This document discusses research into the relationship between spirituality, religious experiences, and the brain. Several studies are described that have identified areas of the brain activated during meditation, prayer, and spiritual experiences induced through drugs or electromagnetic stimulation. Some researchers argue this shows that religious experiences are simply neurological phenomena produced by the brain, while others counter that the brain allows for spiritual experiences but does not create religious concepts. The document does not take a definitive position, concluding that whether the brain creates God or God created the brain's wiring is ultimately a matter of faith.

1. Neuro-Theology: Your Brain on God
Dr. Michael England
November 13, 2009

2. Did God create
man and the brain,
or does the brain
create God?

3. Does our hard-wiring
create the powerful
God Experience, or
does God create our
psycho-physical wiring?
In Philadelphia, a
researcher discovers
areas of the brain that
are activated during
meditation.
At two other universities in San
Diego and North Carolina, doctors
study how epilepsy and certain
hallucinogenic drugs can produce
religious epiphanies.
In Canada, a neuroscientist fits
people with magnetized helmets that
produce "spiritual" experiences.

4. Using powerful brain
imaging technology,
researchers are
exploring what mystics
call nirvana, and what
Christians describe as
a state of grace.
Scientists are asking
whether spirituality can
be explained in terms of
neural networks,
neurotransmitters and
brain chemistry.
"The brain is set up in such a way as to have spiritual experiences and
religious experiences," said Andrew Newberg, a Philadelphia scientist
who wrote the book "Why God Won't Go Away."
"Unless there is a fundamental change in the brain, religion and
spirituality will be here for a very long time. The brain is predisposed
to having those experiences and that is why so many
people believe in God."

5. The image shows the brain before meditation and prayer(on the left) and
during prayer (on the right) where we see that during the involvement in
prayers and meditation, blood flow has increased. The frontal lobe
region is responsible for controlling emotions and agitations in humans and
a region also important for the acquisition and practice of complicated
perception-movement abilities.
Single-Photon-Emission Computed Tomography

6. The image shows a blood flow decline in the Parietal lobe at the region
where humans sense their time and space limits. It was concluded from
these results that during prayer, contemplation and seeking God, the
limits of self-consciousness disappear and a feeling of peace and freedom
starts in the person and one feels closer to God in a way that no words
can describe.

7. Many believers are offended by the
notion that God is a creation of the
human brain, rather than the other way
around. It reinforces atheistic
assumptions and makes
religion appear useless.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?

8. Newberg (University of Pennsylvania) found decreased activity in the
parietal lobe, one of the parts of the brain that helps orient a person in
three-dimensional space.
"When people have spiritual experiences they feel they become one with
the universe and lose their sense of self," he said. "We think that may
be because of what is happening in that area -- if you block that area
you lose that boundary between the self and the rest of the world. In
doing so you ultimately wind up in a universal state."

9. Could the flash of
wisdom that came over
Siddhartha Gautama
-- the Buddha --
have been nothing
more than his parietal
lobe quieting down?
Could the voices that
Moses and Mohammed
heard on remote
mountaintops have been
just a bunch of firing
neurons -- an illusion?
Could Jesus'
conversations with
God have been a
mental delusion?

10. Some weep, some feel God has touched them,
others become frightened and talk of demons
and evil spirits. "That's in the laboratory,"
Persinger said. "They know they are in the
laboratory. Can you imagine what would happen
if that happened late at night in a pew or
mosque or synagogue?"
His research, Persinger said, showed that
"religion is a property of the brain and has
little to do with what's out there."
Dr. Persinger (a professor of neuroscience at
Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario ) fit
a set of magnets to a helmet-like device.
Persinger runs what amounts to a weak
electromagnetic signal around the skulls of
volunteers.
Four in five people, he said, report a "mystical
experience, the feeling that there is a sentient
being or entity standing behind or near" them.

11. "It's irrational and dangerous when you
see how religiosity affects us," said
Matthew Alper, author of "The God
Part of the Brain," a book about the
neuroscience of belief. "During times
of prosperity, we are contented.
During times of depression, we go to
war. When there isn't enough food to
go around, we break into our spiritual
tribes and use our gods as justification
to kill one another."
Those who believe the new
science of neuro-theology
disproves the existence of
God say they are holding up
a mirror to society about the
destructive power of religion.
They say that religious wars,
fanaticism and intolerance spring
from dogmatic beliefs that
particular gods and faiths are
unique, rather than facets of
universal brain chemistry.

12. Belief and faith, believers argue, are
larger than the sum of their brain
parts: "The brain is the hardware
through which religion is experienced,"
said Daniel Batson, a University of
Kansas psychologist who studies the
effect of religion on people.
"To say the brain produces religion is
like saying a piano produces music."
At the Fuller Theological Seminary's school of psychology, Warren
Brown, a cognitive neuropsychologist, said, "Sitting where I'm sitting
and dealing with experts in theology and Christian religious practice, I
just look at what these people (neuroscientists) know about religiousness
and think they are not very sophisticated.
They are sophisticated neuroscientists, but they are not scholars in the
area of what is involved in various forms of religiousness."

13. Religious Models of the Brain
• The soul
• Dualism
– Important to classical Christian doctrine
– At odds with a scientific approach to the
brain
• Revelation
• Spiritual experiences

14. The Soul
• Where is the soul - what bodily or brain
structures form the soul?
• Brain science seeks to directly examine
the neurological basis of all aspects of
experience
• If a stroke damaged the part(s) of the
brain where the soul resides, what would
that look like?
• If the soul cannot be injured, then what is
it?

15. Dualism
• Classical Christian dualism--there is an immortal soul
• Adventists traditionally reject the doctrine of the immortal
soul, and claim adherence to “holism”
• Holism in the sense of an absence of an immaterial soul has
some obstacles:
– If there is no immortal soul, how do you explain the
resurrection?
– If there is no immortal soul, how do you explain the
incarnation?
• In response, Adventists typically end up in a position of
resisting an immortal soul while maintaining a strong dualism.
• How does the immaterial soul interact with the material
body?

16. Divine-Human Interaction
• Revelation--God communicates to human
beings through our brains
– Which parts of the brain are responsible?
• Brain science can elucidate conditions which
externally appear similar to inspiration
• Drugs, meditation, ritual are effective in
facilitating spiritual experience. Do they
summon God?

17. If God existed and created the universe,
wouldn't it make sense that he would install
machinery in our brains that would make it
possible to have mystical experiences?

18. But it is likely that neuro-theology will
never resolve the greatest question of
all--namely, whether our brain wiring
creates God, or whether God created
our brain wiring. Which you believe is, in
the end, a matter of faith.

19. Further Reading

20. Laminin
Every living
creature has
laminin inside of
them...the purpose
of laminin is that it
basically keeps our
bodies from falling
apart. It holds us
as one united
whole.

21. God holds us
together with
laminin and
saved us with
the cross.
Laminin, a protein in our body that literally
holds our skin, organs, and everything else in
our body in place. It is literally the glue of
our body. Guess what shape laminin is in?
The shape
of a cross.

22. Colossians 1:17 - “He
(Christ) is before all
things, and in Him all
things hold together.”

23. ‘And he (Christ) is before all
things and in him all things HOLD
TOGETHER.’ I have even
acknowledged the term ‘HOLD
TOGETHER’ indicates that Christ
is the glue of the universe. I have
always believed it to be true
because God’s word says it but
now, hidden deep within the
molecular structure of the human
body there is a signature of the
truth displayed.
Colossians 1:17 - “He
(Christ) is before all
things, and in Him all
things hold together.”

24. Truly, we are fearfully and wonderfully
made. What a blessed assurance and
reassurance for our oft-tormented
souls to know that there is One who is
able to hold us together no matter
what circumstances in life are imposed
upon our fragile existence.
Laninin

25. At the center of virtually every galaxy is a
brilliant spheroid of light, made up of
hundreds of thousands of stars.
At the galaxy’s core, they are so closely
spaced that they produce a uniform,
powerful light that has the appearance of
being solid.

26. But like the cross of Christianity, it shines forth for those
who will see it — who will still be brought to the point of
decision about their eternal destiny. It shines dimly,
sending forth a final message of hope — and warning.
A curious cross has
now been dimly
perceived in the
heavens. What it is, no
one really knows.

27. The cross is a sign that beams a message of truth into the soul of humanity almost
devoid of that commodity. The meaning is as clear as it is convicting. If one has not
had an encounter with the cross, one has never dealt with the Truth.
Many refuse to accept that truth, but we are told that one day a "sign" will appear
over the earth, signaling that the Lord is coming to make manifest the work that
was completed at the cross.
Matthew 24, verses 29 and 30
mention the return of the Lord,
preceded by the greatest sign in
the history of the planet.
"Immediately after the tribulation
of those days shall the sun be
darkened, and the moon shall not
give her light ... then shall appear
the sign of the Son of man in
heaven ... they shall see the Son
of man coming in the clouds of
heaven with power and great
glory."