Brain Science, Psychology, and Religion
There are always new articles on brain science, because it's a topic that people are continually interested in learning. I will readily admit to being a bit of a brain science junkie. So I just kind of want to free form comment on an assortment of articles that kind of sit at a confluence of each other regarding brain science, psychology and religion.
What really tripped off my interest in the last few years about the confluence of brain science and religion was Jill Bolte Taylor's TED talk about what she calls her "stroke of insight." Jill suffered a stroke, and as a neuroscientist she was in a unique position to critically understand exactly what was happening to her as it was happening. But the important thing about this talk for religion is the finale. She talks about the experiences that she has as you can independently shift her point of view of the world between the clearly delineated world of the left brain, and the immersive unity of dissolving herself into the realm of the right brain. The experience that she describes, sounds to me like the attempt to achieve oneness with all things discussed in Buddhism. But I also feel it correlates to the experiences of ecstatic religious experiences that I myself have experienced both in the evangelical churches of my youth and the intense rituals of my Pagan adulthood. Perhaps this ecstatic experience is itself a product of the right hemisphere of the brain, or for the more spiritual hypothesis that it is through the right brain that we experience the mystical unity.
I know I wrote about this collection of interviews and articles from NPR entitled "Is This Your Brain on God?" In it they explore some of the research into connections between brain science and religion. They look at four different regions of the brain and the brain as a whole while looking at the studies that people are doing into areas like near death experiences, serotonin levels, meditation, etc. The great part of this series is that they look at how the research approach things from different angles. So, there are studies that show how actions taken by people such as prayer and meditation have effects on different regions of the brain (the nun study), as well as how different regions of the brain itself can trigger religious experiences (hearing the voice of God). It takes no sides on where things are coming from, but kind of explores the various scenarios and what science can contribute to the conversation.
Going down a similar route, but being a little less objective about things, Louis Ruprecht at Religion Dispatches got seriously upset by some of the more recent research that looked at brain size and religious affiliation. While I understand his umbrage at some of the analysis regarding this research, there seems to be some kind of weird mounting evidence showing some kind of correlation between brain activity and people's likelihood to engage in certain religions over others. If I could point to a slightly tangential, but, I believe, related piece, io9 posted an article referencing the difference between different political affiliations and the person's eye movement. Liberally identified people tended to follow "gaze cues" from other people, even if they were on television, whereas conservatively identified people tended to not follow gaze cues at all. The hypothesis was that liberal people tended to be more connected to others actions, indicating some kind of group understanding, where conservative people were more rigid, following their own personal autonomy. It's kind of hard to say that things like eye movement are consciously done, it's probably an entirely physiological response from the brain itself. The question becomes, do people who follow liberal politics and liberal churches have liberally wired brains, and conservatives vice-versa? Is it any sort of problem if they do or don't?
Maybe it is more important than one would think. The article "Living the Good Lie" in this week's New York Times Magazine looks at therapists who are working with people who have deep seated mental and emotional conflict between their sexual orientation and their religious orientation. Specifically evangelical Christians who feel that homosexual behavior is a sin and contrary to their religion. How does a therapist best address this conflict with the patient, because both elements are incredibly important to a person's identity? Cognitive dissonance on this level is what leads a lot of people, especially younger people who experience this conflict, to commit suicide. The question that follows from all this research is how much of this extends beyond the cognitive level and actually goes back to the physical brain itself and the neurochemistry that drives us around? If so much of the brain directly controls things in our outward behavior without our conscious understanding of it, how can we even begin to have a successful psychological therapy? How could someone who has a brain that may be predisposed to conservative religious beliefs even begin to reconcile contrary sexual desires? I don't think there is a cognitive therapy that could truly successfully help people in that state. The only method these folks seem to have come up with is to make a determination about which is more important and to go with that. I think that's a dangerous path, but probably the only thing that will lead to some sense of peace, even if tenuous for these people.
The narrative from all this that is rolling through my brain here is David Abram's "The Spell of the Sensuous." Phenomenology posits that the physical world determines our experiences, and that we can only experience what our physical bodies allow us. Our eyes allow us to see the world, and without eyes (or something serving the role of physical eyes) submitting information to the brain we cannot see. Without nerve endings we cannot feel things. We need taste buds to taste things.
Our brains are what interprets this information around us, but the brain influences our behavior and our choices as well, and not always consciously. I don't think we can place all the actions of certain religions and their adherents on their ideology alone. We worship differently because our brains respond to those religious experiences differently. The conclusions that our religions lead us to are the product of brains who were wired a certain way, and what we see as a result are like minds coming together over centuries. I don't think this is necessarily entirely deterministic, clearly, because we have people who have left faith traditions, converted to others and who have no religion whatsoever. However, I do feel that there is something that is a very clear factor in how we should look at faith. Faith is part and parcel of the physical brain, and not just something external, explicitly social, entirely cognitive, or easily dismissed.
While not specifically religion focused, I found this interesting nevertheless. David Eagleman's article from The Atlantic entitled "The Brain on Trial" explores the confluence between things like tumors, hormones and criminal behavior. His focus is really on the legality of incarcerating people who have chemical or physiological dispositions to commit criminal acts, and how improvements in science can and should be used to improve sentencing, increase treatment and lower incarceration rates. It's a pretty compelling argument, and one that has some precedent in jurisprudence. The connection to the rest of this article, I feel, lies in how the physical and hormonal conditions lead to certain kinds of behaviors that one would never expect.
What really tripped off my interest in the last few years about the confluence of brain science and religion was Jill Bolte Taylor's TED talk about what she calls her "stroke of insight." Jill suffered a stroke, and as a neuroscientist she was in a unique position to critically understand exactly what was happening to her as it was happening. But the important thing about this talk for religion is the finale. She talks about the experiences that she has as you can independently shift her point of view of the world between the clearly delineated world of the left brain, and the immersive unity of dissolving herself into the realm of the right brain. The experience that she describes, sounds to me like the attempt to achieve oneness with all things discussed in Buddhism. But I also feel it correlates to the experiences of ecstatic religious experiences that I myself have experienced both in the evangelical churches of my youth and the intense rituals of my Pagan adulthood. Perhaps this ecstatic experience is itself a product of the right hemisphere of the brain, or for the more spiritual hypothesis that it is through the right brain that we experience the mystical unity.
I know I wrote about this collection of interviews and articles from NPR entitled "Is This Your Brain on God?" In it they explore some of the research into connections between brain science and religion. They look at four different regions of the brain and the brain as a whole while looking at the studies that people are doing into areas like near death experiences, serotonin levels, meditation, etc. The great part of this series is that they look at how the research approach things from different angles. So, there are studies that show how actions taken by people such as prayer and meditation have effects on different regions of the brain (the nun study), as well as how different regions of the brain itself can trigger religious experiences (hearing the voice of God). It takes no sides on where things are coming from, but kind of explores the various scenarios and what science can contribute to the conversation.
Going down a similar route, but being a little less objective about things, Louis Ruprecht at Religion Dispatches got seriously upset by some of the more recent research that looked at brain size and religious affiliation. While I understand his umbrage at some of the analysis regarding this research, there seems to be some kind of weird mounting evidence showing some kind of correlation between brain activity and people's likelihood to engage in certain religions over others. If I could point to a slightly tangential, but, I believe, related piece, io9 posted an article referencing the difference between different political affiliations and the person's eye movement. Liberally identified people tended to follow "gaze cues" from other people, even if they were on television, whereas conservatively identified people tended to not follow gaze cues at all. The hypothesis was that liberal people tended to be more connected to others actions, indicating some kind of group understanding, where conservative people were more rigid, following their own personal autonomy. It's kind of hard to say that things like eye movement are consciously done, it's probably an entirely physiological response from the brain itself. The question becomes, do people who follow liberal politics and liberal churches have liberally wired brains, and conservatives vice-versa? Is it any sort of problem if they do or don't?
Maybe it is more important than one would think. The article "Living the Good Lie" in this week's New York Times Magazine looks at therapists who are working with people who have deep seated mental and emotional conflict between their sexual orientation and their religious orientation. Specifically evangelical Christians who feel that homosexual behavior is a sin and contrary to their religion. How does a therapist best address this conflict with the patient, because both elements are incredibly important to a person's identity? Cognitive dissonance on this level is what leads a lot of people, especially younger people who experience this conflict, to commit suicide. The question that follows from all this research is how much of this extends beyond the cognitive level and actually goes back to the physical brain itself and the neurochemistry that drives us around? If so much of the brain directly controls things in our outward behavior without our conscious understanding of it, how can we even begin to have a successful psychological therapy? How could someone who has a brain that may be predisposed to conservative religious beliefs even begin to reconcile contrary sexual desires? I don't think there is a cognitive therapy that could truly successfully help people in that state. The only method these folks seem to have come up with is to make a determination about which is more important and to go with that. I think that's a dangerous path, but probably the only thing that will lead to some sense of peace, even if tenuous for these people.
The narrative from all this that is rolling through my brain here is David Abram's "The Spell of the Sensuous." Phenomenology posits that the physical world determines our experiences, and that we can only experience what our physical bodies allow us. Our eyes allow us to see the world, and without eyes (or something serving the role of physical eyes) submitting information to the brain we cannot see. Without nerve endings we cannot feel things. We need taste buds to taste things.
Our brains are what interprets this information around us, but the brain influences our behavior and our choices as well, and not always consciously. I don't think we can place all the actions of certain religions and their adherents on their ideology alone. We worship differently because our brains respond to those religious experiences differently. The conclusions that our religions lead us to are the product of brains who were wired a certain way, and what we see as a result are like minds coming together over centuries. I don't think this is necessarily entirely deterministic, clearly, because we have people who have left faith traditions, converted to others and who have no religion whatsoever. However, I do feel that there is something that is a very clear factor in how we should look at faith. Faith is part and parcel of the physical brain, and not just something external, explicitly social, entirely cognitive, or easily dismissed.
While not specifically religion focused, I found this interesting nevertheless. David Eagleman's article from The Atlantic entitled "The Brain on Trial" explores the confluence between things like tumors, hormones and criminal behavior. His focus is really on the legality of incarcerating people who have chemical or physiological dispositions to commit criminal acts, and how improvements in science can and should be used to improve sentencing, increase treatment and lower incarceration rates. It's a pretty compelling argument, and one that has some precedent in jurisprudence. The connection to the rest of this article, I feel, lies in how the physical and hormonal conditions lead to certain kinds of behaviors that one would never expect.