Q&A Home > N > Neurotheology Does Neurotheology, which claims that religiosity is the outcome of a stimulation of the cerebral region in the brain, form a threat to Christianity? There is an article about it at:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/28/1051381900365.html. The issue of religion and the brain is not a new one. Neurologists have tried to prove that all we see, hear, feel and think is mediated or created by the brain. For instance, the amygdale monitors the environment for threats and registers fear, the Parietal-lobe circuits orient us in space and mark the sharp distinction between self and world, the Frontal-lobe and temporal-lobe circuits mark time and generate self-awareness, and so on.
"Neurotheology" or the study of the neurobiology of religion and spirituality is attracting more and more scientists. This field is trying to find out what effect the brain operations have on religious belief. Work in the field roughly divides into two types: either trying to stimulate spiritual experience with drugs or other inducers, or studying brain activity during such experiences using imaging techniques to see which regions of the brain change. Such events seem to exist outside time and space and the evidence suggests that when they happen, the brain loses its perception of a boundary between the physical body and the outside world. Trying to see religious visions under the influence of a stimulus is in the realm of perception and does not mean that they do not exist otherwise.
Wittingly or unwittingly, Neurotheologians have done a useful service in showing how these deep and life-changing experiences operate in the brain. In doing so, they have not explained them away; but they do help to explain the persistence and even the validity of religion in a secular society.
You should not worry about the effect of this on Christianity because God will never allow the gates of Hades to prevail against it. Also history suggests that religious beliefs and values will help guide the development of biology's newest fields in the coming years, just as the flow of discoveries offers new insights for religious reflection.
| |