How God Changes Your Brain - Andrew Newberg, M. D_ [4]
In Chapter 6—“Does God Have a Heart?”—we'll describe how Americans project different personalities onto God, and how each of these perspectives affect the neural functioning of the brain. We will also explain how God culturally evolved from an authoritarian, punitive deity to become a force that is filled with compassion and love. This “mystical” element of God affects a very important part of the brain, called the anterior cingulate, which we need to nurture as we engage in a pluralistic world filled with different perceptions of the divine.
In Chapter 7—“What Happens When God Gets Mad?”—we'll delve more deeply into the neurological dangers of anger, fear, authoritarianism, and idealism. We will also explain why everyone—believers and nonbelievers alike—is born with a built-in fundamentalist framework that is deeply embedded in the neurological circuitry of the brain.
In Chapter 8—“Exercising Your Brain”—we'll tell you about the eight best ways to keep your brain physically, mentally, and spiritually tuned-up. Three of these techniques are directly related to the neurological principles underlying meditation, but I think several of them will surprise you, especially the one that we think may be most essential for maintaining a healthy brain. They are all relatively easy to do, and we will give you pointers on how to integrate them into your daily life. We'll even show you how you can arouse your precuneus—which may be the central circuit of human consciousness—in less than sixty seconds.
In Chapter 9—“Finding Serenity”—we have used the findings from our neurological research to create a personalized “brain enhancement” program that will help you reduce stress, become more attentive and alert, develop greater sensitivity and empathy, and generally improve the overall functioning of your brain. We'll explain the three key principles of meditation and guide you through twelve exercises that you can practice at home. Included are three simple techniques to defuse anger, the emotion most likely to interfere with the normal functioning of your brain.
In Chapter 10—“Compassionate Communication”—we integrate the techniques from the previous two chapters into a new exercise that can be done while you are engaged in conversation with someone else. In less than fifteen minutes a compassionate and intimate dialogue unfolds that undermines the normal defensive behaviors we usually employ in social situations. We are currently conducting brain-scan research to document the neurological benefits associated with this “Compassionate Communication” exercise, and we will instruct you on how to practice it with family members and friends. We'll also enumerate twenty-one strategies that you can use to effectively resolve interpersonal problems.
EXPLORING THE COMPLEXITIES OF GOD
One of the main purposes of this book is to help readers expand their understanding and appreciation of spiritual practices and experiences. In fact, religious beliefs are vastly more complex and diverse than public opinion polls show. From a neurological perspective, God is a perception and an experience that is constantly changing and evolving in the human brain, and this implies that America's spiritual landscape is virtually impossible to define. You can't nail God down for good or for bad. And you can't intuit a person's innermost values based upon their creed or the church they choose to attend. If more people realized that everyone was talking about something fundamentally personal and different, perhaps a degree of distrust would fall away.
Although our studies have focused primarily on Americans, we believe that the same diversity of religious belief exists in other cultures. Even within the American fundamentalist community, it is difficult to