This is a philosophy forum and thus ‘argument’ is the default whether one likes it or not.
It is evolutionary, if any human can arrive at any sort of conclusion [true or false] there is some oozing of soothing brain juice rewards. The bottom line is one must ultimately justify those initial conclusions [actually they are hypothesis or could be hunches] regardless of how ‘soothing’ it is.
Religion can be a very loose term in this case in terms of its timeline.
To be specific, religion in this case refer to organized religions with a reasonable large group of followers.
“The Brain Creates Religion” do not refer to the individual brain but rather its the human brains collectively that created and sustain religions.
The critical point here is to counter the common claim, religions are created by an independent God out there. Where religions and believers are involved in killing non-believers, they insist it is because God commanded it as a divine duty for believers.
I can’t remember if there was any serotonin 50 million years ago … I’m old and my memory fails me regularly. 
Where did the “one cell” drift onto the planet from?
at this particular point in time and space … though… check with me tomorrow … indefinite uncertainty is not guaranteed.
Neither agree or disagree. What has it to do with the question of Ultimate Reality??
Good question! I doubt Prismatic/Spectrum will answer, though (except in the most disingenuous way possible).
BTW, Prismatic, there are programs that will assist you in your grammar. I generally don’t need it, but the one I have underlined “do” and “its” in red (“does” and “it’s” are the proper terms). No big deal, but occasionally it does get in the way of clarity. The one I have is called “Grammarly for Chrome.”
A most interesting comment/observation … though perhaps I’ve been watching too many Poirot episodes.
Particularly, being nested within other current posts in this forum … specifically … I refer to rituals and neuron pathways.
Most believers accept rituals as an important component of their faith … it’s like salt is to food … food is edible without salt but lacks “color” for the discerning palate.
Ditto for atheists … their persistent antagonism towards believers is one of their rituals … so necessary to maintain the neural pathways that carry their atheistic beliefs.
If you’re saying whether or not somebody gets soothing brain juice rewards for what they believe or espouse is irrelevant, and we should instead examine whether or not their claims are true, I certainly agree. But of course the next question is what then is the purpose of this thread?
For theists the origin and essence of religion is from God. This thread provide an alternative view to the above.
Crick, among others, believed that the Earth was “seeded” with organic matter that came down in comets (panspermia). In any event, regardless of origin ,cells were formed in the primal ooze that was a mix of organic chemicals. I’m surprised to hear that somebody nowadays can claim that serotonin or its precursors was not available for the mix from which cells sprang. Maybe at least something like tryptophan was included.
I also suspect that whoever made those statements about serotonin as being among the “feel good causing chemicals in the brain” was mistaking serotonin with the basic endorphins. As a sufferer of major depression I take serotonin re=uptake meds, not opiates to create a balance of mentality, not necessarily a feel good therapy.
Not necessarily. What about the terrorists or those others who kill and destroy in the name of God or religion?
What kind of soothing juices do they have?
How can this be an alternative to theism if we just agreed that whether or not you get brain juice for your beliefs is completely irrelevant to whether or not they are true? It seems to me you and I just agreed that this thread isn’t actually disagreeing with theism in the slightest.
Mine are orange and sarsaparilla flavored.
It’s not, but Prismatic gets his soothing brain juice rewards by making everyone else feel miserable.
how did they create it to begin with, or was it waiting in some phantom zone of the mind and created in them the desire to create it? What part of the mind, or does the mind roam reality and its not a part of the mind at all, but the mind a tool?
I just don’t agree with the thesis and I don’t feel like going out of my way to disprove it.
I agree endorphin is the more notable neurotransmitter that enable one in inhibiting pain and feel good, but note,
For any living thing to feel the effects of [as you stated] “feel good causing chemicals in the brain” it must have the neural system to feel, in this case the emotional system.
The primates has an emotional system [limbic] in the brain but not the reptiles. Animals just below the primates would have some degree of emotions but definitely not those nearer to the reptilians and least likely for single-celled living organisms.
Note drugs addicts use artificial ‘soothing juices’ to feel “good” [relieve pains and induce highs]. To maintain and sustain their relieved pains and highs, drug addicts commit evil acts like the terrorists [religious-based] are doing.
DNA wise ALL humans has the potential to suffer existential pains and rely on various methods to relieve those pains to feel good.
Theists rely on theistic religions which induces “soothing juices” to relieve their existential pains.
DNA wise SOME theists are evil prone [the terrorists] and like the drug addicts they will do whatever it take to maintain and sustain their religion-leveraged feel good state.
The threat to their feel good state is this, God [certain religions, not all] issues threats in the holy texts that if they want to sustain a theistic feel-good-state, the theists has to kill or be violent to non-believers and commit other evil acts sanctioned by their God.
This is how religion and its soothing juices is related to religious-driven-terrorists and others.
It is the same with the game of football, any sports or any other ideology which is created by human brains collectively and not from a God out there.
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Thanks Warrior
For me, your thought … expressed as a question … may drive this thread into a more meaningful perspective … maybe?
The operative word in expressing your thought(s) is “mind” … most people use the word “mind” and “brain” interchangeably.
OTH … many people see brain and mind as distinctly separate entities.
If so, the brain as a tool becomes intuitively correct … and Prismatic’s endorsement of “soothing juices” in the brain is rational.
Hmmm!
I. endorphins --plural- more than one. See Candace Pert’s research on endorphins. She discovered their existence. From “The Three Pound Universe”–endorphins activity was the first neuroscience to appear on a tee-shirt.
2 serotonin–despite wiki’s “Popular Opinion” serotonin is a mood stabilizer, not an opiate. Of course mood stabilizations may lead to feelings of well-being, but they do not affect the brain as does morphine. Serotonin is made in small vesicles near the axon end of a neuron. When the neuron fires the vesicles are broken and neurotransmitters are spread across the synapse, affecting the electrical message a dendrite will receive. A neurotransmitter is not an opiate!
3. If religion is based on beliefs caused by feel good juices in the brain, this is not evidence that the beliefs are wrong or somehow misguided.
4.the brain also creates philosophy and science. Does that fact make religion and science somehow illegitimate concerns?
If religions are created by the brain, then theistic religions are not created nor triggered by a God which is illusory and an impossibility.
There are many religions, i.e. theistic and non-theistic.
All religions has their negative baggage of different degrees, so priority must be given to those religions who has a high degrees of negativity that hinder the progress of humanity, e.g. Islam = very high, Christianity - moderate. In the future humanity need to wean off all religions in phases to avoid religious-based evils.
The brain creates religions, but SOME religions are inherently evil, e.g. The Religion of Peace which has evil laden elements in their holy texts that inspire evil prone believers to commit evils and violence in the name of their God as a divine duty.
Note the following statistic that involve deaths;
There are loads of other evils acts by evil prone Muslims around the world.
This is evidence the belief itself is wrong. Can you dispute this?
Christianity is a pacifist and a not violent religion, but the ethos of Christian like Islam hinder the progress on humanity in term of scientific knowledge re its insistence of Creationism and deny of evolutionary theory.