{"id":2567,"date":"2009-08-24T16:43:40","date_gmt":"2009-08-25T00:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=2567"},"modified":"2009-08-24T16:54:02","modified_gmt":"2009-08-25T00:54:02","slug":"jesus-an-imaginary-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/jesus-an-imaginary-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus: Invisible friend or evolutionary adaptation?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I had never heard of the \u201cThird Man\u201d phenomenon until reading this fascinating Wall Street Journal <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052970204884404574361631588827614.html\">book review<\/a>.\u00a0 People in extreme situations, such as explorers stranded on a mountain peak or shipwreck survivors, have reported the sensation of being accompanied out of danger by an invisible companion who offers them encouragement and guidance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Believers might say: But of course!\u00a0 We <em>are<\/em> accompanied through life by an invisible friend.\u00a0 According to Michael Novak, for example, \u201cGod made humans to offer them his friendship and companionship.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Scientists, however,\u00a0 can \u201cevoke the sensation of a shared presence by stimulating the brain with electricity,\u201d according to Wall Street Journal reviewer Michael Ybarra.\u00a0 The author of <em>The Third Man Factor<\/em> posits a possible evolutionary value to such a neurological sensation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The fact that we can electrically induce a hidden companion doesn\u2019t mean that we are <em>not<\/em> walking with Jesus, but it does point at the very least to the unfathomably complex relationship between our consciousness, the sub-conscious workings of our brain, and the external world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had never heard of the \u201cThird Man\u201d phenomenon until reading this fascinating Wall Street Journal book review.\u00a0 People in extreme situations, such as explorers stranded on a mountain peak or shipwreck survivors, have reported the sensation of being accompanied &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/jesus-an-imaginary-friend\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[319,320,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2567"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2570,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions\/2570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}