Note: Your seminar grade will be determined by the quantity of your responses (how many questions you answer and how many other students you respond to) and the quality (how well you demonstrate an understanding of the ideas you're responding to, how detailed your responses are, how coherent and in-depth they are, etc.) |
Directions:
1. Read pages 63-285 in The Fingerprints of God .
2. Answer two of the following questions with a 3-5 paragraph mini-essay. Include quotes and specific references to the text in your answers!
- Triggering God : In Chapter 4, Hagerty discusses what she considers to be prerequisites to the kind of transcendent experience that some people call an encounter with God. What are these triggers, and what happens to a person, physically, socially, emotionally and psychologically, when he or she undergoes such a shift? Have you or anyone you know ever had such an experience? Explain.
- God the Geneticist : In Chapter 5, Hagerty explores the idea that we may be hardwired to seek answers to spiritual questions. Explain the concept underlying the so-called "God gene" and discuss whether or not it seems like a viable theory to you. Do you, like Hagerty, believe that an external force "writes His language in our genes"? Or can our age-old quest for spiritual transcendence be reduced to the the nature v. nurture debate?
- Your Brain on God: In Chapter 6, Hagerty investigates people who claim to have communed with God via the pathway of psychedelic drugs. Explain how certain drugs are more likely than others to produce a state of spirituality. What happens to the body and psyche when it ingests these kinds of drugs? Do you believe drugs can be a pathway to God? Or do you question that conclusion, as Hagerty does when she asks "Is a chemically induced experience a real spiritual experience"?
- God the Electrician: In chapter 7, Hagerty claims that if there is a God, he must have wired our brains so that we can experience him, her or it. What are the brain functions that indicate that someone is undergoing a spiritual experience? What are the 'markers" that Hagerty mentions that are the hallmark of a mystic? What is your response to the idea of a 'God spot" that can be examined in a living brain?
- Practice makes Perfect: How does Hagerty define a "spiritual virtuoso" in Chapter 8? What are the two types of spiritual virtuosos, and what are the indicators of each? How does one get to be a spiritual virtuoso? Do you know any such people? What is it like to interact with them?
- OBE: In Chapter 9, what does Hagerty claim out-of-body experiences indicate about the separation of brain function and consciousness? How would a materialist - that is, someone who does not believe that the brain and mind are separate - explain an out-of-body experience? Which camp do you side with and why?
- There and Back Again: In Chapter 10, Hagerty discusses the narratives of people who have died and been brought back. What are some of the similarities in those narratives? How does such an experience change a person, physically and psychically? What does Hagerty mean when she writes, "We still would not know if the brain is causing the perception of something that is not happening, or leaving a record of something that is." What is your response - which do you believe?
- God Renamed: According to Hagerty in Chapter 11, most people who undergo spiritual transcendence or who have a mystic experience see "God" differently after their encounter. What is the nature of the difference in their perception of God before and after the experience? What do recent developments in the study of quantum physics add to our understanding of what "God" might be? Does the science seem to plausibly explain the experience, in your opinion? Why or why not?
- The Parameters of the Paradigms: In Chapter 12, how does Hagerty define the two "paradigms" that we have relied upon in the debate about God and religion? Why are those paradigms no longer applicable, according to Hagerty? Do you agree with her assessment that we need to have a brand new way of thinking about this topic? Why or why not?
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3. Submit your response to the Assignment Chamber.
4. Post your response to the Forum by midnight Monday, November 9.
5. Read all the other students' posts.
6. Respond to at least two other student's posts (more is better) . You will have until midnight, Monday, November 16, to read and respond to the other students' ideas in the website.
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