"the spirit"

I was talking to a friend of mine recently and he had something very interesting to say about what Christians would call 'the spirit' or 'the holy spirit' or 'the holy ghost' or whatever. Basically, you've got tons of people out there claiming to have these feelings, feelings they claim are from God or Jesus, warmth of the heart, a soothing of the mind, 'spiritual demons', 'being struck by the spirit of god', overwhelming happiness, spiritual epiphanies, etc. I'm going to specifically tune this musing towards Mormons because thats almost all I know. So basically you've got lots of Mormons out there with these claims that they've felt the holy ghost, that it has testified to them that the church is true, that they've experienced undeniable feelings to their very being that testify of the truthfulness of their church. How do you explain it? What is causing these people to claim such things? The answer, and although I'm no expert in, I believe lies in biophysics. Allow me to explain as my friend did.

When you go to a movie, for example, if the imagery is powerful enough, if the music is fitting and moving enough, if the cinematography is good enough, your brain will take in these perceptions, analyze them, and physically create feelings of sadness, anger, peace, happiness, terror, or many others. These are just examples of course; sight, sound, smell, and our other senses. Any one of a hundred other types of perception can play different notes on the instrument that is our brain. Point is, the human brain is among the most powerful and most complicated things known to man, our brain can make our bodies feel ANYTHING that we are capable of feeling. It's all based on physiological reactions and brain synapses or whatever. Like I said, I'm not an expert, but it's undeniable that music, imagery, smell, basically anything that we as humans are capable of perceiving, can cause our brains to make our bodies feel certain things, powerful things, undeniable things. It's something you KNOW you felt. Agreed?

So when someone sincerely believes that reading scriptures will allow them to feel 'the spirit', is it really divine intervention when that person experiences physiological feelings? Or is it just a complicated mix of their upbringing, the shaping of that person's mind and beliefs, and what that person considers to be 'powerful reading', or perception? When someone says they "know the church to be true because of feelings they've experienced", could it just be because that person is told that if they do certain things they will feel certain things, and then when they do those things and feel those things, they chalk it up as a 'spiritual manifestation' because that's what they were told the feeling is and that's what they believe?

When I watched Gladiator, at the end when he dies and the movie goes through the scenes of him in his field again, I cried. I was overcome with feelings created by my brain because of the powerful things I was perceiving. However, if I feel similar feelings but in a religious setting, suddenly those same types of feelings are 'of a divine nature'? I was told all the same things as I was raised and when I was younger, in a certain few religious settings, I felt strong undeniable feelings, and my mind put 2 and 2 together from what I'd been taught and said "hey, you've been taught that powerful feelings in spiritual situations are 'the spirit'!", but upon reflection, I've realize that those same feelings can be explained in many other ways. The most recent 'spiritual experience' I had was almost a year ago, I had watched some mormon propaganda film and had decided to turn my life around and was thinking about what I needed to do to be able to attend my sister's wedding in a Mormon temple a few months away. As I was thinking about what a sacrifice I would have to make and why it was important to me to do it for my sister's wedding, I had this overwhelming feeling of happiness, almost euphoric, and the feeling lasted for about 15 minutes while I rolled the idea around in my mind. Was it the spirit? You could chalk it up to that, if you believed in the spirit. It could just as easily have been my mind realizing deep feelings of love for my sister and the things I knew I would have to sacrifice in order to do this thing for her would have been a huge expression of my love for her, and who wouldn't be emotional if you were planning to make a huge sacrifice for someone because of how much you loved them? Of course, since the idea was of a spiritual nature, I naturally assumed at the time, 'hey this is the spirit'.

I guess I had never really attempted to explain the whole 'spirit' and 'personal revelations' thing, and when I talked to my friend he mentioned these ideas and just makes sense. These feelings are biological reactions. Perception is one of the greatest forces we know, our perceptions shape every facet of our beliefs, moral, spiritual, or otherwise; and indeed perception shapes every facet of our existence. It's that very reason that makes drugs so appealing to some people, they become bored of the way they perceive the world, and through certain things like drugs, they can alter their perception and experience old things in a new way. But rest assured, drugs aren't the only things that alter your perception of the world, perhaps religion does as well. I personally believe it does, and that people who proclaim divine feelings have merely had their perception of the world shaped in a manner more desirable to the religious community. So obviously I don't think someone is lying when they say "I know this church is true"; I have no doubt that through means I've explained, they can honest to goodness believe it, and have felt real things, physical feelings that reinforce their beliefs, based on their perception. So it's not that they are lying to me, they just have a different perception of the world than I do, and that's fine. It's a different world to different people, I understand that. I just wish that more of them could understand that as well.

::edited on nov.12::