Hardwired for God?

I recently came across this interesting post on Ronlawhouston's blog. I thought I would share.

It is, I think, the spiritual version of the chicken-and-the-egg debate.



God in the Brain

Suppose that you show a group of people three sets of words. The first group consists of neutral words like "chair." The second group contains erotic words like "sex." The third group contains religious words like "God." For most normal people, they will become excited by the erotic word group. However, if you conduct the experiment on people that suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy, they will become excited by the religious words.

Temporal lobe epilepsy like other forms of epilepsy gives physical seizures; however, it is also associated with vivid religious hallucinations. In the Bible, the book of Acts contains Paul's account of his calling. We know that he was struck blind for a time. He also talked of afflictions of his flesh. Could Paul have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy? Similarly the founder of the Seventh Day Adventist Movement, Ellen White, suffered a brain injury at age 9 that dramatically changed her personality. She also claimed to have powerful religious visions.

Leaving aside the theological question of the existence of God, there appears to be hard wired into humans an ability to experience religion. In culture after culture throughout the world, there are different expressions of this religious experience. Even noted atheist Richard Dawkins believes there is an evolutionary advantage to having a brain that can experience religion. I've experienced these "transcendent" experiences and have had to grapple with exactly what they mean.

The question becomes whether God is created in the brain, or whether the brain is an antenna for God.

Big Smile

Mom comes home Monday!