Why God Won't Go Away
Brain Science & The Biology of Belief:
Session Notes

  1. Opening remarks
  2. Introduction [Vedantam]
  3. The Brain and the Process of the Spirit (Pneumogenesis)
    1. Newberg, et al -> Brain has evolved to have machinery to perceive the transcendental
      • The neurological mechanisms that allow mystical experience are gifts from God
      • They are are "gateway" to experience what is always around us -- the Holy
      • Our conscious gateway to the Implicate Order, the Ground of Being
    2. Why did the machinery evolve?
      • Newberg -> original sexual
      • then benefits from religious experience
      • so those with this machinery survived
      • but ...
        ... are those all this machinery is for: sex and health?
      • what if God is also an evolutionary driver, so that adaptations that help us perceive God help us to survive?
    3. Process
      • God's lure is ontological (theomaton)
      • What if God's lure is also an evolutionary driver?
      • survival is more than physical; it is spiritual too
      • those with this machinery would be more inclined to survive
      • this borne out by the recordable benefits of the religious life
    4. If we subscribe to process, then this explains the benefits of the religious life
    5. Implications of pneumogenesis
      • We do not return to the state of union, we attain it.
        1. If we are in process (evolving), then we have not "fallen" from some previous edenic state.
        2. Eden, Paradise is Eschatalogical -- the teleology of process and evolution
      • The transcendent-perceiving machinery of the brain is our window from the explicate to the implicate
  4. Newberg's work
    1. One basic experiment
      1. brain scans of Tibetan Buddhist meditators
      2. after in deep meditative trance, he injected them with a radioactive dye
      3. patterns of the dye's residues in the brain were converted to images
      4. certain areas of the brain were altered (surprise!!!)
      5. decreased activity in the parietal lobe: blocking this area you lose sense of self
      6. Newberg calls this the orientation association area (OAA)
      7. Blocking this area, "the brain would have no choice but to perceive that the self is endless and intimately interwoven with everyone and everything the mind senses. And this perception would feel utterly and unquestionably real [p. 6]."
    2. Religious experiences are real
      • But what is real?
    3. hypothesis: spiritual experience is interwoven with human biology; biology compels spiritual urge.
    4. His questions:
      • Are we compelled to make myths?
      • What is the neurological secret behind the power of ritual?
      • Are transcendent visions and insights delusions?
      • Could evolutionary factors have influenced the biological development of religious ecstasy?
    5. "... we saw evidence of a neurological process that has evolved to allow us humans to transcend material existence and acknowledge and connect with a deeper, more spiritual part of ourselves perceived of as an absolute, universal reality that connects us to all that is [p. 9]."
    6. How do we perceive?
      • The brain is the organ of perception
      • The difference between the human brain and animal brains is complexity; evolution of brains is marked by increasing complexity.
      • What makes us human -- the cerebral cortex
        1. neocortex; language, art, myth, culture
        2. subcortical structures connect the neocortex to the brain stem, which connects to the spinal cord
        3. cerebral cortex: left and right hemispheres
        4. each hemisphere divide into four lobes:
          1. temporal lobe: language and conceptual thinking
          2. occipital lobe: vision
          3. parietal lobe: sensory perception; visual-spatial tasks, body orientation
          4. frontal lobe: attention and initiating muscle activity
        5. left hemisphere: more analytically inclined; verbal language and math
        6. right hemisphere: more abstract, holistic; nonverbal thought, visual-spatial perceptions; perception, modulation, and expression of emotions. both hemispheres needed for holistic thought: logic + feeling
      • assembling perceptions
        1. sensory information is channeled along neural pathways
        2. first level of sensory processing: primary receptive areas
          • for each of the five sensory systems
          • receive unprocessed input directly from the senses
          • assemble raw data into rough, preliminary perceptions
        3. then to secondary receptive areas
          • also for each of the sensory systems
          • further refinement
        4. then to association areas
          • gather info from various parts of the brain
          • info from a single sense integrated with other info
        5. various association areas
      • association areas
        1. orientation association area
          • defines the boundaries of the self
          • 3-d sense of body
          • orients body in space
          • left orientation: mental sensation of a limited, physically defined body
          • right orientation: generates spatial coordinates providing matrix in which body can be oriented
        2. attention association area
          • seat of the will
          • complex, integrated bodily movements and behaviors associated with attaining goals
          • purposefully directed patterns of thought to focus the mind
          • involved in emotional responses
          • increased activity in the AAA during certain types of meditation [p. 30]
        3. verbal conception association area
          • name and catalog the world
          • abstract concepts
          • relate concepts to words
          • crucial to development of consciousness and language expression
          • causal thinking
          • important in religion, since religion has cognitive component
      • the mind
        1. a remarkable evolutionary event: the brain began to perceive its own existence
        2. humans can reflect on themselves and on their perceptions
        3. our free-standing inner awareness
        4. neurology cannot completely explain the advent of the mind
        5. mind and brain intimately interlocked: mind cannot exist without brain; brain's drive to create sophisticated perceptions results in mind; two sides of the same thing
        6. mind is emergent
        7. the unity of the biological brain and the phenomenological mind is critical to the mind's mystical potential
    7. How does the brain makes the mind?
      • "What we think of as reality is only a rendition of reality that is created by the brain ... There is no direct, objective experience of reality [pp. 35-36]."
      • Like any experience of reality: "Whatever the ultimate nature of spiritual experience might be -- whether it is in fact a perception of an actual spiritual reality, or merely an interpretation of sheer neurological function-- all that is meaningful in human spirituality happens in the mind... the mind is mystical by default [p. 37]."
      • brain architecture:
        • autonomic system = sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems.
        • sympathetic system = arousal system = basis for fight-or-flight response
        • parasympathetic system = quiescent system = conserve energy and harmonic balance; regulates sleep; induces relaxation.
        • increase activation of one usually decreases the other
        • "both systems function at the same time when pushed to maximal levels of activity and this has been associated with extraordinary alternative states of consciousness [p. 39]."
          dancing, running, prolonged concentration
        • autonomic states and spiritual experience
          • hyperquiescence: state of extraordinary relaxation -- sense of oceanic tranquility and bliss with no conscious intrusion of thought and sense
          • hyperarousal: sense of excitement, keen alertness, and fierce concentration to the exclusion of any extraneous feelings or thoughts
          • hyperquiescence with arousal breakthrough: quiescent levels max'd, arousal system can erupt --feeling like being absorbed into the focused object
          • hyperarousal with quiescent breakthrough: resulting trancelike state is experienced as an ecstatic rush of orgasmiclike energy.
        • the emotional brain: the limbic system
          1. limbic system: interweaves emotional impulses with higher thoughts and perceptions to yield highly complex emotional states, such as disgust, frustration, envy, surprise, delight
          2. hypothalamus
            • master controller for the autonomic nervous system
            • inner section: connected to the quiescent system; generates calming emotions
            • outer edge: extension of the arousal system
            • links the autonomic operations to higher structures of the brain's neocortex
          3. amygdala
            • controls and mediates virtually all high-order emotional functions: love, affection, friendliness, and distrust
            • monitors sensory stimuli throughout the brain, searching for any input indicating a need for action
            • activates the hypothalamus
          4. hippocampus
            • the diplomat
            • regulatory effect on the thalmus
            • can block sensory input to various neocortical areas.
            • regulates the quiescent and arousal reactions
        • understanding the world: the cognitive operators
          1. cognitive operators: represent the things an effective mind is able, and inclined, to do.
          2. collective functions of various brain structures.
          3. the organizing principles of the brain
          4. holistic operator: seeing the forest for the trees
          5. reductionist operator: seeing the trees for the forest
          6. abstractive operator: general from the particular
          7. quantitative operator: quantity, time, distance, ordering
          8. causal operator: reality as a sequence of specific causes and effects -- drives curiosity
          9. binary operator: this versus that; comparisons
          10. existential operator: assigns a sense of existence or reality
          11. emotional value operator: assigns an emotional valence to all the elements of perception and cognition
      • reality; see What is really real?
        1. What is objective reality? Does it really exist?
        2. What does reality really "look" like? Does that question even make sense?
        3. How do we know if something is real?
        4. Is reality emergent from the subjective and the objective?
    8. Why do we make myths?
      • We (starting with hominids) wonder and worry about the deepest mysteries of existence
        • found resolution in myths
        • as old as human culture
        • is it God's lure that drives us to this concern for existence?
      • "The power of myth lies beneath its literal interpretations, in the ability of its universal symbols and themes to connect us with the most essential parts of ourselves in ways that logic and reason alone cannot [p. 56]"
      • all religions are founded on myths.
      • "Why would the human mind compel us ... to seek answers to our most troubling problems in myth? [p. 57]"
      • "Why would such a practically oriented mind find reassurance in what could be a creative fabrication of its own imagination [p. 57]?"
      • cognitive imperative: irresistible, biologically driven need to make sense of things through the cognitive analysis of reality [p. 60].
      • allowed the anticipation of danger even when danger wasn't present
      • the mind is driven to identify and resolve any potential threat
      • but one threat that could not be resolved: everything dies
      • the contemplation of death leads to further questions and hence myth making [p. 64]:
        • Why were we born only eventually to die?
        • What happens to us when we die?
        • What is our place in the universe?
        • Why is there suffering?
        • What sustains and animates the universe?
        • How was the universe made?
        • How long will the universe last?
        • How can we live in this bafflingly uncertain world and not be afraid
      • The genesis of myth
        1. In prehistoric humans, a human may detect outside events and from memory know they could indicate danger, so has an analytic caution, the human presumes danger, such as a leopard, though it isn't actually there. A kind of personal myth that those events mean "leopard."
        2. The mind resolves the uncertain by coming up with explanatory stories.
        3. "There is no simple way to resolve these enormous uncertainties. In such situations, the explanatory stories that the mind creates take the shape of religious myth [p. 70]."
        4. For a myth to be lasting -- for there to be an insight, it must by a match for both the cognitive left brain (makes sense) and the emotional right brain (feels right)
        5. "Any idea might trigger a myth if it can unify logic and intuition, and lead to a state of left-brain / right-brain agreement. In this state of whole-brain harmony, neurological uncertainties are powerfully alleviated as existential opposites are reconciled and the problem of cause is resolved [p. 73]."
        6. A myth becomes communal when it makes sense and feels good to other, too.
      • why are the myths of all world cultures similar?
        1. Jung: symbolic expression of archetypal ideas -- inherited forms of thought that exist, in universal form, in the depths of every human mind.
        2. Campbell: interpretation of archetypes is shaped by geography, cultural needs, environment.
    9. Why do we have rituals?
      • The goal is to lift participants out of their isolated selves and immerse them in something larger than themselves -- the transcendence of the self and the blending of the self into some larger reality
      • a closing of the distance between the self and God
      • rituals can also be secular: e.g., 4th of July celebrations
      • repetitive rhythmic stimulation (ritual) can result in spiritual satisfaction
      • "... can drive the limbic and autonomic systems [to] eventually alter some very fundamental aspects of the way the brain thinks, feels, and interprets reality. These rhythms can dramatically affect the brain's neurological ability to define the limits of the self... rise out of themselves and into a larger and more exhilarating state of being [p. 79]."
      • create a sense of union among members, and encourage emotions of tranquility, ecstasy, and awe
      • evolutionary roots of ritual
        1. social identity and cohesion
        2. reduces acts of aggressions among members
        3. need to escape the limiting boundaries of the self
      • "... more than mere autonomic stimulation is required to trigger the emotional states associated with ritual; ideas that have a deeper psychological charge or emotional pull are also required ... every ritual turns a meaningful idea into a visceral experience [p. 90]."
      • "Restoring the original union between individuals and their spiritual source is the promise of virtually every known system of belief... [p. 91]"
        • But evolution has forced this change this myth: we were never one with God, but we are getting there!
      • ritual gives us a visceral taste of God and thereby assures us of God's reality.
      • ritual: turns spiritual stories into spiritual experiences
      • ritual lets us act out our myths
        • "The inborn physical compulsion to enact our thoughts may have an evolutionary purpose. By mentally rehearsing certain important actions ... we might actually hone our abilities to perform those tasks in real life [p. 94]."
        • "If the brain contains such a compulsion to act out thoughts and ideas, it would be no surprise if the brain compelled us to act out the stories of myth [p. 94]."
        • "It allows the worshiper to enter a mythic story metaphorically, confront the profound mysteries the myth embraces, and then experience the resolution of those mysteries in a powerful, possibly life-changing way [p. 95]."
      • questions:
        1. is all aspects of religion emergent from biology and sociology? plus theology?
        2. Since ritual is not just a "biological reaction", but also requires exogenous events, such as the expression of the community and the existential questions they are concerned about, then which came first: the brain driving the culture or the culture driving the brain/mind? ... or did the two co-evolve to respond to God's lure?
    10. Whereas ritual is bottom up (from the physical to the mind), mysticism is top down (from the mind to the physical).
    11. Is mysticism for real?
      • mystical experience is not delusional, neurotic, or psychotic [p.99]
      • mystical experience can be produced by sound minds
      • mystical experience: "organic process which involves the perfect consummation of the Love of God: the achievement here and now of the immortal heritage of man [p. 100-101]."
        • This is an individualistic view of mysticism
        • Mysticism is also a theology of wholeness, totality, completeness and teleology and a way of living
        • Mysticism views the cosmos as [Fox 1988, p. 47ff, Tamburello]:
          • interconnected and interdependent.
            all things are touched by and interpenetrated by all other things;
          • nondualistic
            creation is not either-or, but and-both; it is both empty and full, one and diverse.
          • wondrous
            God and creation are amazing and surprising; God is ineffable and can never be entirely known. So it is with God's image, the creation. It is open-ended, ever new.
          • panentheistic
            God permeates everything. The utterly other is in, around, and through everything.
          • nothingness
            creation is full of emptiness, emptiness soaks up creation.
          • plethora
            creation is always birthing new images; its interconnectedness are endless.
      • The mystical experience: "uplifting sense of genuine spiritual union with something larger than the self [p. 101]."
        1. strong, contradictory emotions
        2. time and space are perceived as nonexistent
        3. normal rational thought processes give way to more intuitive ways of understanding
        4. intimations of the presence of the sacred
        5. claims to have seen into the most essential meaning of things
        6. rises above material existence
        7. spiritually united with the absolute
      • first: quiet the conscious mind and let go of passion and ego
      • "The goal of all mystical striving is to shed the limits of the self and return to that original condition of wholeness, the primal state of unity with God, or the cosmos, or the Absolute [p. 106]."
        • Why "return", rather than "attain"?
        • Is the sense of "return" intrinsic to the mystical experience or just acculturated?
        • evolutionarily we "attain", not "return"
      • Mysticism and mental health
        • mystical states result in psychological well-being substantially higher than the national average
        • psychotic experience is not mystical!
          Mystical Psychotic
          ecstatic and joyful confused and frightened
          serene God angry God
          welcomed, longed for involuntary, distressing
          coherent memory fragmented
          effective living socially isolated
          humble, emptying of self egotistical, grandiosity
        • epileptic hallucinations are not mystical!
          Mysticism epilepsy
          infrequent frequent
          unique repetitive
          Mysticism hallucinations
          multi-sensory single sense
          holistic vision fragmented, dreamlike
          know its real know its hallucinatory
      • The neurobiology of mysticism
        1. humans are natural mystics, genius for effortless self-transcendence.
          • patriotic speech
          • falling in love
          • beauty of nature
        2. the mind is geared to switched to an altered-state of transcendence
          • its what we do with it that matters
        3. unitary continuum: the degree of blocking of the orientation area results in increasingly unitary states
        4. the final state: mystical union
        5. two pathways to mysticism: passive and active
        6. passive
          • more Eastern
          • the willful intention to clear all thoughts, emotions and perceptions from the mind
          • the process:
            1. "This conscious intention is instated by the brain's right attention association area -- the primary source of willed actions -- as the need to shield the mind from the intrusion of sensory, as well as cognitive, input [p. 117]."
            2. "... a reverberating circuit is established in the brain, with a stream of neural impulses gathering strength and resonance as they race again and again along their neural speedway, fostering deeper and deeper levels of meditative calm with every pass [p. 118]."
            3. "This continued neural bombardment soon pushes the hypothalamic calming function to its limits [p. 118]."
            4. "... a neurological "spillover" can occur in which the maximal activation of the calming system triggers an instantaneous maximal arousal response [p. 119]."
            5. "As the quiescent and arousal systems both surge ... the deafferentation of the orientation area becomes complete [p. 119]."
          • the experience of this totally deprived of sensory input to the right orientation area
            • subjective sense of absolute spacelessness
            • infinite space and eternity
            • timeless and spaceless void
          • the experience of this to the left orientation area
            • no boundaries to the body
            • self limitless
            • no self at all
          • the total experience: ultimate spiritual union: Absolute Unitary Being
        7. active
          • more Western
          • focus is intensely upon some thought or object of attention: God, a saint, the cross
          • the process -- from the other direction
            1. "... attention area facilitates, rather than inhibits, neural flow [p. 120]."
            2. "As contemplation deepens, the flow of these discharges increases in intensity, until the arousal function of the hypothalamus reaches maximal levels. At this point, spillover occurs, causing the immediate maximal activation of the hypothalamus's quiescent function [p. 121]."
          • the effect on the left orientation area the same as for the passive
          • the effect on the right orientation area is different:
            • "... the attention association area drives the right side to focus more and more intensely upon the [object of contemplation] [p. 121]."
            • the right orientation area is deprived of all neural input not originating from the contemplated object
            • the object becomes the whole depth and breadth of reality
            • the self is mystically absorbed into the transcendent reality of the object [e.g., Jesus]
          • This is the Unio Mystica
          • Not the same as the Absolute Unitary Being (which is higher)
          • As mystic tires and lets go of object, may achieve AUB
      • Absolute unitary being
        • "Why would the human brain, which evolved for the very pragmatic purpose of helping us survive, possess such an apparently impractical talent? ...
        • ... What evolutionary advantage would a mystically gifted mind provide? [p. 123]"
        • Evolution is pragmatically short-sighted
        • It favors adaptations that provide practical survival in the here and now
        • stepwise development, each step having a useful, practical advantage
        • no foresight!
        • thus, intermediate transcendent-supporting steps don't seem likely
        • so is our transcendent perceptions just an evolutionary accident?
        • "... the neurological machinery of transcendence may have arisen from the neural circuitry that evolved for mating and sexual experience [p. 125]"
        • ".. the very neurological structures and pathways involved in transcendent experience ... evolved primarily to link sexual climax to the powerful sensations of orgasm [p.125]."
        • sexual bliss and transcendent experience are different experiences, however
        • transcendent experience depends on higher cognitive structures
    12. Where does religion come from?
      • "... it's unlikely that the neurological machinery of transcendence evolved specifically for spiritual reasons. Still, we believe that evolution had adopted this machinery, and has favored the religious capabilities of the religious brain because religious beliefs and behaviors turn out to be good for us in profound and pragmatic ways [p. 129]."
      • "Conventional thinking among many psychologists and sociologists explains the rise of religion ... we feel fear and we long for comfort so we dream up a powerful protector in the sky [p. 133]."
      • "A neurological approach, however, suggests that God is not the product of a cognitive, deductive process, but was instead 'discovered' in a mystical or spiritual encounter made known to human consciousness through the transcendent machinery of the mind [p. 133]."
      • "Fundamental truth has been revealed to human beings through a mystical encounter with a higher spiritual reality ... the ineffable insights they bestow must be translated into specific beliefs [p. 136]."
      • The health and social benefits clearly gave the religiously inclined an evolutionary edge
      • through the sexual machinery, evolution stumbled onto religion and found it advantageous
      • Newberg cannot answer through neurology alone whether God is real
      • but if the mystical realm, the ground of being, God is real, Newberg has described the mechanism by which we perceive this
    13. What is really real?
      1. Is reality as ephemeral as God -- as undefinable?
      2. Is the really real that through which God can be find?
      3. Is the imagination real?
      4. Is mystic experience, experience of reality?
      5. How do we know reality from unreality?
      6. Is it real, only if it can be shared? Or experienced by someone else independently?
      • two kinds of reality:
        1. solid, objective external reality
        2. inner, subjective sense of reality
      • ultimate reality = source of everything that is real
      • so subjective and objective reality cannot both be true Why?
      • Real Reality
        1. "scientific" or objective reality => belief that nothing is more real than the material world
          • external reality is fundamental reality
          • everything that is real arises from the material elements and forces of the universe
          • even the subjective mind is material in nature (via the brain)
          • organizing principle of science: everything that is real can be measured
          • science alone can recognize reality
          • therefore, mystical reality is not real
        2. mystical reality = runs deeper than materiality: a state of pure being
          • Absolute Unitary Being: pure awareness, conscious of no-thing and conscious of everything
          • One Mind: uncreated, not nonexistent, yet not existent
          • the mind beyond the mind
          • obliteration of the self
        3. all perceptions exist in the mind
        4. if spiritual experience "mere" neurological figments, then we must distrust all of our brain's perceptions of the material world.
        5. so cannot determine if mystical reality is real or not
      • How the mind makes the self
        1. not clearly understood
        2. via a process of reification (making the world concrete): "power of the mind to grant meaning and substance to its own perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs, and to regard them as meaningful [p. 149]."
        3. reification probably important in neurological development
          • first: input resulting from baby's own behavior
          • second: input from behaviors baby cannot control or generate (from others)
          • eventually child distinguishes between the two categories
          • the self emerges out of the distinction
        4. the self does not equal the mind
        5. the mind supplies the self with essential memories, emotions, and other components
        6. the self is an assembly of these components
        7. this assembly can come undone and the self can unravel; the mind remains
        8. this is deafferentation and is what happens in a mystical experience
        9. free of subjective self: pure awareness; stripped of ego, focused on nothing
      • So what is real [pp152ff]?
        1. philosophers say reality possesses an unmistakable quality: intentionality
        2. That is, what real feels more real!
        3. For example, a dream vs being awake
        4. the sense of reality of an event persists after the event
        5. for mystics, AUB is real
        6. this is supported with the sense of a Ground of Being or Consilience or the Implicate Order emerging from science
      • "Mystical reality holds, and the neurology does not contradict it, that beneath the mind's perception of thoughts, memories, emotions, and objects, beneath the subjective awareness we think of as the self, there is a deeper self, a state of pure awareness that sees beyond the limits of subject and object, and rests in a universe where all things are one [p. 155]."
    14. Why won't God go away?
      • "God is by his nature unknowable. He is not an objective fact, or an actual being; he is, in fact, being itself, the absolute, undifferentiated oneness that is the ground of all existence [p. 159]."
      • Though science has traditionally rejected claims of mystical reality, Newberg's work indicate that it feels at least as real as any other.
      • "In this ultimate realness, which lies beyond material existence and subjective experience, all conflicts are resolved and the fundamental promise of all religions is fulfilled -- suffering ends, unity and bliss are eternal [p. 161]." This is simplistic!
      • "When we realize that any specific conception of God is a piece of this larger puzzle, rooted in a mystical understanding of what's fundamentally real, then all religions become siblings, all faiths become true, and all incarnations of God can be understood as real. ... if we reject this crucial insight ... we create a God who leads us away from unity and compassion, toward division and strife [p. 162]."
      • "In the state of absolute unity, there are no competing versions of the truth; there is only truth itself, so conflicting beliefs, or conflicts of any kind for that matter, are not even possible [p. 163]."
      • "If however, a mystic falls short of absolute unity ... then subjective awareness would survive, and the mystic would interpret the experience as an ineffable union between the self and some mystical other [p. 164]."
      • The risk of this latter, is that we idolize our experience and believe it is the total of God and all others are demonic -- hence religious intolerance
      • All religions arise from the same ground of transcendent experiences and, at their best, converge to the same Absolute Unitary Being
      • This leads us to the idea of "interspirituality"
      • Newberg feels that "neurology can reconcile the rift between science and religion, by showing them to be powerful but incomplete pathways to the same ultimate reality [p. 169]."
      • The best that science can do is give us a metaphorical picture of reality (all knowledge is necessarily metaphoric).
      • It may make sense, but isn't necessarily true.
      • Science is a type of mythology
        • foundational assumption: All that is real can be verified by scientific measurement, therefore, what can't be verified by science isn't really real.
        • thus science's and religion's assumptions conflict
        • but if we accept the metaphoric nature of each set of insights, then we can reconcile the incompatibilities and each contributes to the whole.
  5. Scientists Meet with Dalai Lama ... [Land]
    • D.L. + neuroscientists at U. of Wis.:
      Transformations of the Mind, Brain and Emotions: Neurobiological and Bio-Behaviorial Research on Meditation
    • W. M. Keck Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior
    • Richard Davidson, director of Keck Lab: take beneficial meditative techniques out of Buddhist context and apply to secular training to improve mental and physical health
    • Can meditation be used to change brain circuits associated with emotions?
    • Do different kinds of meditation practice produce distinct brain effects?
    • Does the development of certain brain areas through meditation impact physiological factors that may prevent illness?
    • Which areas of the brain are developed in long-time practitioners of meditation?
    • How long does it take before meditation produces significant brain changes?
    • Plasticity of the brain: the brain does change during adulthood.
  6. Mind, Brain, and Personhood [Meyers]
    • San Diego, Jan 2001
    • What is personhood?
    • past tradition of the soul + advances in neuroscience
    • the light religious experience casts on experience should be the measure of its validity
    • "soulishness":
      1. ability to establish a relationship with God
      2. ability to relate to others
      3. to be related to by them
    • interaction of genes and environment important in understanding our relationship to God.
    • psychopathology and spiritual awareness
      1. Histrionic person moves from one religious experience to the next seeking constant stimulation
      2. obsessional person (e.g., Augustine or Calvin) have been great system builders, though those who adopt highly ritualistic behavior can soon loose spiritual significance
      3. paranoid person exaggerates seeing evil "out there"
      4. cyclothymic person intense spiritual experience in manic stage; none in depressed stage
    • can there be personhood without the brain?
      • research in transplantation of brain matter
      • implantation of enhancing devices
    • For the Christian, the necessary and sufficient condition for religious experience is the presence of the HS; the transcendent-perceiving machinery in the brain is the 'point of connection' between God and humanity.
  7. Religion and Well-Being [Pargament]
  8. Religious Implications
    1. Is God real?
      1. God and/or spirituality is a figment of our imagination (literally)
        • We invent God
        • Spiritual experience is the brain's way of ... ?
        • What other use does this facility have (e.g., for evolutionary purposes)?
        • An evolutionary vestige? of what?
      2. God gave it to us
        • An analogy
          1. Consider the color red.
          2. Is it real? 680 nm wavelength of EM
          3. The brain "interprets" the sensation sent by the eye to be red
          4. So is red a figment of my imagination?
          5. No, the brain is responding to something "out there", namely 680 nm EM
          6. Then why is God a figment? Is not the brain responding to experience "out there"?
        • God gave us the ability to perceive the spiritual.
        • Like all gifts of God, we can abuse it or use it for God
        • If we induce "spiritual" experience with hallucinogens, are they truly authentic?
        • Or do authentic "spiritual" experience come as the product and gift of a religious/righteous life and/or community?
    2. What implications for faith does Newberg's discoveries have?
    3. Given our attainment of the neocortex, are humans, but not animals, in the image of God?
      • Are the various neurological apparata revealing the spiritual and holy underdeveloped evolutionarily in the animal world, as is the facility for language in chimps?
    4. If mind emerges from brain, and mind-brain is one, where is the spirit? is it mind? Is the soul and spirit the same?
    5. Can the spirit and body be separated? Is the spirit-state superior to the body-state?
    6. In light of this neurological study (neurology of religion, evolution, etc.), how might we change our myths? For example, instead of "restoring" union with God, we evolve towards God.

References

  1. Matthew Fox; The Coming of the Cosmic Christ; Harper & Row, Publishers; San Francisco ©1988.
  2. Land, Dian J.; Scientists Meet with Dalai Lama To Study Meditation; Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology; July/August 2001; Vol. 1, No. 11/12.
  3. Meyers, Mary Ann; Symposium Examines Mind, Brain, and Personhood Links; Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology; July/August 2001; Vol. 1, No. 11/12.
  4. Newberg, Andrew M.D., Eugene D'Aquili, M.D., Ph.D., Vince Rause; Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science & The Biology of Belief; Ballantine Books; New York 2001.
  5. Pargament, Kenneth; Research Suggests Correlation Between Religion and Well-Being; Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology; July/August 2001; Vol. 1, No. 11/12.
  6. Tamburello; Ordinary Mysticism
  7. Vedantam, Shankar; Tracing the Synapses of Our Spirituality: Researchers Examine Relationship Between Brain and Religion; Washington Post; Sunday, June 17, 2001; page A01.
The public is invited to participate in the Fall religion and science dialogue of Wisdom's Light on Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science & the Biology of Belief to be held at the United Church of Christ of Toms River, Wednesday September 26, 2001 at 7:30 PM. Scientists are studying the causes of religious experiences and have mapped clear brain responses to meditation and other religious experience. These discoveries have reopened the debate on the existence of God. The discoveries have been interpreted to mean that God and spiritual experiences are literally figments of the human mind. But the discoveries also have been interpreted to mean that God has given us the ability to perceive the Divine. These and other issues relevant to reason and faith in the 21st century will be discussed.

The dialogue will be facilitated by the Rev. John A. Mills, director of Wisdom's Light and pastor of the First Congregational Church (UCC) of Closter, NJ. A primary source for the dialogue will be the book of the same name by Dr. Andrew Newberg. Rev. Mills will present the book and suggest religious and spiritual issues that the participants will be invited to discuss.

Wisdom's Light, a ministry of the First Congregational Church (UCC) of Closter, NJ, and sponsored by the First Congregational Church (UCC) of Westfield, NJ and the United Church of Christ of Toms River, NJ, provides opportunities for the public to participate in open dialogue on the impact of innovative science and technology on religion, ethics, and spirituality.

Participants of all faiths and no faith at all are invited to attend. All suggestions, comments, and opinions are solicited and respected. The interactive nature of the dialogue will provide a fertile ground for spiritual exploration of this very important topic.

©2001; Rev. John A. Mills fcclostr@cwn.com