Meditation definetely is beneficial. I've played around with breathing meditation, and everyday tell myself that I'm going to start doing it again. When I've done it, its helped me relax and focus. That said, my experience does not run deep but I've listened to a lot of talks from buddist monks (there's tons of stuff on the internet about meditation and would argue that any time you spend learning how to meditate is well worth it.

I also do not doubt that prayer is quite similar on a physiological level. There is probably little doubt that prayer can have a quite positive effect on the individual. That is completely separate from whether there is a receiver for the prayer.

I'm glad this thread came up, I think I'm going to try meditating tonight before bed!

Is that what you are using to fill in the blank?

No Christianity is based on the historical objective account not hypotheticals.

Hypotheticals only allow you to draw parallels to irrelevant things that disrupt you from looking at truly and practically relevant matters.

+1 mostly

Could you please pass that message on to all the theists on this site who use hypotheticals. Especially the comparisons of parents disciplining kids stuff too Gods discipline.

That sounds like an analogy not a hypothetical.

And you can say post anything you want to theists. I don't mediate for them on here.

I meant hypotheticals but i could go without the analogys also. Please get to work on that. ty.

Simplifying and exaggerating the results of single experiments is a hallmark of pseudoscience. To quote wiki: "Short of having undergone a hemispherectomy (removal of a cerebral hemisphere), no one is a "left-brain only" or "right-brain only" person."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral...brain_function

Obviously everyone uses both sides of the brain.

That doesn't mean that dominant areas can't come into play in the way people think about and or interpret their perceptions.

It could fit into why the bible says "to train up your children" to provide a group support/tutoring to compensate for any weakness in thinking/perceiving that an individual might have.

Of course if you suffer from the weakness and weren't trained properly then only open mindedness and genuine interest would help.

And yes this is just theorizing on my part. I like to see where the science and the bible could meet.

Right. And we also often use metaphors. So did Jesus. There's a good reason for that - which has to do with brains - which are limited and cannot fully conceptualize the Divine.

Oh, come on now, you're just dodging the question. Someone, somewhere, has felt at peace praying to a god other than the Judeo-Christian God (I would hardly consider this a hypothetical). This leaves two possibilities:

It was the Holy Spirit - in which case why would the Holy Spirit enter someone praying to a false god?

It was not the Holy Spirit - in which case, how do we know whatever is happening is not the same result in the Judeo-Christian prayer, but just being called the 'Holy Spirit'?

I already answered that above. Just because you reformulate the same question I'm not changing my answer.

Sorry, I wasn't sure where you answered my question. Just quote your answer again for me please.

I mentioned gifts twice above.

Once here: "Now you're playing a substitution game and you've deliberately overlooked we can identify the Spirit by certain precepts and gifts".

The problem with the substitution game is its too piecemeal and isolates things and takes them out of relevant contexts. I'm pretty sure neither you or I am expert enough on Krisha and his precepts to just replace one set of beliefs blythely with another one then draw conclusions.

I think if you want to play that game then there are burdens of proof on the person making that type of hypothetical to know the ins and outs of all religions and a burden on any other person responding as well. So I consider it an argument from ignorance. There are too many additional factors you have to know to substitute one set of doctrine for another so I contain myself to what I do know.