Version 1

[ScrappyMarcus]

Atheist Argument

Version 1
(Version 1 of the "Religious experiences can all be explained by science" argument)

For thousands of years, people have pointed to visions, voices, or feelings of divine presence as proof that God is real. But science has shown these experiences arise from the brain — not from heaven. Mystical visions can be triggered by temporal lobe seizures. Feelings of transcendence appear under the influence of psilocybin, LSD, or DMT. Monks and nuns describe the same ecstasy that test subjects report in lab settings when their brains are stimulated in the right regions.

And the diversity of these experiences undermines their credibility: Christians see Jesus, Hindus see Krishna, Muslims hear Allah’s voice, shamans meet spirits. The simplest explanation is not that each religion is correct, but that the human brain is generating the experiences through natural processes of neurochemistry, expectation, and culture.

Most damningly, when these experiences are studied, they follow predictable patterns: heightened activity in the temporal lobe, surges of dopamine and serotonin, disruptions of normal self-boundaries in the parietal cortex. They can be replicated, induced, and measured. In other words, what believers call “God” is a state of the brain — and one we can reliably explain without invoking the supernatural.