necessarily blame them either, to some degree, as these issues that "stop" learning are ingrained into your neural-net and chemical-memory. To make these people understand something is a huge undertaking (which is why I usually provide the information, as the only person that can convince them at that point is themselves--BUT, STILL make sure to give them the information or they'll have no chance).
This is why you can tell Rush Limbaugh the truth till you're blue in the face, yet it won't help as he can't understand it, will actively deny himself of it, and he physically can't. The only way to get through to them is to literally know how their neurons have decided to arrange themselves. If you knew it might be a matter of approaching the matter via religion or it could be politics, science, etc... This is why sciences premise of allowing yourself to let go of previous, erronious, information is FUNDAMENTAL. If you can't do that as aperson, you'll be locked in a world you can't or hope, to understand.
BTW, if you're reading this and you have a thousand questions that need answering, yet you've tried and they do not make sense. Remember, that it's the physical layout of your brain that disrupts this ability to understand in some cases. Your brain physically changes when you can figure out something for the first time; sometimes called an epiphany. Try something easy and move from there. DON'T try the hard stuff first (which is why that works incredibly well for teaching people; only people with I.Q.s of 150+ are able to see something complex and know, fairly intrinsically, what needs to be done--or what opinion should be held...).
Some of this will sound preachy, and I guess it should. Some of this will sound simple and obvious, I hope it does. If it sounds particularly TOO preachy or TOO opinionated, "...don't tell me what to do with my kid...". Your kid is a human being like yourself and demands as much respect at age 3 as at 33. If you can't give them the breadth of width to leave them to learn untouched or with a balanced or neutral approach you will hurt them. They will also hurt you. You can disagree, but deep inside I think you understand what I mean by everything I've said here. AND if you don't try to figure out why you don't.
What you see in this video is seen by a VERY small minority of people as being "good" or "informed"; it's seen as the opposite. However, if you can approach this same situation knowing all of this, knowing the ways the mind can fool you into making you a fool, yet you can still find a unwaivering "faith" or truth. That is when you're free to share responsibly, but please tell this to adults or people that understand at your level. Otherwise, you're Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Michelle Backmann, Pat Robertson, etc...
/Kind of a long point, but I think I made it. Hopefully, not too much on the cheesy side and not to "anti-religious".