Atheism and popular culture: Why science, not faith, is now often the enemy of reason

In "Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason", the Daily Mail's Melanie Phillips points out that current sicence can be an enemy of reason, as much as blind faith:

The heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief in the concept of truth, which gives rise to reason. But our postreligious age has proclaimed that there is no such thing as objective truth, only what is "true for me".
That is because our society won't put up with anything which gets in the way of 'what I want'. How we feel about things has become all-important. So reason has been knocked off its perch by emotion, and thinking has been replaced by feelings.

This has meant our society can no longer distinguish between truth and lies by using evidence and logic. And this collapse of objective truth has, in turn, come to undermine science itself which is playing a role for which it is not fitted.

Worse, many scientists such as genome mapper Francis Crick ended up insisting that our brains have not evolved to understand scientific truth, but only to leave fertile descendants. (The Spiritual Brain, p. 111.) If they were right, we would be fools to heed anything they said, as if it had meaning. Fortunately, they are wrong.

Neurotheology - or neurobullshipping?

Mario, my lead author, dislikes the term "neurotheology", and now I know why. A recent article by Hannah Elliott in Associated Baptist Press News informs us:

Theories about correlations between the brain and beliefs are nothing new. Historians have speculated that figures like Joan of Arc, Saint Teresa of Avila, Fedor Dostoevsky and Marcel Proust had aliments like epilepsy, which in turn led to their obsessions with the spiritual world.

Yes, but that is neurobullshipping, as we show in The Spiritual Brain.

Not only that, but it is neurobullshipping in the service of a materialist agenda. The article quotes Massimo Pigliucci:

If "we realize that mystical experiences originate from the same neurological mechanisms that underlie hallucinations ... I bet dollar to donut that the reality experienced by meditating Buddhists and praying nuns is entirely contained in their mind and is not a glimpse of a 'higher' realm, as tantalizing as that idea may be," he concluded.
Simmons called that criticism "on target." Neurotheology doesn't deal with theology as it is traditionally done -- trying to get religion and experience together with reasonable consistency, he said. Progress in the field will come mostly in mental health, he said.

He wasn't asked to unpack that statement.

Also,

Alston, who studied ethics and philosophy at Yale Divinity School, says criticism of neurotheology depends on who is receiving the information. Much of it has to do with the difference between the physical brain and the metaphysical mind. Some experts believe that ideas in the mind cause action, while others say chemicals in the brain cause action -- and if chemicals are altered in the brain, behaviors will change, Alston said.
Either way of thinking is okay, since neurotheologists aren't interested in changing firmly held beliefs, he said.

Bu what does this mean? If "ideas in the mind cause action", the mind is real, and people who have a spiritual experience might contact something outside themselves. If "chemicals in the brain cause action", the mind is an illusion created by the action of these chemicals and people who have a spiritual experience are simply the victims of an odd conflation of chemicals.

Alston goes on:

"What I'm trying to do with neurotheology is to explain that each of these has a way with relating to the subject matter," he said. "It once again depends on the standing point of a person in terms of if they're a biologist and what their tools are and if they are a psychologist and what their tools are."

No, sorry, Alston. That will not work. You must establish which of these propositions is true in order to fruitfully study religious, spiritual, or mystical experiences, because they lead in entirely different directions.

Hat tip to Stephanie West of Brains on Purpose.

Service Note

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), anoverview of the intelligent design controversy, and of Faith@Science. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

My other blog is the Post-Darwinist, detailing events of interest in the intelligent design controversy.