Scientific American has an interesting story on researchers who are using neural imaging techniques like fMRI and EEGs to study so-called religious experiences. The prospect is that once people identify particular brain regions that are activated during religious/spiritual experiences, then scientists can artificially stimulate those regions, recreating that sense of oneness with God (or however the spiritual experience is defined). In fact, the article reports that a scientist has in fact claimed to have been able to do so, making what was called a God helmet. But, apparently no one else has been able to replicate the experiment. Naturally, studies of this sort come with lots of caveats and unknowns–but are provocative, nevertheless. And anything with science and God is sure to attract attention. But the author, David Biello, summarizes any potential science-versus-religion fireworks:
Although atheists might argue that finding spirituality in the brain implies that religion is nothing more than divine delusion, the nuns were thrilled by their brain scans for precisely the opposite reason: they seemed to provide confirmation of God’s interactions with them. After all, finding a cerebral source for spiritual experiences could serve equally well to identify the medium through which God reaches out to humanity.
1 Comment
9 October 2007 at 3:14 pm
I strongly believe that faith and religious experiences originate in brain chemistry and that some specific manifestations may be traceable to specific, identifiable conditions. Whether or not the “God helmet” works is another matter all together. While I accept the general principal that it should be possible to artificially induce thoughts in the human brain I find that I am enormously skeptical any time I come across a claim that someone is actually doing so. I guess I am suffering from long exposure to crackpots infatuated with the notion of mind control.