How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [147]
THE NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF GOD
I begin with a book with the intriguing title Why God Won’t Go Away, by Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili, both medical doctors, with Newberg holding joint appointments in radiology and religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and D’Aquili, now deceased, a professor of psychiatry at Penn. God won’t go away, the authors argue, because the religious impulse is rooted in the biology of the brain. When Buddhist monks meditate and Franciscan nuns pray, for example, their brain scans (these scientists used the single photon emission computed tomography, or SPECT) indicate strikingly low activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe, a bundle of neurons the authors have dubbed the OAA, or Orientation Association Area, whose job it is to orient the body in physical space (people with damage to this area have a hard time negotiating their way around a house). When the OAA is booted up and running smoothly there is a sharp distinction between self and non-self. When OAA is in sleep mode—as in deep meditation and prayer—that division breaks down, leading to a blurring of the lines between reality and fantasy. Is this what happens to monks who feel a sense of oneness with the universe, or with nuns who feel the presence of God?
Yes, say the authors, who believe they have “uncovered solid evidence that the mystical experiences of their subjects—the altered states of mind they described as the absorption of the self into something larger—were not the result of emotional mistakes or simple wishful thinking, but were associated instead with a series of observable neurological events … .” It is an odd distinction to make, which the authors do throughout the book. “A skeptic might suggest that a biological origin to all spiritual longings and experiences, including the universal human yearning to connect with something divine, could be explained as a delusion caused by the chemical misfirings of a bundle of nerve cells.”
Indeed, I am one such skeptic, but I fail to see the difference (outside a minor linguistic distinction) between a delusion and a decrease in OAA activity. In this case, delusion is simply a descriptive term for what happens when the OAA shuts down and the brain loses the ability to distinguish self from non-self. But it is still all in the brain. Unless, of course, you believe that these neurologically triggered mystical experiences actually serve as a conduit to a real spiritual world where God (or what the authors call the “Absolute Unitary Being”) resides. That is, in fact, what they believe: “ … our research has left us no choice but to conclude that the mystics may be on to something, that the mind’s machinery of transcendence may in fact be a window through which we can glimpse the ultimate realness of something that is truly divine.” Thankfully they are honest enough to admit that this conclusion “is a terrifically unscientific idea” and that to accept it “we must second-guess all our assumptions about material reality.” In the end they do just that.
The strength of Why God Won’t Go Away lies in the original research conducted by the authors, and the brain correlates of mystical states they have identified, that together go a long way toward explicating the experiences of religious mystics. For the billions of believers who have never had a mystical experience, however, explanations for their faith are more likely grounded in the psychology and sociology of belief where, for example, the number one predictor of anyone’s religious faith is that of their parents, modified by siblings and peer groups, mentors, education, age, cultural experiences, and other variables (see Chapter 4). This is