Thanks to my editor, Holly, for finding this fascinating study about serotonin and spirituality. I've argued in many places that I swear we depressives are more religious. It turns out that high image brain scans are documenting a biological underpinning for religiosity, related to the neurotransmitter serotonin. The only thing I'm confused about if those born with more serotonin receptors can transcend more easily than those of us who need a little help via Zoloft.
According to Psychology Today, which you can get to by clicking here:
Serotonin, the brain chemical crucial to mood and motivation, also shapes personality to make you susceptible to spiritual experiences. A team of Swedish researchers has found that the presence of a receptor that regulates general serotonin activity in the brain correlates with people's capacity for transcendence, the ability to apprehend phenomena that cannot be explained objectively. Scientists have long suspected that serotonin influences spirituality because drugs known to alter serotonin such as LSD also induce mystical experiences. But now they have proof from brain scans linking the capacity for spirituality with a major biological element.
The concentration of serotonin receptors normally varies markedly among individuals. Those whose brain scans showed the most receptor activity proved on personality tests to have the strongest proclivity to spiritual acceptance.
Reporting in the "American Journal of Psychiatry," the researchers see the evidence as contradicting the common belief that religious behavior is determined strictly by environmental and cultural factors. They see a biological underpinning for religiosity, and it is related to the neurotransmitter serotonin.
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Larry: One of my most valuable learning experiences growing from therapy is learning to recognize and accept the difference between blame and accountability. The lesson is this: Blame implies intent whereas accountability only denotes an acceptance of responsibility for our actions and their consequences. Thus, I am accountable for my stroke, but not to blame since I clearly didn't intend to bring on a stroke by my poor lifestyle choices. This differentiation has freed me in more ways than I can express. I've embraced the belief that even an angry G-d doesn't bring negatives into our lives; He saves punishment until Judgment Day, and even then doesn't count those transgressions for which we've asked and accepted forgiveness.Think about it; if G-d spent all of His time punishing us for our sins, how would He have time for anything ELSE, such as listening to and answering prayers?
((((Larry))) I hear you...I had to opposite message growing up...all is well...God is love etc etc...and I still whip out the little girl magical thinking weapon on myself when I am unsure..and sleepless as of late...
My son thought, briefly I hope.... in very black and white adolescent terms, that last springs stomach stuff was because of clothes that he'd been wearing. (a punishment, I forget the details, a Rolling Stones tshirt or some such).... I was crushed...my WORST parenting fear manifested in lysol...
"I will NEVER be the kind of parent that manipulates with punishing God crap...NEVER."
And we don't...and won't ever...but...nor are we raising him under a rock.
sigh
***
T - looking forward to coming back to the article and reading closely ~ K
Well, in my "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry G-d" cosmology, G-d wouldn't need to have time for listening and answering prayers because He'd be, well, too busy doling out punishments "for our own good."
I'm not saying I BELIEVE this; but it's a **very** tempting theological construct with depression, at least as much if not more so, IMO, then the opposite idea ennunciated above in the first comment.
Theresa, I want to join ur site! Iwas a member, but my computer got hacked! So I need to rejoin and start getting the newsletters again, and ur site!
Please tell me how to do so!
thanks
phyllis
I was reading these comments.
The problem is that 99% people are not aware of Astropsychology.
Last 2000 years we got Age of Pisces-age of deception...
Scientists and doctors are not aware of Astropsychology, people who are depresset have allot of influence of South node of the Moon in Pisces and Mercury etc.
God give us Stars but also he is saying we are above the Stars!
What that means: if we were born in the moment that the planets were positioned in a certain way and that what it makes us who we are, it mean that if we Do have knowledge in Astropsychology we are able to work on our character in order to improve it.....
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