Right-Brain God vs. Left-Brain God

Discussion in 'Religion, Beliefs and Spirituality' started by Meursault, Nov 15, 2011.

  1. "In 1998 there were several major media reports that looked into the possible links between spirituality and mental health. We are far from drawing any conclusions. As with medications, any efficacy of spirituality would be affected by a person's attitude towards it. Here the brain's structure may make clarity even harder to find. The two brain hemispheres provide two ways of looking at and understanding the world. The right attempts to see the whole, the left orders specific experiences. This leads to very different ways of approaching abstract concepts such as the divine.

    The left hemisphere would favor a god of the Word. People with dominant left hemispheres would hold the Word as sacred-the Bible is the truth and the guide and its order rules. As Jerry Falwell tells it, "The writ is the writ" and the narrative carries the day. God is about victory, and heaven is a reward that is full of happiness. There is a point and an endpoint to it all.

    Right-brainers hold experience to be most dear;they would want to insert themselves into the gestalt of God, and see and accept everyone and everything as part of the whole of God's creation. To them, God is simply oneness, and that is a continual mystery. The right-brainer's heaven is just a part of the oneness.

    Unfortunately, proponents of these two views often clash with each other over which is the "truth." In trying to reign supreme, however, each side misses a fundamental point. Both would agree that God is something of which nothing greater can be conceived. However, for humans, all conceptions is limited by the language, context, and meaning capabilities of the brain--a limit that falls far short of being able to define something that is beyond all conception. Instead of arguing about and in some cases killing each other over our different conceptions of God, we might try bringing both deities--both hemispheres--together. Then we might at least find a better way to think about the Almighty, and about the universe and our place in it."

    -John J. Ratey M.D., "A User's Guide to the Brain"
  3. #3 DBV, Nov 15, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 15, 2011
    It's crazy because they say the left-hemisphere is already very well developed, but the right is what we're now beginning to evolve through use.. Timothy Leary once hypothesised that the use of entheogens was a key to the right-hemisphere which makes so much sense because the experience is based on experiencing oneness..
  4. I agree....there are only some clues we currently perceive of that Inexpressible Force we will join one day....why would we be able to put it into words that do it justice?

    That can only be experienced. Anything else cheapens.
  5. I wonder if he thought about my-brain god vs. your-brain god and their effects on mental health.
  6. A wandering sage passed through the village where his children had stayed, in which he hadn't visited for fifteen years. He was brought his only two grandchildren, for he wanted to meet them before he departed.

    Two young men, standing a few feet apart from each other.

    The first- extremely neat, impeccably dressed, not a single stain on his attire nor the smallest piece of lint gone astray in his well-combed hair.

    The second- sloppy and unkept, his appearance is a mess, his clothes are dirty, his hair is mattered and his smile is wide.

    "Each of you," the old man said.
    "be like the other."

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