Yes but what if attitude and environment is a factor in stimulating us to better interpret subliminal cues stimulating faith.

If you look at the wiki for limen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limen

or subliminal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_message

I think that there's a subliminal component and theists just stay open to these cues and weight them positively while a materialist or someone operating from the scientific method rejects them much more cavalierly. Once you've setup rationalism as the only method you've essentially cut yourself off from the subliminal.

In poker there's a decided advantage in not over recognizing patterns and over weighting them but that method doesn't necessarily apply to every area of human existence.

This is a pretty gross misunderstanding of subliminal messaging. You're saying that rationalists have somehow become so rational that they are impervious to it?

Its just a hypothesis.

We all have subliminal cues all the time. TV commericials are pretty obvious and grossly exaggerated ones. I think the faith ones are usually considerably more subtle.

These subliminal cues do transfer over to our reality and minds though. Just look at all the bulimics and anorexics like Princess Di and Mary Kate Olsen and Karen Carpenter. This is a relatively recent phenomenon at least it seems a lot more severe in the past 10 or 20 years than it used to be. Where are they coming from. I think its the exaggerated images from tv and magazines. When a tv or magazine cover tells a generation of women they are only worthwhile if they look like Jessica Alba or Jennifer Anniston then thats quite an overwhelming standard obv you can't rewrite your gene programming. What's the end result: Plastic surgery and botox springing up all over the place. And no I don't object to either if it makes a person happy. I just wonder why they can't be happy to begin with.

I did hear another one of those incredible Bill McKay stories this morning. It was about a group of soldiers fighting in Israel (I think in Israel's early stage). I think they were facing a minefield. The group paused and spent a few minutes looking at each other like they were taking stock of each other before they go into the minefield because they know probably some or all of them aren't coming out alive. All of a sudden a windstorm kicked up and raised the dirt in the field about 30 inches deep like a track and the men could now see the mines so they were able to avoid them.

A few days later one of the guys who happened to be an Israeli atheist was in a fracas where he took some minor wounds. While he was having minor surgery the surgeon's scalpel slipped and cut his spinal cord accidentally paralyzing him from the waist down. So the atheist couldn't walk and was hospitalized. About 7 years later he's laying up in his bed anticipating watching this girly dance show when a different show comes on. Its some black preacher, I think his name was Hinslow or something like that, comes on the tube. So the paralyzed atheist is disgruntled but he watches it for about an hour. During the show the black preacher says "Somewheres out there someone is paralyzed from the waist down but Jesus is going to visit you and heal you and you'll walk again." The atheist knows the message is meant for him. He tells his wife who calls the doctors. The very surgeon who'd cut his spine shows up to give a long scientific lecture on why he's never going to walk again. When the surgeon left the guy throws his legs over the side of the bed and manages to get down to the aid station. He decides right then and there he will walk and he does.

A year or two later he's back in his kibbutz when a bunch of his fellow Jews tell him he'll have to recant he can't believe in Jesus. But he tells them he's not going to give up Jesus because Jesus healed him and the least he can do is follow him.

(This is the story I heard on Hagee Ministries show this morning around 8:30 on TBN. Now imagine if the atheist had just thanked God and believed in him when the dirt got lifted on the minefield. That was one heck of a subliminal message. Instead he had to go through a 7 year paralysis for God to get his attention.)

There has never really been shown any major effects from subliminal messaging in good research. At best it would seem subliminal messaging can steer a desire/need that is already there (if you are thirsty you might want a coke after having seen a coke bottle subliminally etc).

I've heard they tried it back in the 40s or 50s. Prompting people to buy popcorn, etc. in movie theatres. They ran some kind of message too fast for the naked eye to read or register. Something like that.

I always get halfway through reading a Splendour post before realizing that her final point, if present, will probably not relate at all to what we were discussing. How is that little anecdote pertinent? I vaguely see what is being gestured at, but I don't think I am getting what you're saying.

Your hypothesis is that rationalists are less susceptible to subliminal messages, right? Elaborate.

It's been tried and the results are mostly unclear. It is somewhat of a bogus field sometimes because there is a lot of urban legend too it - kinda like UFOs though not that horrible, there are still some good experiments. When browsing articles on the subject it is also a good idea to read the actual results and not only the abstract/conclusion which tend to be...optimistic.

Suffice to say that while subliminal messages might have small effects (varying somewhat depending on technique and individual) it is clearly shown that non-subliminal techniques are enormously superior in every way.

I wonder how this relates to hypnosis because some people are susceptible to suggestion and others aren't.

Also if you just want to be deceptive and induce/influence someone else wouldn't subliminal be an option at times. What if you want to induce an illegal or socially despised activity wouldn't subliminal be a possibility?

Its just a hypothesis.

What if you're the smart kid in the class. Very fast at math, science, statistics, the hard sciences in general. These types of disciplines tend to require a kind of focus and also a development along certain path lines in order to be able to absorb and use the more complicated knowledge. I think its a kind of ingraining that can become a habit almost hardwired into you.

I think Paul suggests as much in the New Testament. He suggests a lot of things that society seems to bear out. He doesn't go into the root reasons probably because he had another primary mission and because of the wide diversity of the nature of the problem that is so individual and individual experience dependent.

But if you're going to encourage skepticism often a callousness seems to go hand and hand with it. Skepticism and callousness are pretty much the antithesis of faith. You might reap big rewards in science with the tenacity from a skeptical attitude but you come up short in the faith department. When you overlap the two and don't compartamentalize them then you really didn't leave your faith a chance to develop. Its pretty scary in my opinion and partly rooted in the human brain. Sort of like the difference between women and men. A lot of women lack math skills because their brains develop language really strongly really early and it has a vise like affect on them. Some of them will struggle with math the rest of their lives and eventually give up on it and that determines their career and paths in life. Faith could be similar.

Not really no...it would likely have a very low effect. Maybe towards somebody who has criminal tendencies and have no problem commiting crimes...and I suspect you would be better off offering them the money from your sub campaign.

It's probably better to just ask people to do stuff. And the weird part is that just as subliminal messages do a lot less than people tend to think, outright asking or demanding often achieves a lot MORE than people tend to think. It's a strange world.

Sooo yeah, this is entirely unrelated to anything you were previously saying.

I guess you are saying, as you have most of this thread, that skepticism/rationalism somehow stems from difference in brain processes. So I guess to post an on topic question (since the topic is no longer subliminal messages as far as I can tell), do you think that people have control over which part(s) of their brain are "dominant"? Do you think that some people are born more right-brained and therefore born more likely to get into heaven because of it?

Wait - all I had to do all this time was say, "take off your clothes?"

It might not be better than good hints, but it will certainly beat bad hints.

Close. All you have to say is, "here's $500, now take of your clothes."

Everything I said was speculative because the only study on spirituality I can cite is Hamer's and it dealt with genes not the brain.

There are probably a host of other things that determine if you will be become a religious believer or not but luckily God seems to leave people an out at least in Christian religions he does.

Christ did say he would split families which seems to indicate faith is based on the individual's choice. You can probably come up with families in which on the surface 2 siblings look close to the same but their approaches to life were completely different. Couldn't that be from a combination of nurture, genes, timing, environment and training? It gives whole new meaning to the phrase "You can't judge a book by its cover."

Faith is the "gift of God" but everything is. The ability to sing, the ability to play the piano, the ability to solve a rubix cube...all gifts. Even here though God is kind and the New Testament teachs us we can pray for help.