If God had wanted Man to think for himself, He would have given him a brain
It’s chicken and egg time. Which came first? Are our brains wired for God, or do performing religious activities rewire our brains to make us think there is a God?
Can “neurotheology” bridge the gap between religion and science?
If recent findings in “neurotheology” hold up, our meditating neurons, locked in the state called mindfulness, were radiating gamma waves at about 40 cycles per second, beating against the 50-hertz hum of the fluorescent lights. At the same time, parts of our cerebral cortex were growing infinitesimally thicker—another effect that researchers have associated with trancelike states. In the neurological search for the spiritual, there is no shortage of data. But pile it as high as you like, and you’re left staring across the same divide. Depending on your predisposition, you can interpret all these experiments in two different ways. The believers take them as scientific evidence for the reality of their visions, while the atheists claim more proof that God is all in your head.
This actually kind of interesting.
Reminds me of a recent trilogy I read, The Neanderthal Parallax by Robert J. Sawyer. (Hominids/Humans/Hybrids). A parallel universe where the Neanderthals survived and Cro-Magnons didn’t, and it turned out the Neanderthals did NOT have a certain brain structure that ‘Humans’ did, which created the entire idea of religion. The climax in the third book also dealt with the reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field.
(No spoiler)
J/P=?
Interesting article.
I’m familiar with the book referenced, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. I think it is one of the best explanations of conscience/self-awareness.
Like so many other things in nature, it all comes down to symmetry.
The creationist just have more questions to answer now. Why would god build human brains to communicate with him and then allow hundreds of different and competing religions. The one thing we all share is the human brain, but none of us seem to share the same idea of who god is, if any at all.
Religion is doomed. It’s only a matter of time.
speaking of chicken and egg; if you believe in evolution then the egg came first, if you don’t the chicken came first.
#3, Comment by julieb — 4/29/2007 @ 7:44 am
Religion is doomed. It’s only a matter of time.
I wish, I really do. Remember, people [morons] have been fighting over the same piece of stinkin’ desert for 3,000 years. “My god is better than your god.”
Deliver me from these zealots, they know not what they do.
Whatever happened to logic and the scientific method?? Life perhaps starts in a moment of passion — Caution: logic not included.
Let’s take a more direct approach, let’s cut open Oral Roberts’ and Pat Robertson’s brains and see if god is in there.
Are our brains wired for God, or do performing religious activities rewire our brains to make us think there is a God?
That hits it exactly on the head, IMHO, and is an issue that probably will not be solved any time soon.
Atheists think religious people like me are delusional. I think atheists are missing an important part of their brain that perceives spiritual reality.
And I don’t think people have much choice of which side of that divide they sit.
Quote from #7:
“Atheists think religious people like me are delusional. I think atheists are missing an important part of their brain that perceives spiritual reality.”
Why would god intentionally create atheists?
Why would god intentionally create atheists?
I don’t know… ask her!
Seriously, that’s a good question that has vexed better theologians than me. The same kind of question is asked about bad guys like Hitler. Why did God allow him to be born?
Greg, repeat after me: “There is no spoon.”
Let me throw my own philosophy here:
Here are two philosophical questions that dont have very interesting answers:
1. What can humans do that no other animal can?
This is a tough one as almost every quality that humans possess can be seen in other animals. The only satisfactory answer is that humans are capable of speaking in languages that contain theoretical concepts, symbols, etc. Other animals can have language (some birds, whales, dolphins, and many mammals have rudimentary linguistic skills, but even apes taught sign language show no capability of abstracton)
2. What do all religions have in common?
This is another often debated topic, it is called the “core of religion” problem, and almost anything you see in most religions does not exist in some others. But the best answer I have ever found is that all religions practices some form of meditation, either involving repetitive prayers or total silence, or some other method.
It is important to observe that the answers to these two questions are conceptual opposites. Humans are superior because we can speak, but in religion we spend quality time not speaking.
The answer to this obsevation lies in evolution.
Would it surprise anyone that the one thing we have over animals is the last thing we developed?
Human language is VERY new. Humans have been around (in one form or another) for 6 million years, yet we have only been capable of speech for a mere 200,000 and the oldest arcaeological evidence of linguistic speech is only 50,000 years old.
That means Humans lived for 5,950,000 years without language.
Language is a huge benefit to us of course, art and technology cannot exist without it, We are the king of all beasts thanks to our advanced linguistic skills.
But look how wildly agressive language has become on us humans. Language affects every part of our lives, when we are not reading writing, talking or hearing words, we have a silent conscious stream of words that practically never stops unless we are asleep.
Language is so agressive, it has taken over our conscious mind.
Language is a natural divider of people, the first language may have taken 150,000 years to develop, but in the last 50,000 years tens of thousand tongues, dialects, accents, and jargons have developed. It is like we are naturally driven to keep ourselves from being understood.
So what is the cost for letting language take over our minds?
First of all, we quickly lose our animal instincts. Because they do not have lingustic skills, we tend to think of all animals as inferior to us, and yet careful observation of animal behavior shows that most animals are smarter than we give them credit for.
Ever watch your pet cat or dog hunt? They often demonstrate amazing problem solving skills to get what they want.
Second, so new is our linguistic ability, it can only be found in half our brain. All lingustic skills are in the left hemisphere of our brain. Yet our conscious thoughts are almost entirely verbal, The other half of our brain is dedicated to the non-verbal, but we tend to push those thoughts back, and dont use them much.
Moreover, we have only developed our lingustic skills over 200,000 years, but our non-verbal mind has been developing for at least 6 million years. This means that our non verbal brain is more evolved than our verbal brain.
Does this mean our non-verbal brain is superior to our verbal brain? No, it is not really superior or inferior. The real importance of the non-verbal mind is its untapped potential hidden by the verbal mind.
Cosider this evidence that our non-verbal brain is at least as good than our verbal brain:
* We daily have “its on the tip of my tongue” moments, where we know what we want to say, but cant find the words.
* More rare, but it happens to everybody, are pseudo psychic experiences of knowing something good or bad is about to happen before it actually happens. I do not believe in real psychic experiences, but I do believe our non-verbal brain can sometimes understand (or “intuit”) things before our verbal mind does. Our verbal mind is pretty smart, so it does not happen often, but it happens.
* Then there are the profound experiences of wonder that come via our senses, like hearing a beautiful piece of music, or seeing a great work of art for the first time, or seeing a natural scenic spot. We simply cannot find the words to describe these “spirital experiences”.
* Here is where the religion comes in: All “spiritual experiences” are phenomenon of non-verbal mind.
So here is my theory: Religion started as a natural reaction to the viral nature of language on our minds. We need language, it is mostly a good thing, but it interferes with our full potential. Hence meditation is one of the first properties of Religious observance, which is why it is found in every religion from primitive tribal faiths to Scientology.
The point of meditation, and it is a point lost on most religions and religious people, is that you are supposed to temporarily shut down the viral verbal part of your brain, and experience thought purely from the non-verbal brain. This is often a difficult thing to do, and requires a fair amount of practice.
Hence the many variations in meditation practices from faith to faith:
* Repetetive Rezzas or Chants (20 Our Fathers, or Muslim prayers)
* Zen Koans or zen gardens
* wordless songs
* tones
* repetitive rhythms
* oaths of silence
* remote monasteries and sanctuaries
* quiet “holy places”
* aboriginal “walkabouts”
* Native American sweat lodge rituals
* ritual dances
All of them are directed towards the goal of pushing away our verbal minds temporarily and observe the world through our non-verbal mind.
People who achieve this state of consciousness all report an overwhelming sense of peace, wonder, awe, and leaving the outside world behind us temporarily. It is the very definition of a spiritual experience.
But over time, the agressively viral nature of language has inserted itself into religion as well.
Just as languages divided cultures, languages divided religions as well. They all develop their own dogmas and scriptures and symbolism and concepts.
Hence, Religion evolves along with humans.
To understand religion requires understanding evolution, how ironic is that?
It comes straight from the brain, “Oh God! I’m hungry!”
Good links, meetsy – it would explain a lot. Thanks.
A brain-damaged white-knuckled addict and alcoholic who is directed behind the throne by a functional sociopath, leading a small political army of the greedy and the deluded. Lucky us.
Chicken and egg is easy. You define a chicken egg as either of the following and I’ll tell you which came first:
a) An egg containing a chicken.
b) An egg laid by a chicken.
Simple.
As for the supposition that in order to explain intelligence, we must presuppose the existence of intelligence, well, in order to explain recursion, one must first understand recursion. This sort of logic flies up its own asshole, so to speak, in endless recursion.
#15: Actually, the answer is quite simple if you understand evolution. A precursor to a chicken laid an egg that contained the first chicken, so the egg came first. Of course, given how evolution works, if you had both the precursor and the chicken in front of you, you probably couldn’t tell the difference, but you get the idea.
Didn’t this blog already deal with the chicken/egg?
J/P=?
#16 – Uncle Dave,
So, clearly your definition of chicken egg is an egg containing a chicken. But, for anyone who defines it as an egg laid by a chicken then the chicken came first. But, of course your sequence is correct
1) Proto-chicken lays an egg.
2) The egg contains a true chicken. (chicken egg? maybe)
3) The true chicken grows up and lays an egg.
4) This egg, laid by one chicken and containing another, is definitely a chicken egg.
Of course, it can be far simpler. Many species lay eggs. No one specified chicken egg. Therefore, eggs came hundreds of millions of years before chickens.
#11 – ArianeB,
Excellent post. One comment though, you said ‘Other animals can have language (some birds, whales, dolphins, and many mammals have rudimentary linguistic skills, but even apes taught sign language show no capability of abstracton)’
I would just like to point out that dolphins are capable of understanding when we speak, when we gesture, even when we gesture on a television screen, even when we convey concepts like “be creative and come up with a new trick.”
We, on the other hand, have not been able to identify any of their most rudimentary calls. It is possible, though I certainly wouldn’t assert it, that this means that their language skills are higher than ours, especially in the ability to recognize and understand truly different language than their own.
I would also point out that “humans” of 6,000,000 years ago were not even australopithecines yet. If you want to talk about truly human, your date of 200,000 years ago for early modern humans is probably better. It is interesting that we didn’t really take the so-called great leap forward until sometime after we went through our genetic bottleneck 70-80,000 years ago. Though nothing has been detected in our physiology that changed at that time, perhaps language is what got the 3-7,000 humans that did survive through that difficult time.
Has anyone an answer to the very obvious question – Why would anyone, anything, bother to create such a biologically inefficient organ as the body? with two eyes (none at the back), need to feed and void himself… with teeth, and a need to breathe… why create such a thing when – with omnipotence on call – the perfect organ could be created. and then, for what purpose? to WORSHIP? if man did that, we would call him a different name…
#11 – ArianeB,
#18 – Misanthropic Scott
Terrific posts – thanks! Some of the best reasoning on the subject I have seen. FWIW, I think the idea of religious subjective experiences reflecting pre- or nonverbal integrative processes has appeal. It would explain things like MRI readings that show unusual combinations of lit-up brain areas in nuns when they put themselves into conscious contact with their diety. I wish I knew if the same areas light up for nonreligious people who enter an alpha brainwave state such at that produced by adept meditation. I suspect they’re the same.
#19 – It was obviously a practical joke. That’s the big secret all those cold-eyed clerics and politicians who make war in the name of peace, love and [name of social or political ideal goes here] are hiding.
One more thing – PEDRO, WHERE ARE YOU? I know you’ve done some study of the physiological links to the human religious experience. I was hoping you’d post your thoughts on this item.
#18, “So long, and thanks for all the fish”
#20 – TJGeezer,
I recently heard that they’ve done fMRIs of Tibetan Budhist monks. I bet they have the Nuns beat at interesting fMRIs.
#21 – Mike,
Good one. Enjoy surfing the bow waves on your next world.
the dinosaur came first. then the egg – then the chicken – then the chicken’s egg
The thing that I find remarkable about strident atheists is that their views must prevent them from enjoying many basic experiences if they spend any time thinking about them. Take, for instance, happiness; there are certain physiological changes that occur in a person that describes themselves as happy (their heart rate and temperature elevates slightly, endorphines released, etc.). We know that happy people tend to live longer. But, really, these physiological changes are far less great than those experienced by monks of the various spiritual traditions. Essentially, the train of thought that states so stridently that anything that can be in any way described as ‘just in the head’ does not exist leads to an end which negates things that we have all experienced, such as love, happiness, and sadness. themselves do not exist, and barring entirely emotionless people, I don’t see how they can reconcile their belief with their experience. Perhaps as someone who is not adherent to any one religion, but has had spiritual experiences, it is easier for me to pick sides, so I admit my bias.
As for those that wonder why God would create multiple religions, I ask what history they are reading. Clearly men made the multiple religions of this world, and if you dig down to those people whose philosophies became religious orders, you find that their beliefs share many commonalities (compassion, charity, forgiveness, tolerance, love). In other words, I would argue that it is foolish to propose that man’s weakness is the fault of the heavens. The future may indeed be a place without religion, but I doubt it will be a place without spirituality and belief, and I pray that the great saints and philosophers will be remembered less by the foolish things that were done in their names, and more by what they said.