Prayer and Meditation Studies Are Associated with Which (g)God(s)? Who Is Asking, and what do Anthropologists Know?

Here´s a fun and enriching dialogue-based piece on the meaning of prayer and meditation studies. ​Anonymou WhiteRabbit Anonymou WhiteRabbit @Green Peacemst These prayer and meditation studies have been associated with which god(s)? Several? Or only one of them?

@Anonymou WhiteRabbi Ah, what´s the shortest answer? "(Scientific) studies", with labels marking the human psychosocial symbolic-empirical crossover, are in a tradition itself, not just "objective robots doing 'science'." That tradition, as clarified by historians of Science and Religion like James Hannam, Rod Stark, and Karen Armstrong, is in Jesus´ legacy of his Creator God, while any individual and tradition-group variants are now studied with all the cause-effect empirical psychosocial knowledge that makes (g)God(s) capable of being analyzed for their ecological and social systemic components and their spiritual-religious referents at various levels. So, sorry Sam Harris and co., I actually studied Bio Anthro in college, and know most essentials about the issue. So, here goes. As for you, quite a good question that automatically deviates from scientific methodological naturalism into the area of psychosocial studies and empirical symbolic human phenomena and practice. The latter also directly involves interpretivism, that ultimately applies to "science" itself. When you ask about "studies associated with which god(s)," are you aware of the History of Science and Religion itself? Where do those studies themselves come from? Hindu culture? Buddhist culture? Most likely, you´re a scientific materialist/metaphysical naturalist with an ideological belief that "atheist humanists" invented "science" and Universities because of your ideological anti-Christian beliefs. Surprise, suddenly the whole context has its basic self-referential component. But, don´t have a hairy conniption. Allow me to lay the groundwork since I have the honor of having been an atheist humanist who has had to plow and pick his way through education and life with a degree in Bio Anthro from a pretty good world famous and leading University. So, how does a philosophical scholar classify, say, Gandhi, a secular law student in London and vegetarian club member, who met theosophists at the club who reoriented him to a new approach to Hinduism and interfaith study that led Gandhi to include regular study the Bible for Jesus in his practice? Gandhi´s enriched kind of crossover multicultural life and exploratory example in spiritual-religious study and practice requires a little more than stereotypes by ideologues who think human psychosocial symbolic behavior equates to humans inventing (g)God(s). I also get to L Mehl-Madrona MD, PhD´s multicultural shamanic psychiatry at the end, so don´t jump ship too soon.

Extended Short version in a paragraph: Thus, thanks to Jesus´ legacy in University-based philosophical scholarship, we know that there is only one Creator God. That refers to the ancient Greek and eclectic-based Christian-derived philosophical scholarship in multiple disciplines with empiricism, including both "science" and psychosocial symbolic studies, to understand how and why people have developed their systems from shamanism to the institutional modern religions and their spectra of practice. Hinduism has its formal temples and gurus including yoga, Buddhism has spread throughout Asia and now the globalized UN community of nations, Taoism includes tai chi and has spread, and Christianity has its secularized forms that have hidden its influences in key ways of philosophical knowledge, business practices, and democratic government forms along with the intiative of UN human rights. Christianity´s formal expression has diverse institutionalized forms, and individual practitioners thanks to the Freedom of Religion. Gandhi is an excellent example, having been a secularized former Hindu law student in London, who as a vegetarian joined a club where he met theosophists. Those theosophists reoriented him back to Hinduism as part of an interfaith approach that Gandhi developed on his own that included significant valuing of studying the Bible for Jesus regularly. God is one, while Christianity´s University-based system, now globalized in the UN human rights-sustainability community, has provided the multidisciplinary philosophical empricism in science and psychosocial studies to analyze and even refine spiritual-religious practices according to the standard of loving integrity in Jesus´ legacy in human rights-sustainability.

Extended reasoning behind the short version: And that´s where the very nature of the question requires getting literate about "science" in its true nature as scientific philosophy. It is a subdiscipline of modern philosophy, which is itself a Christianized modernization of ancient Greek and eclectic influences. Thus, at the primary level, it doesn´t matter. Such brainscans identify the specific kind of brain state related to the activity. It isn´t just something to be confused with fantasy or fiction writing, for example. It is the spiritual-religious practice and the associated, identifiable standard brainscan that is being observed.

However, this is where Christianity has served through its developing "science", ie scientific philosophy, and its secularized, mechanicized version. While you may think "science" is "godless" with its methodological naturalism, and the widespread twist into scientific materialism and metaphysical naturalism, get this. The origin of science's belief in a lawful nature began as the belief in a lawful Creation. Thomas Aquinas´ widely neglected role in Christian Universities in fact empirically demonstrates that. Yet, that also involves a self-referential process now as Luther´s inspired Reformation started University-based philosophical scholarship into the Enlightenment and constitutional Civil Rights and Freedom of Religion until the Social Gospel influenced FD Roosevelt´s vision and legacy formulated and negotiated modern UN human rights after the catastrophe of WWII. Self-referential means we ask, "Why have we followed a German Christian spiritual practitioner, ie monk´s inspiration to separate from the Roman autocratic church? Why did Jefferson and Emerson not join the ranks of the French Revoltions Temple of Reason mythicists to rant that Jesus was a myth? Because we can observe that humanism doesn´t equate to atheism. Humanism corresponds to such teachings by Jesus of "seek first the Kingdom of Heaven," "humans don´t live by bread alone", and "go and learn," all tied to Jesus´ formal presentation of 2 new Commandments for Moses et al and God, with no 2 being, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." That underlies the famous Good Samaritan parable, no less. University-based philosophical scholarship emerged from humanist Christians seeking to understand the Creation. Identifying and stereotyping Christianity with church authorities and their authoritarian doctrines is based on too much study of physical scientific philosophy that leads to overspecialization and overcompartmentalization. The basic distinction that Gandhi drew, that Jesus was not the equivalent of Christianity, was itself sound and can be elaborated in terms of empirical psychosocial studies and its philosophical scholarship. Gandhi´s own generalization falls short, as Mandela seems to have acknowledged and probably Desmond Tutu. Christianity has done much good. University-based philosophical scholarship is full of examples, and all the many examples are the influences that correspond to Jesus´ standard of loving integrity

It was right at that point that Eliot D Chapple at Harvard in anthropology drew on Pavlov´s dog symbolic conditioning, Ogden and Richard´s symbolic language symbol-thought-referent interrelations, and Malinowski´s human needs approach in anthropology to identify how human interaction contexts could be operationalized as emotional-interaction patterns for symbolic meaning. See JB Watson´s work with conditioning a child for a specific human demonstration of Pavlov´s principle. That´s where Skinner´s work came from, moreover.

Chapple drew on Malinowski´s and other field studies to lay out the approach of behavioral anthropology. Religion, and the different areas of human society no less, thus consists of two kinds of basic rituals: Rites of Intensification and Rites of Initiation. My "rite of initiation" into spiritual-religious practice came as I opened a book by scholar H Smith and like the Chinese Tao. I also walked into a Unitarian Universalist interfaith congregation and liked their support of interfaith spiritual paths. Rites of intensification began as I began reading casually, and took my studies from cross-cultural psychology to History of Science to sociology to Bio Anthro and the evolution of speech, symbolic behavior, psychosocial interaction, and religious ritual.

And a class in tai chi, Kung Fu, and then my first venture to a Zen Buddhist temple to meditate. And more from there. It is on that kind of foundation that "science" and scientific materialists are lassoed back to Earth and reality by getting schooled in science as philosophy. We learn modern philosophical scholarship in rituals of intensification and initiation, with tests and graduation, for example. "Science" is in fact scientific philosophy, even when misdirected and overspecialized by technophiles. With scientific philosophy in fact a subdiscipline of philosophy, a human psychosocial symbolic activity, we can observe empirically the evaluation of "brainscans of meditators and prayer" refers to a physical behavior of human beings, and provides one kind of measure and standard for spiritual-religious practice behavior. Then comes the next step to category analysis that requires a little more literacy in the philosophical scholarship of psychosocial empirical symbolic study disciplines. The question of studying the spiritual-religious knowledge classification of the meditators and praying people involves the psychosocial study disciplines and its empirical symbolic content. All told, Religious Freedom allows anybody to believe whatever they want. However, scientific philosophy, derived from its Christian foundations in spiritual-religious practice, has provided a symbolic knowledge systems of physical objects and processes that applies to everyone, and many key people are interested in learning, along with economic and business development, and University-based philosophical scholarship in general. Seeking the philosophical truth, in logical coherence and correspondence to reality, is in fact the method that underlies even "science," begins to and totally demystifies it, and situates it in a spectrum of the multidisciplinary empiricism used in philosophical disciplines. Fritjof Capra has gone far with his Systems Theory of Life, as has Ken Wilber´s Integral Theory, as did Greg Bateson´s Ecology of Mind, JB Cobb´s Process Theology, and Karen Armstrong´s historical mythos/logos approach. Arnie Mindell´s deep psychology and Stan Grof´s holotrophic psychology are additional relevant frames of reference.

Thus, Lewis Mehl-Madrona MD´s multicultural approach might provide a basic indicator of the point like this. He acknowledges Christianity as central to his work as a holistic shamanic psychiatrist, and includes indigenous and diverse paths on a patient-client basis. His medical psychiatric and psychological training are all in Jesus´ legacy of University-based philosophical empiricism, science, and psychosocial studies. That includes his ability to recognize the shamanic healing of indigenous shamans and the medically attested, medically impossible healings with spiritual-religious testimony of US Native American indigenous people. Through the University system´s heritage, the Creator referred to was originally Jesus´ own lawful and loving heavenly parent, that has been extended in relation to scientific philosophical knowledge, now widely secularized and providing a methodological naturalist foundation for all spiritual-religious philosophical evaluations, with Chapple´s Pavlov-Watson-Malinowski type behavioral framework filling in the Levels of Analysis, directly or indirectly. The framework is based on comparative religious studies and its philosophical empirical nature. The transpersonal psychological view, combined with the philosophy of religion provides the understanding of the transcendental and spiritual-religious phenomena and practice.

Thus, thanks to Jesus´ legacy in University-based philosophical scholarship, we know that there is only one Creator God. That refers to the ancient Greek and eclectic-based Christian-derived philosophical scholarship in multiple disciplines with empiricism, including both "science" and psychosocial symbolic studies, to understand how and why people have developed their systems from shamanism to the institutional modern religions and their spectra of practice. Hinduism has its formal temples and gurus including yoga, Buddhism has spread throughout Asia and now the globalized UN community of nations, Taoism includes tai chi and has spread, shamanism has existed throughout Africa and elsewhere, and Christianity has its secularized forms that have hidden its influences in key ways of philosophical knowledge, business practices, and democratic government forms along with the intiative of UN human rights. Christianity´s formal expression has diverse institutionalized forms, and individual practitioners in abundant syncretistic and modernized forms thanks to the Freedom of Religion. The Unitarian Universalist interfaith association and University-based comparative religious studies provide formal contexts of modernizing Christian-derived interfaith forms. Gandhi is an excellent individual example, having been a secularized former Hindu law student in London, who as a vegetarian joined a club where he met theosophists. Those theosophists reoriented him back to Hinduism as part of an interfaith approach that Gandhi developed on his own that included significant valuing of studying the Bible for Jesus regularly. Thus, with scientific brainscan studies identifying the existence of corresponding brain states in meditative and prayerful activity, the corresponding philosophical spiritual-religious overview is that God is one. Christianity´s University-based system, now globalized in the UN human rights-sustainability community, has provided the multidisciplinary philosophical empricism in science and psychosocial studies to analyze and even refine spiritual-religious practices according to the standard of loving integrity in Jesus´ legacy in human rights-sustainability to grasp the different psychosocial and empirical symbolic features of diverse religious approaches. Gandhi´s respect for his legal education and Jesus gave him a grounding in Jesus´ legacy in University-based Western Civilization. His references to approaches like Jainism and Buddhism gave him reference to developments in Hindu culture itself. His interest in formal Hinduism gave him relationship to God through not only Jesus, Buddha, and Jainism, but also through interpreting Brahma in and fitting him into that lens.