Quote Originally Posted by ksst View Post
Some of the non physical realizations I can think of are trust, love, hope and even fear. We would not live long without those things.
Oh, I can imagine living quite long without them. Not sure it would be worth the living, but I don't see them as entirely necessary, except for more social activities.

Sure they may have chemical basis in the brain, but a chemical still doesn't really explain them, how we get in those states etc.
I'm way out of my element in this area, but as far as I can tell, electro-chemical reactions explain them completely. What isn't explainable is why everyone seems to perceive them differently. I would think that if these emotions were hard-wired into our brains by some outside agency they would tend to be virtually the same for all. They are ephemeral feelings, which can have physical effects, of course.

A spiritually aware state has also produced certain effects in the brain in studies.
I'm not sure what you mean by "spiritually aware", but it is true that things like meditation (including prayer, I admit) can have a calming effect on our minds. But claiming this is because of some outside agencies intervention in our lives is disingenuous. There is no tangible evidence for that outside agency in the first place. And in the second, those effects can be observed even in those who meditate WITHOUT reference to some sort of god. Again, these effects can be shown to be electro-chemical in nature, as evidenced by medical testing on brain tissues.

You can live without God, obviously, but so many people don't want to there must be some benefit to them.
I wonder sometimes whether it's a case of people not wanting to, or people being afraid to live without gods. As I noted in my last post, putting the fear of God into people is a major weapon of religions. Breaking that cycle of fear, realizing that there is nothing there to fear in the first place, is a very difficult thing to do. I know. I had to overcome those fears myself, and even now I occasionally find myself backsliding a bit.

But I don't try to make the claim that people MUST live without gods, or even that the should. I state only that people need to be taught how to live without RELIGION. What they choose to believe in is up to them. Having someone else tell them what they MUST believe in is slavery.