Evolution or Creation?
Neurotheology
Andrew Newberg, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania has developed a biological theory of religion, which he believes provides a neurological basis for the great human hunger for God. The theory has made Newberg a leading figure in the emerging science of neurotheology, which explores the links between spirituality and the brain.[80]
He says that a
"higher reality" is real and not not inconsistent with science.[80]
Using an imaging
technology called SPECT scanning to map the brains of Tibetan Buddhists
meditating and Franciscan nuns engaged in deep, contemplative prayer, he photographed
blood flow-indicating levels of neural activity-in each subject's brain at the
moment that person had reached an intense spiritual peak.[80]
When the scientists studied the scans, their attention was drawn to a portion of the brain's left parietal lobe they called the orientation association area. It is this region that is responsible for drawing the line between the physical self and the rest of existence, a task that requires a constant stream of neural information flowing in from the senses. What the scans revealed, however, was that at peak moments of prayer and meditation, the flow was dramatically reduced. As the orientation area was deprived of information needed to draw the line between the self and the world-the scientists believed-the subject would experience a sense of a limitless awareness melting into infinite space.[80]
It seemed they had captured snapshots of the brain nearing a state of mystical transcendence-described by all major religions as one of the most profound spiritual experiences - a "mystical union" with God.[80]
Newberg's research suggests that spiritual feelings are rooted not in emotion or wishful thinking, but in the genetically arranged wiring of the brain.[80]
"That's why religion thrives in an age of reason," Newberg says. You can't simply think God out of existence, he says, because religious feelings rise more from experience than from thought. They are born in a moment of spiritual connection, as real to the brain as any perception of "ordinary" physical reality.[80]
His research suggests that our brains have been wired to experience the reality of God.[80]