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Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
Why have we humans always longed to connect with something larger than ourselves? Even today in our technologically advanced age, more than seventy percent of Americans claim to believe in God. Why, in short, won’t God go away? In this groundbreaking new book, researchers Andrew Newberg and Eugene d’Aquili offer an explanation that is at once profoundly simple and scientif...more
Paperback, 240 pages
Published
December 10th 2008
by Ballantine Books
(first published 2001)
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A single quote from this book probably explains all we need to know about why God won’t go away:
So impressive are the health benefits of religion … that after reviewing more than a thousand studies on the impact of religion upon health, Dr. Harold Koenig of Duke University Medical Center recently told The New Republic, that “Lack of religious involvement has an effect on mortality that is equivalent to forty years of smoking one pack of cigarettes per day.
What more evidence d...more
So impressive are the health benefits of religion … that after reviewing more than a thousand studies on the impact of religion upon health, Dr. Harold Koenig of Duke University Medical Center recently told The New Republic, that “Lack of religious involvement has an effect on mortality that is equivalent to forty years of smoking one pack of cigarettes per day.
What more evidence d...more
This book was well researched and, for the most part, well argued. In many of my other readings on the subject, I'd come across references to the fMRI work that Newberg and D'Aquili had done with Tibetan monks and Franciscan nuns, so I expected this books to take a largely scientific approach to the topic of religious and spiritual behavior and was not disappointed. On the plus side Newberg and D'Aquili postulate plausible pathways by which the brain generates various spiritual experiences, an...more
This book explores the relationship between the brain's functioning and religion and myth. The authors note that (page 8): "Gradually, we shaped a hypothesis that suggests that spiritual experience, at its very root, is intimately interwoven with human biology. That biology, in some way, compels the spiritual urge." In short (page 9), "We will examine the biological drive that compels us to make myths, and the neurological machinery that gives these myths shape and power."
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I find most of these books that seek to study or understand "why" we believe to be little more than excuses or apologetics for belief itself. This often-praised biological theory is just more of the same: we believe because we're wired to believe! This leads to the inevitable presumption that it's "normal" to believe and thus atheists are "abnormal." No, this book does not assert such a limiting view: in fact, like so many of these excuses for irrational human behav...more
The authors posit that our brain is neurologically capable of attaining a state where boundaries between self and other are no longer recognizable. They call this Absolute Unitary Being and say that this state has been attained by mystics and called "God." They also say that this experience of unity is real because it is experienced by the brain as real, and therefore God is real. They don't really delve into quantum mechanics, but what they seem to be saying is that the brain is ca...more
I just finished this book for my Sociology of Religion course (and now I just have to write the 10 page review of it...). Overall, I liked it. I found that Newberg was quite redundant though, saying the same think a couple times in a matter of pages. Using repetition in one's writing is a rhetorical device, but it can be overused, and I say that Newberg overused that device. Beyond that, I would say that it was overall quite interesting and better than many other scientific books that I have rea...more
I really liked the brain science of this book, as well as the anthropology angle. There is a lot of speculation involved in their hypothesis, as there must be when anyone is trying to read what was going on in the mind of early man. But I believe it is a carefully balanced middle ground between the scientific question and the spiritual one. Anyone who is entirely in one camp or the other might not appreciate how this book marries the two.
I am both of the scientific and spiritual mind...more
I am both of the scientific and spiritual mind...more
Fascinating biology.
Predictable evolutionary thought; neo-Freudian in an odd sort of way - religion boils down to ancient sexual impulses that developed into something beyond ourselves. (Of course, everything in biological evolution must harken to survival or reproduction.)
At least the author was honest. I was "mocking" him in the margins through many parts of the book refering to him and his as "the priesthood". Later he admitted that his own scient...more
Predictable evolutionary thought; neo-Freudian in an odd sort of way - religion boils down to ancient sexual impulses that developed into something beyond ourselves. (Of course, everything in biological evolution must harken to survival or reproduction.)
At least the author was honest. I was "mocking" him in the margins through many parts of the book refering to him and his as "the priesthood". Later he admitted that his own scient...more
I liked this book because it attempts to bring biology into the question of faith. The author proposes that our brains provide friendly soil in which to plant the God concept. Thus he reasons that we believe in God because there is brain chemistry which supports this belief. And God must have put that notion into that part of our brains so we would believe in Him. It probably makes more sense than any other book i have read on the subject.
This book was very thought provoking. I expected it to be more of a Dawkinian approach to squash religion with science, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it has a much more even-handed approach to the traditional dichotomy, making a real concerted effort to bridge the divide. The book basically centers around the attention and orientation centers of the brain, and the principle that certain events/behaviors can deafferent them (or shut them down), providing an extra-sensory experience....more
Chrischris
added it
So much better than I expected it. Still got a ways to go but just form skimming its got me itching to drop everything else I am reading to finish it. There are some excellent reviews already written about this book.
Learning how the human brain is wired to experience "expanded consciousness" moments is very illuminating...believing in God may be advantageous on an evolutionary level, whether or not there is one!
This book was written by a group of scientists in Canada trying to understand what conditions lead to spiritual experiences. They studied Bhuddist monks and Franciscan nuns with MRI machines, and learned that there are 4 states of over/understimulation that lead to profound spiritual experiences and feelings of unity.
I loved this book, and thought it was so profound that I actually caused me to have a bit of a spiritual experience while reading it. To some degree.
I list...more
I loved this book, and thought it was so profound that I actually caused me to have a bit of a spiritual experience while reading it. To some degree.
I list...more
interesting exploration of how religious experiences show upon brain scans - using science to validate religion.
Offered new insight into the brain, the mind, and how they affect our sense of the divine.
This book is by a couple of brain scientists who describe what is happening in someone's brain when they have a mystical experience. The question at the heart of the book: "Either spiritual experience is nothing more than a neurological construct created by and contained within the brain, or the state of absolute union that the mystics describe does in fact exist and the mind has developed the capability to perceive it." Fascinating, but a little dense -- I kept putting it down for...more
Great stuff! I just heard he has a new book out so I have to look for this one
I read this as a part of a class I took in college regarding the psychology of religion and, as a current agnostic and then-atheist this book changed the way I view religion as a whole and the way I regard/interact with devoutly or fanatically religious individuals. Anyone who has ever wondered "wtf are they thinking" when seeing someone speaking in tongues in a church service (which, I'm sure, is many of us...) MUST read this book.
As a sidenote- it's not a light-read and ta...more
As a sidenote- it's not a light-read and ta...more
Interesting scientific perspective on belief.
Confession: Couldn't get through it. Kind of dry. Prefer Mary Roach when it comes to science-based books.
At times it is slightly repetitive in an academic way (clearly states the thesis repeatedly) but there is enough variety in topics (meditation, myth,personal gods) to keep it interesting. The background in brain physiology was so clearly explained it made me feel smart while I was reading it (but don't quiz me on it now, please). Overall the authors make a sound, thoughtful argument for the biological capacity for spiritual experiences that is thought provoking and inspiring.
I did some research in college into the cognitive neuroscience of Buddhist meditation, and so was drawn to this book instantly - and the research behind this book on that topic alone is utterly fascinating (and I hope accurate). But it also goes into many other areas like mysticism, ritual and myth. Would be great for people into anthropology (many references to cross-cultural symbols and religions) and Carl Jung's psychological theories about the collective unconscious.
I didn't finish this book. I don't think it was as intriguing as I expected. I am personally an atheist with interests in the sciences, but I am interested in how religion affects people including why they believe even after we have learned so much of the science behind evolution and the universe, etc. I expected to be drawn in much more strongly than I was.
Written before Why We Believe What We Believe, this is a book about the research done on brain anatomy and mysticism. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, having already read the later book (just recently published, and more thorough).
Both of these books are very well thought-out and written. I highly recommend them.
Both of these books are very well thought-out and written. I highly recommend them.
This was a gift from my sister, it must have come up in conversation sometime. Really well written for a science-y book. The idea is that humans are hardwired for myth/religion to make sense. It goes on about a higher spirirual level of understanding and loses me but still, very interesting.
An interesting explanation of brain chemistry as it relates to meditation, prayer, etc. The author goes a little too far in his simplifications, not only writing for an audience who doesn't know much neurobiology (good idea), but also for an audience who doesn't know much of anything (bad idea).
The neuroscience is somewhat simplistic, but as a non-scientist, I kind of appreciated that. Left me wondering about the evolutionary track we are on and the role of spirituality in our future as a humanity.
Alia recommended this book to me and i read it a few years ago. It was very interesting, using the study of brain scanning to map the sacred experience. Very compelling reading.
He pushes the arguments; he has the hypothesis in his mind as he likes it and then uses experiences of all kinds of people as if they substantiate a scientific fact.
A good, unblinking scientific investigation of the basis of religion in biology. Having said that, it's too scientific for me right now. AP bio is too much as it is.
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