You are correct, and there is no reason I should debate the issue since I had nothing to do with the research. Those who feel the research is faulted should address their concerns directly with the doctors doing the research. I am only the messenger.
Actually I was surprised to learn of non-material neuroscientists. I didn’t know that any neuroscientists were researching the mind/brain phenomenon. I have been told many times on this board that science is self-correcting, and I think this is a good example of that. It has made me feel good to find out dozens of scientists are working on research in this area, some of them even quit their jobs to devote full time to near death experience research. To me this means that in the future new methods of dealing with maladies such as depression, anxiety, obsessions and such will be formulated to actually treat the problem instead of the symptoms.
Glad to be of help; I like debating NDEs in NDE threads just fine, but I prefer to save it for those specific threads and let other threads continue on in their own other directions.
Personally I find that non-material neuroscientist to seem rather biased; but even so he might be right in his claim that there is no “God gene”. Personally I still think we’re probably dealing with a (well, actually several) religion memes, which carry on quite well using only the credulity and emotional vulnerability of their believers and the multifaceted retention/recruitment angles that are commonly found in religions, without ever relying on some specific gene to make some of their followers or groups of followers more or less inclined to believe things or have religious experiences.
Which is not to say that there isn’t a “god gene”, or even that there isn’t a “credulity gene”. However I don’t see such a thing as necessary to explain either the proliferation of religion or the tendency of it to be passed from parent to child. (And credulity seems to me more like a ‘nurture’ than a ‘nature’ thing, though I could be convinced otherwise given evidence, I suppose.)
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. I think the current research is going in the right direction, and will eventually have the proof we humans are spiritual in nature. I know there will be some who will never be convinced no matter how strong the evidence, but in time we will be able to use the powerful healing methods of spirituality in hospitals to enhance allopathic medicine.
Look at the former Soviet Union republics of Central Asia, and compare them to Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, etc. The former Soviet states are mostly authoritarian dictatorships, but at least they’re not psychotic Islamic theocracies! Makes me think the world might be better off if the Communists had controlled the entire Islamic world throughout the Cold War.