Blather, rinse, repeat

" But in my junior year at college I took more advanced psychological courses and found out how often and with what consistency the brain tricks us into perceiving and feeling things that are not there. That spawned of the most depressing existential crises I've ever had but also led to my obsession with science and its answers. So I guess it's all good. :-)

I read this one article once about how there is a part of the brain that registers religious experiences; basically lights up like a winter festival when people "feel god" and stuff. It is, not surprisingly, more developed in super religious or spiritual people. A few scientists were saying that this explained feelings of god, as it were. One scientist tentatively pointed out that there is also a part of the brain that lights up like a winter festival when we smell apple pie, too, which tells us, "Hey, apple pie!" But that it didn't mean the apple pie wasn't there. ^_^

By the way, one of the better psychological books that I have read about how people deceive themselves with mainstream religion (and how this developed as a defense mechanism with the development of consciousness) is Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death".

Sounds pretty much like what I believe. I'd like to check that out sometime.