Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief

Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief

By: Andrew Newberg   Eugene D'Aquili   Vince Rause  

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Average Customer Rating: 3.0 out of 5

Researchers Newberg and D'Aquili used high-tech imaging devices to peer into the brains of meditating Buddhists and Franciscan nuns. As the data and brain photographs flowed in, the researchers began to find solid evidence that the mystical experiences of the subjects "were not the result of some fabrication, or simple wishful thinking, but were associated instead with a series of observable neurological events," explains Newberg. "In other words, mystical experience is biologically, observably, and scientifically real.... Gradually, we shaped a hypothesis that suggests that spiritual experience, at its very root, is intimately interwoven with human biology." Lay readers should be warned that although the topic is fascinating, the writing is geared toward scientific documentation that defends the authors' hypothesis. For a more palatable discussion, seek out Deepak Chopra's How to Know God, in which he also explores this fascinating evidence of spiritual hard-wiring. --Gail Hudson

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Release Date: 2002-03-26

Customer Review: 1 out of 5
Great question......gobledegop answers - I read this after reading Stroke of Insight.
What a waste of time.
While starting out with some good scientific observations, this book quickly devolves into "Madoffness" (unfounded claims........too good to be true).
Stroke of Insight shows that "mystical experiences" are always present in the right hemisphere of the brain, but, are obscured by the activity of the left hemisphere.
Mystical (religious) experiences are of the mind and available for anyone to experience, anytime.
It's part of our makeup and has nothing to do with "something" else out there.
But, I see that people who want to believe, are going to find a way to believe, including the remaking of scientific research.
These are probably the guy's that were used to validate that there were WMD in Iraq.

Customer Review: 3 out of 5
To Be or not to Be... - A sort of intriguing title to a book but that fall short of satisfying believer, or unbeliever alike. To me the most interesting part of the book is at the paragraph at the bottom of page 146, where it says you can't dismiss Spiritual experience as "mere" neurological activities, you would also have to distrust all of your own brain perceptions of the material world. On the other hand, if we do trust our perceptions of the physical world, we have no rational reason to declare the Spiritual experience is a fiction that is "only" on the mind.

And here lays the crucible of the matter, it is the physical world a construct of our minds, just like unbelievers made spirit to be? After all Theologians, Philosophers, Sages, and Mystics through the ages have claimed this to be so, "Life is but a dream..." and at the end of our life who could dare to say not to be so...

The authors obviously in the belief side draw the inevitable conclusion of God as the Unitary Being, definitely not a Scientific book neither a Mystic one, that I doubt will please a staunch unbeliever. And mildly will please a true student of Mysticism which I rather recommend to read Ibn Arabi's Meccan Revelations, or Mr. Chittick many books on the subject.

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Great scientific research - I loved the book. I am a very open-minded Christian who deeply respcts all major religions. This book helps you understand better your own believes and those of others and see that they all aim to the same goal: a closeness to God.

Customer Review: 2 out of 5
Reductionism - This is a popularized version of d'Aquili and Newberg's The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1999).

Dr. d'Aquili, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, passed away in 1998 before this book was completed.

Rause is a journalist, and Newberg is an M.D. working in the Department of Radiology in the Division of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also teaches Religious Studies.

The thesis is that meditation is a voyage inward in which the conscious mind is blotted out in an effort to connect with a deep part of ourselves. The result is neurotheology (or the neurobiology of mystical experience). The argument is that rhythmic stimulation yields mystical union with something they define as "God" in the interior of self-consciousness.

The authors build on Evelyn Underhill's classic Mysticism (first edition, 1911, later much revised) by providing what they describe as "natural causes for 'supernatural' events" (p. 99). Mystical experiences are not thereby treated as mere illusions; they are, instead, understood as neurological events generated by various exercises crafted by mystics to produce those experiences and thereby resolve tensions in the life of the mystic.

The point of meditative exercises, according to d'Aquili and Newberg, is to satisfy the need to reduce an otherwise intolerable anxiety generated by the experience of opposites in life. The result of such self-induced neurological brain patterns is a kind of "experience" of "union," as the brain makes the conscious mind, of an inner "transcendence" over the exterior world.

This "neurotheology" is used to account for the origins of all religion, ritual, and myth.

Such an explanation is, of course, reductionist.

Customer Review: 3 out of 5
A More Philosophical Discussion on How the Brain Perceives - Don't be fooled by the title! Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief is a more philosophical discussion on the inner workings of the brain rather than neurological findings, but it still makes for a good read.

Why God Won't Go Away introduces the concept of belief as neurologically originating from alterations in brain activity that coincide with feelings of religious and spiritual connection. This topic is introduced with experimental designs and the notion that all things scientific must be measurable, but Newberg fails to deliver along those principles throughout the rest of the book.

The beginning starts with an experiment where brain readings are measured from a Tibetan monk during the peak of his meditation. With this, Newberg introduces brain anatomy involved with such experiences. Of these, the superior parietal lobe is discussed very thoroughly and Newberg dubs it "the orientation association area" or OAA. The OAA is described to be responsible for physical orientation in relation to the individual. In Newberg's words "it draws a sharp distinction between the individual and everything else, to sort out the you from the infinite not-you that makes up the rest of the universe." (p. 5).

When analyzing SPECT scans of brain activity of the Tibetan monk during meditation, activity levels in the OAA were seen to decrease dramatically. Newberg concludes that this shutdown of the OAA is what leads spiritualists to feel "one with the world". "The brain would have no choice but to perceive that the self is endless and intimately interwoven with everyone and everything the mind senses." (p. 6).

After the analysis of this interesting claim based on experimentation of the superior parietal lobe, the book takes a turn from scientific to philosophical. Rather than citing more specific experimental methods and analysis, Newberg discusses the brain more openly. Specifically, he talks of evolutionary benefits of a brain capable of perceiving God, states of mind, and how mystics describe their religious episodes.

For example, Newberg speaks of the benefits and capabilities of the human brain compared to brains of primitive organisms and the circuitry of robots. He, along with D'aquili, compiled "cognitive operators" which help humans perceive. These include the holistic operator, the reductionist operator, the abstractive operator, the quantitative operator, the causal operator, the binary operator, the existential operator, and the emotional value operator. All of these are described in detail in the book; however, they seem more psychology than neurology.

Near the end of the book, Newberg introduces two inconclusive analyses. The first is that based on all neurological findings, the perception of God can be whittled down to electrical signals along neural pathways. However, this does not disprove the existence of God much like how the perception of eating a cake does not disprove the reality of the cake itself. Newberg states that scientists can try to discover the brain pathways that result in religious emotion but this does not mean that this emotion is not real. Anything that we sense must be processed in the brain and all things, literally, are perceptions.

The second indeterminate conclusion is that science and religion are based on two different fundamental assumptions. The fundamental scientific assumption is that "all that is real can be verified by scientific measurement, therefore, what can't be verified by science isn't really real." (p. 171). In essence, only what is measurable is termed to be a part of reality. However, this scientific assumption is not adopted by mystics as they have a totally different view of reality. They believe that they have experienced a primary reality that runs deeper than material existence. Science rejects this claim but nevertheless, the belief that the religious hold are very much real. Newberg states: "This kind of assumption, that one system is exclusive arbiter of what is true, makes science and religion incompatible...science and religion find themselves at a paradoxical situation." (p. 171).

The inconclusive end to the book was somewhat surprising as the subtitle "Brain Science and the Biology of Belief" seemed very scientifically biased to me. I was expecting conclusions that denounce the validity of religion and how the mysticism of emotion is nothing more that electricity in our brains. I was relieved to find that Newberg did not use such a bias in making his conclusions and opened up the possibility that the reality of God may exist even with neurological findings.

Overall, Why God Won't Go Away is a decent read but the subtitle "Brain Science and the Biology of Belief" provokes images of more scientific data in terms of experimental and measurable findings. This proves to be somewhat misleading as the book seems to be a fine mesh of biology and philosophy rather than pure neuroscience. On the other hand, many readers may find that this approach is more appropriate given the philosophical nature of the topic.

I recommend this book to all those interested in neurology and how the brain interacts with human thoughts and emotions. Don't expect too much scientific jargon or crazy experiments, but it is definitely a good read to provoke discussion with a friend.

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