Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science

by Mike McHargue

Mystical experiences transpire outside the realm of thought and language. Mystics refuse to try to describe them. They simply sit with the experience and let it change them.

Early in the 20th century, Albert Einstein demonstrated that matter and energy are made of the same basic stuff, and that not only is everything that is “solid” in the universe made up of mostly empty space, but that what little actual “mass” there is only exists because some particles interact with a universal, invisible field called the Higgs field. The reason you and I exist is that most of our bodies’ particles create some kind of quantum drag against an invisible Higgs field that makes them slow down (from light speed) and gain mass in the process. That’s at least as weird as anything in Genesis.

God is at least the set of forces that created and sustain the universe.

But when you’re working with an absence of sufficient evidence, sometimes incomplete explanations are all you can offer. It’s not unscientific to admit the limitations of one’s knowledge—in fact, the willingness to do so is key if you want the scientific method to work.

thanks to advances in neuroscience and brain imaging in the last few decades, scientists have begun to study God by observing how religious experiences affect the human brain. Some leading neuroscientists involved in this research coined a term for this discipline: neurotheology.

in most brains, God is not an idea. Instead, God is a set of experiences and feelings attached to an “object” or notion that is closely associated with one’s identity.

There may be countless religions, sects, denominations, and ideas about God, but as far as your brain is concerned, they all fit within two categories: the Angry God and the Loving God.

the Angry God is ripe for exploitation. When life’s meaning or one’s eternal destiny is closely associated with such a God, it’s easy for authoritarian systems—whether churches, governments, or even terrorist organizations—to drive people to dangerous behaviors. The Angry God is exploited by political parties to turn out the vote. The Angry God tells terrorists to commit acts of mass violence. The Angry God then tells Christians to fear Muslims.

people who believe that God is loving will eventually develop a characteristic asymmetry in the activity of their thalamus. When that happens, God’s love becomes implanted in their sense of identity, and they begin to see the world as being basically safe. This not only allows the believer to experience peace—it also elevates her capacity to take risks for the sake of others. For those who know the Loving God, the risk of being hurt in relationships is less important, because God’s love will transcend that hurt.

Neurotheology shows us the folly of viewing the battle between faith and skepticism as a war of ideas. More than that, it shows us that most critiques of faith tend to be about the effects of authoritarian systems built on an Angry God model.

God is at least the natural forces that created and sustain the universe as experienced via a psychosocial model in human brains that naturally emerges from innate biases. Even if that is a comprehensive definition for God, the pursuit of this personal, subjective experience can provide meaning, peace, and empathy for others.

Somehow, when we see the good that can come from suffering, we suffer less.

One thing I found particularly striking was that when people experienced a prayer going unanswered, or being answered via a redemptive perspective on suffering, the way they prayed changed. Prayer became less about asking God for something and more about being in God’s presence. This presence was more than the numinous sensation that God was near. It was also a calming, peaceful outlook that encouraged the petitioners to see the world with loving eyes.

But the study’s main finding was that prayer and meditation are so similar in the brain that we can describe prayer as a type of meditation. And this should be encouraging, because research shows that meditation is one of the best things you can do for your brain—right up there with reading and physical exercise. Neuroscientists have found that people who pray regularly have thicker gray matter in their prefrontal cortex (that’s your brain’s CEO, responsible for focus and willpower) and their anterior cingulate cortex (the part of your brain responsible for compassion and empathy). The heightened activity in these key parts of the brain also reduces the responsiveness of the amygdala (the part of the brain responsible for fear and anger). You could almost say that consistent meditation makes you a better person—more focused, more compassionate, and less likely to be angry or frightened.

When you believe God loves you and loves others, it’s easier to take risks and to forgive people. It’s not enough to simply believe in God, because only prayer and meditation will turn that belief into a neural network that changes your outlook and behavior.

Prayer is at least a form of meditation that encourages the development of healthy brain tissue, lowers stress, and can connect us to God. Even if that is a comprehensive definition of prayer, the health and psychological benefits of prayer justify the discipline.

Imagine if a secular government on Earth sentenced its citizens to death for such tiny infractions. Without question, we would consider it a humanitarian crisis. Yet God, who is said to be the most just, loving entity possible, does worse than execution. God offers eternal torment.

If a car company made vehicles that were destined to crash regardless of the driver’s steering, we would blame the company when those cars crashed—not the vehicle or the driver. But penal substitutionary atonement makes humans liable for God’s creative action.

Penal substitutionary atonement may be the dominant Christian view on salvation and atonement today, but the Church has held a number of other ideas during its history. The Eastern Orthodox traditions view sin less as a crime to be punished and more as a sickness to be healed—a view I find compelling. Earlier Church ideas on salvation included such views as Christus Victor, which held that Christ’s death and Resurrection signaled God’s triumph over evil, and even “ransom atonement,” in which Jesus’ death paid a ransom to liberate humankind from Satan.

The cross was not God’s invention—it was ours. The cross was an instrument of torture, a method of intimidation created by an empire that needed to keep its conquered cities in check.

Perhaps Jesus hung on a cross to demonstrate the inevitable outcome of retributive justice in the face of an empire that used violence to expand, that survived only by placing societies under its oppressive heel.

Because in contrast to God’s mystery, Jesus makes sense. The Christian idea of incarnation—God in the form of a human—makes this “foreign” God approachable. Jesus gives God a face, a language, and stories we can understand.

Jesus is at least a man so connected to God that He was called the Son of God, and the largest religious movement in human history is centered around His teachings. Even if this is all Jesus is, following His teachings can promote peace, empathy, and genuine morality.

Jesus lived and taught in an era when might made right. The Roman Empire assimilated other cultures via a combination of military brutality and an odd sort of religious tolerance—you could have your gods, but only if they were as subject to Caesar’s reign as you were. The Jewish people under this rule responded with either peaceful submission or violent rebellion. But Jesus flipped both scripts. In the face of violent rebellion, Jesus offered a sermon that said “blessed are those” who were the least powerful people in His society. Instead of peaceful submission, he “turned the other cheek” and “walked two miles when asked to walk one,” in order to reveal the cruelty of the Roman Empire and a better way of reacting when threatened. In both cases, Jesus responded to an unsafe world by offering compassion—the kind rooted in the anterior cingulate cortex.

Sin is at least volitional action or inaction that violates human consent or produces human suffering. Sin comes from the divergent impulses between our lower and higher brain functions and is accelerated by our evolution-driven tendency to do things that serve ourselves and our tribe. Even if this is all sin is, it is destructive and threatens human flourishing.

A church represents an embodiment of two primal human needs: an urgency to belong to a community and a desire to experience God.

The Bible is at least a collection of books and writings assembled by the Church that chronicle a people’s experiences with, and understanding of, God over more than a thousand years. Even if that is a comprehensive definition of the Bible, study of Scripture is warranted to understand our culture and the way in which people come to know God.

The way I see God is not an attempt to take the mystical out of reality—it’s a way to incorporate the miracle and mystery of the life we can see, measure, observe, and test every day. A world composed of countless strange little particles, themselves made of energy and invisible fields that defy the imagination.

The God in my axioms isn’t superior to the God I once found in the Southern Baptist faith and message. Somehow, over time, we humans seem to find the image of God we need in order to serve and grow and face that often challenging task of existing as a conscious entity. I’m done saying I’ve found the right one—mysticism tells me that these are all metaphors, all symbols, pointing to a single God who is beyond anything I will ever be able to imagine.

I’m finished trying to let my faith, my theology, my reading of the Bible trump humankind’s crowning system for uncovering facts about the physical world. I’ll never do it again. There is absolutely nothing as effective for learning about physical reality as the sciences, and I love them for it.

But my faith gives me something else. A sense of meaning, belonging, and purpose in the midst of all those facts. It gives me hope that all things will work out for good, that love is the basic reality of our existence, because God is love. These ideas don’t have tremendous empirical merit, but they change my life when I hold them in an open mind.

Science gives us fact. Faith give...

THE AFTERLIFE is at least the persistence of our physical matter in the ongoing life cycle on Earth, the memes we pass on to others, and our unique neurological signature in the brains of those who knew us. Even if this is all the afterlife is, the consequences of our actions persist beyond our death, and our ethical considerations must include a time line beyond our death.