God on the Brain

[Lilly]

There is an interesting show on television tomorrow evening entitled God On The Brain....which opens up a wide variety of speculation and discussion.

Are humans innately hard-wired to perceive a spiritual reality? A few years ago I recall reading and posting something about a God Spot in the brain found in epileptic patients. Atheist claim it is a brain dysfunction whereas theists believe that our brains have been designed to be receptive to the divine. Researchers had indeed found a region of the brain that could be linked to religious experience.

I am confused............
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God on the Brain - programme summaryRudi Affolter and Gwen Tighe have both experienced strong religious visions. He is an atheist; she a Christian. He thought he had died; she thought she had given birth to Jesus. Both have temporal lobe epilepsy.

Like other forms of epilepsy, the condition causes fitting but it is also associated with religious hallucinations. Research into why people like Rudi and Gwen saw what they did has opened up a whole field of brain science: neurotheology.

The connection between the temporal lobes of the brain and religious feeling has led one Canadian scientist to try stimulating them. (They are near your ears.) 80% of Dr Michael Persinger's experimental subjects report that an artificial magnetic field focused on those brain areas gives them a feeling of 'not being alone'. Some of them describe it as a religious sensation.

His work raises the prospect that we are programmed to believe in god, that faith is a mental ability humans have developed or been given. And temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) could help unlock the mystery.

Religious leaders

History is full of charismatic religious figures. Could any of them have been epileptics? The visions seen by Bible characters like Moses or Saint Paul are consistent with Rudi's and Gwen's, but there is no way to diagnose TLE in people who lived so long ago.

There are, though, more recent examples, like one of the founders of the Seventh Day Adventist Movement, Ellen White. Born in 1827, she suffered a brain injury aged 9 that totally changed her personality. She also began to have powerful religious visions.

Representatives of the Movement doubt that Ellen White suffered from TLE, saying her injury and visions are inconsistent with the condition, but neurologist Gregory Holmes believes this explains her condition.

Better than sex

The first clinical evidence to link the temporal lobes with religious sensations came from monitoring how TLE patients responded to sets of words. In an experiment where people were shown either neutral words (table), erotic words (sex) or religious words (god), the control group was most excited by the sexually loaded words. This was picked up as a sweat response on the skin. People with temporal lobe epilepsy did not share this apparent sense of priorities. For them, religious words generated the greatest reaction. Sexual words were less exciting than neutral ones.

Make believe

If the abnormal brain activity of TLE patients alters their response to religious concepts, could altering brain patterns artificially do the same for people with no such medical condition? This is the question that Michael Persinger set out to explore, using a wired-up helmet designed to concentrate magnetic fields on the temporal lobes of the wearer.

His subjects were not told the precise purpose of the test; just that the experiment looked into relaxation. 80% of participants reported feeling something when the magnetic fields were applied. Persinger calls one of the common sensations a 'sensed presence', as if someone else is in the room with you, when there is none.

Horizon introduced Dr Persinger to one of Britain's most renowned atheists, Prof Richard Dawkins. He agreed to try his techniques on Dawkins to see if he could give him a moment of religious feeling. During a session that lasted 40 minutes, Dawkins found that the magnetic fields around his temporal lobes affected his breathing and his limbs. He did not find god.

Persinger was not disheartened by Dawkins' immunity to the helmet's magnetic powers. He believes that the sensitivity of our temporal lobes to magnetism varies from person to person. People with TLE may be especially sensitive to magnetic fields; Prof Dawkins is well below average, it seems. It's a concept that clerics like Bishop Stephen Sykes give some credence as well: could there be such a thing as a talent for religion?


Brain imaging

Sykes does, though, see a great difference between a 'sensed presence' and a genuine religious experience. Scientists like Andrew Newberg want to see just what does happen during moments of faith. He worked with Buddhist, Michael Baime, to study the brain during meditation. By injecting radioactive tracers into Michael's bloodstream as he reached the height of a meditative trance, Newberg could use a brain scanner to image the brain at a religious climax.

The bloodflow patterns showed that the temporal lobes were certainly involved but also that the brain's parietal lobes appeared almost completely to shut down. The parietal lobes give us our sense of time and place. Without them, we may lose our sense of self. Adherants to many of the world's faiths regard a sense of personal insignificance and oneness with a deity as something to strive for. Newberg's work suggests a neurological basis for what religion tries to generate.

Religious evolution

If brain function offers insight into how we experience religion, does it say anything about why we do? There is evidence that people with religious faith have longer, healthier lives. This hints at a survival benefit for religious people. Could we have evolved religious belief?

Prof Dawkins (who subscribes to evolution to explain human development) thinks there could be an evolutionary advantage, not to believing in god, but to having a brain with the capacity to believe in god. That such faith exists is a by-product of enhanced intelligence. Prof Ramachandran denies that finding out how the brain reacts to religion negates the value of belief. He feels that brain circuitry like that Persinger and Newberg have identified, could amount to an antenna to make us receptive to god. Bishop Sykes meanwhile, thinks religion has nothing to fear from this neuroscience. Science is about seeking to explain the world around us. For him at least, it can co-exist with faith.

[andrewblow]

Interesting post Lilly. We don't have that prog in England, but I cannot accept some of the speculation mentioned in this summary.

I'm coming from..................

The Biblical explanation of creation- first in Genesis, then expanded elsewhere- makes it clear that we were all 'hot-wired' for religion in that our Creator created us to worship Him and for Him to live in us- in a place especially designed in our spirits as His dwelling place.

This is what drives all peoples of the world to seek a 'god' to fill the god-shaped-hole. That can be done in any way that satisfies the individual , but as a christian believer, I have to add (from experience) that satisfaction only comes with the 'right' God - the Creator God.

I accept that there are many people that have strange dreams and visionary periods, but some are simply and sadly ill - others follow strange paths of disillusionment, but I firmly believe that people like Moses and St Paul (to quote your post) were aware of God in miraculous ways and were led by Him to do and say what is recorded of them.

The trouble is - nothing can be <proved> . Prof Hawkins has much to say - but little to interest me, as he's just fighting to disprove his own spiritual existance. What a waste of time.!!

Accuse me of simplicity if you wish, but for me FAITH comes into being and 'god-on-the-brain' is a doorway to 'God-in-the-heart' and that's where He belongs and that's why I am a satisfied person.

When I have my operation in September (another post) I will have my brain stopped and cooled from 37`C down to about 15`C and I will be temporarily, but technically, dead. The nurse told me that when I am warmed up and come around, I will say the first things that come into my brain without reserve or restraint - which can sometimes be hillarious.... ("but don't worry Andrew- I've heard it all before" !!! ) I will also probably have nightmares or such and my senses will be wide open to stimulations that I have never had before. Now I wonder what I will think about God AFTER this experience.?? I know in my head-knowledge and heart-faith that HE is my healer, so I'm interested to find out how He will use this opportunity.

I hope I have the chance to share anything that's new....without reserve or restraint - hahaha

Andrew

[bm-21Lemko]

please post what you see. that would be interesting.

[StormAU]

Hi Andrew,

I hope your Op goes well and that God heels you quickly. I have read quite a few of your posts around the traps and am very impressed, you have taught me a thing or many without even knowing it, thank you.

Take care.

Lily the brain is an amazing thing and science as yet doesn't even understand 10% of it. Needless to say I am very sceptical of things that suddenly shed new light on the brain and how it is the centre of "religiosity", I wont discount it but I am constantly reminded (by people like my friend Volodya) that the modern brain thinks like a Greek when God wants us to think like a Hebrew.

[andrewblow]

BM21 - sure thing - will do.

Storm - and how right you are about the Greeka and Hebrew mindsets......how little this is realised, but how important it is. Cheers.
Andrew

[fedorowich]

I don't think mocking one of the smartest prof about not providing enough proof can be an argument made from someone who follows God. Why are you very skeptical of things that suddenly shed new light on the brain. Why are believers so quick to strike down something that may disagree or disprove a belief? If knowledge is power, than why not take in consideration everything and than make a decision.
If god is indeed your healer, than why is it necessary to have an operation. Did Jesus not cure his followers with a wave of his hand? If Jesus and God are one in the same, why is he waiting to heal you? Is 'he' not in you? I am not trying to anger you or show any disrespect, but I simply want to ask the question. If the operation does not go accordingly, will you blame God, the healer?

Best Regards, and get well
Fedorowich

[V-G]

fedorowich,

The answer to your question is simple, if people who believe in God just pray and are sick they will all likely die, religion had to incorporate a safeguard - to prevent them all from becoming extinct within just a few generations. This safeguard allows them to claim that the prayer helps, God heals and doctors are just tools sent by God. They will never admit what is exceptionally obvious to many... they can't, they are afraid. Michael is petrified, he has been asking me to give him an alternative explanation, like a child who needs a candy. Can you imagine telling a child that Santa doesn't exist right before Christmas tree is put up? Devastation is likely, not just probable - same here. Sad reality.

Many people who have discussed religion with me claimed "Well, what if you are wrong and God does exist? You will go to hell, but if you believe and there is no God then what is the loss?" - it is this perverted logic that allowed so many intelligent people be tricked and brainwashed. Now they are so delusional that they write books, convert others. This superstition is very powerful, Michael did years of research to disprove every other theory of creation to himself - great job - missing the most obvious one was quite pathetic.

I believe it is no secret that humans are curious creatures, when we can't explain something we make things up.

My two hopes are:
1. Andrew makes it through the surgery alive, it sounds like a very serious one.
2. I hope that whatever chemicals go through his brain during and after the surgery will cleanse it and he will wake up and realize that there is no God, that he should believe in people and that he owes his life to the doctors who leaned their trade well.

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Slightly off topic but relevant.

I had an aunt who was exceptionally religious. She found Christianity later in life and believed with her heart completely, I have never seen a single other person who believed as she did. Most religious people are fakes (like Andrew is to me, sorry, I sincerely mean no offence it is the honest truth), she wasn't. She had a tumour, it grew little by little. Her religion also took her to different priests and she would travel great distances to meet with them, they all prayed with her/ for her, most advised her to go for the surgery. If you know the definition of a saint, I think she was as close as anyone will ever get to it. There wasn't a person I could ever think of that had thought a bad thing about her, she always smiled and was role model of exemplary ethical behaviour. Her faith led her to believe that there was no need for surgery, she loved God and she knew that she would be protected. She lived an exceptionally healthy life style. I think that because of her lifestyle the tumour took good 25 years to develop into cancer and then she died within a month. Surgery was not an option by that time and believe me no stinking God of yours saved her either. I wish he did exist, because let me tell you I'd have something to tell him. So, to all you fools that think that prayer works, do quit with medicine, quit with doctors - rely on your belief. Until then you are a bunch of phonies who are scared to die, who need the reassurance that there is some sort of heaven, but the truth is you are just a bunch of cowards. And the bad news for all of you, if God does exist you will still all go to hell for pretending. This 50% belief "just in case" won't cut it if there is God, coz he'll know what you were really thinking.

How is that for an honest post/rant? Now that I thought about my aunt again, I feel I am even mad at a few "internet characters". I know you didn't do anything to deserve it and I am happy that you are smart enough to take advantage of science. So pardon my rant, but it had to be said.