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.

Materialism in the media: Are you (a) a religious robot or (b) a religious freak?

At CNN, A. Chris Gajilan asks, Are humans hardwired for faith? Maybe we religious robots can't help it,

Newberg calls religion the great equalizer and points out that similar areas of the brain are affected during prayer and meditation. Newberg suggests that these brain scans may provide proof that our brains are built to believe in God. He says there may be universal features of the human mind that actually make it easier for us to believe in a higher power.

but on the other hand, maybe we are religious freaks,

Scott Atran doesn't consider himself an atheist, but he says the brain scans offer little in terms of understanding why humans believe in God. He is an anthropologist and author of "In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion."

Instead of viewing religion and spirituality as an innate quality hardwired by God in the human brain, he sees religion as a mere byproduct of evolution and Darwinian adaptation.

Now, before you decide which of these points of view sounds more plausible to you, please note one thing: In a pop science assessment, one possibility is absolutely off the table, and not to be considered under any circumstances: That people believe in a higher power (God, in theistic traditions) because they have in fact contacted a higher power.

The usual "neurotheology" dodge (that's the fad term for this sort of study) is that science cannot consider such issues. But that leaves science in the position of trying to figure out religious experiences on the assumption that God does not exist and does not influence them in the present.

Newberg may believe in God, or somethng like that (so I gather from his interesting bookWhy God Won't Go Away) , but what the article means by "God" is simply a necessity built into the architecture of your brain. God is not trying to get your attention in real time.

In other words, science is not about assessing the evidence, it is about accumulating evidence that supports an atheistic perspective. The really interesting result is not the way in which such a perspective deforms our understanding of religion but - as Mario Beauregard's and my forthcoming book, The Spiritual Brain will show - the way it deforms our understanding of science.