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http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/06/the-god-choice.html
The God choice
By Barbara Bradley Hagerty
A few years ago, I witnessed two great British scientists in a showdown. Nine other journalists and I were on a Templeton fellowship at Cambridge University, and on this particular morning, the guest speaker was John Barrow. Almost as an aside to his talk, the Cambridge mathematician asserted that the astonishing precision of the universe was evidence for "divine action." At that, Richard Dawkins, the Oxford biologist and famous atheist, nearly leapt from his seat.
"But why would you want to look for evidence of divine action?" demanded Dawkins.
"For the same reason someone might not want to," Barrow responded with a little smile.
In that instant, I thought, there it is. God is a choice. You can look at the evidence and see life unfolding as a wholly material process, or you can see the hand of God.
For the past century, science has largely discarded "God" as a delusion and proclaimed that all our "spiritual" moments, events, thoughts, even free will, can be explained through material means.
But a revolution is occurring in science. It is called neurotheology, and it is sparked by researchers from universities such as Pennsylvania, Virginia and UCLA. Armed with technology Freud never dreamed of, these scientists are peering into the brain to understand spiritual experience. Perhaps, they say, God is not a figment of our brain chemistry; perhaps the brain chemistry reflects an encounter with the divine.
An awakening, of sorts
This dichotomy — Is He or isn't He? — nicely locates in Jeff Schimmel's brain. Jeff is a writer in Hollywood. He was raised Jewish but never believed in God, nor did he have any interest in spirituality — until a few years ago, when he had a benign tumor removed from his left temporal lobe. The surgery was a snap. But soon after that, unknown to him, he began to suffer miniseizures. He started hearing conversations and having visions. He remembers lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling and seeing a swirl of colors that gradually settled into a shape. Suddenly, it dawned on him that it was the Virgin Mary.
"Why would the Virgin Mary appear to me, a Jewish guy?" he told me. "She could do much better."
Jeff also became fascinated with spirituality. Eventually, he became a devout Buddhist. He wondered whether his new outlook could have anything to do with his brain. On the next visit to his neurologist, he asked to see his most recent MRI. His temporal lobe had become smaller, a different shape, covered with scar tissue. Those changes had sparked electrical firings in his brain. Jeff's doctor told him he had developed temporal lobe epilepsy. His newfound faith and love for his fellow man came from his brain.
Nonetheless, I wondered: Are transcendent experiences — not only Schimmel's, but also those of mystics down the ages — merely a physiological event? Or does the brain activity reflect an encounter with another dimension?
How you come down on this issue depends on whether you think of the brain as a CD player or a radio. Most people who believe that everything is explainable through material processes think that the brain is like a CD player. The content — the song, or in our analogy, God — is all playing in a closed system. If you take a hammer to the machine, the song does not play; if you surgically remove parts of the temporal lobe, "God" disappears. In this view, there is no "God" outside the brain trying to communicate; all spiritual experience is inside the brain.
But suppose the brain is not a CD player. Suppose it is a radio. In this analogy, everyone possesses the neural equipment to receive the radio program in varying degrees. Some have the volume turned low (Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens appear to have hit the mute button). Other people hear their favorite programs every now and again, as do most of us who have brief transcendent moments. In this model, the "sender" is separate from the receiver. The content of the transmission does not originate in the brain, any more than Rush Limbaugh or the hosts ofAll Things Considered are sitting in your radio. If you destroy the radio, you cannot hear your favorite program. But the program is still transmitting. In this model, God's communications never stop —even when the brain is altered, or stops functioning.
The Pam Reynolds case
This brings us to the puzzling case of Pam Reynolds — and one of the fiercest debates in science today: the nature of consciousness. In 1991, Reynolds was found to have an aneurism on her brain stem. Faced with a ticking time bomb, she opted for an experimental operation called a "cardiac standstill." The surgeons put her under anesthesia, taped her eyes shut and put molded speakers in her ears that emitted loud clicks, about as loud as a jet plane taking off. When her brain no longer responded to those clicks, the surgeons lowered her body temperature to 60 degrees and drained the blood out of her head, like draining oil from the engine of a car. The aneurism sac collapsed for lack of blood. The surgeons drilled into her skull, snipped the aneurism and sewed it up, and then reintroduced the blood into her body.
Finally, they raised her body temperature and brought her back to consciousness.
When Reynolds awakened, she had a story to tell. She said she floated upward and watched part of the operation. She could describe what the operating theater looked like and how many surgeons there were. She could describe the unusual-looking bone saw that cut open her head, as well as the drill bits and blade container. She heard conversations, including one in which a female surgeon observed that Reynolds' left femoral vein was too small for a tube, to which the chief neurosurgeon responded, "Try the right side."
Records from the surgery confirmed all these details. Reynolds' neurosurgeon says he is flummoxed by the episode: "From a scientific perspective," he told me, "I have absolutely no explanation about how it could have happened."
Her story raises the question: Was Reynolds' consciousness operating separately from her brain?
Reynolds' experience — and that of many others — is prompting researchers at institutions such as the University of Montreal and the University of Virginia to investigate the astonishing proposition that a person might have a consciousness — or (gasp) a soul — that can operate when the brain is off-line.
In the end, we could learn that we are nothing more than nerve cells and molecules. But it is too early for believers to raise the white flag. It is just as plausible —indeed, more elegant — to believe that our brain activity reflects an unseen reality. Perhaps our brains are reflecting an encounter with the divine — unseen, surely, but still real.
Science can't referee that question. Either way, whether you are Richard Dawkins or doctor and spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, what you believe is a matter of faith. Given the choice, I opt for God.
Barbara Bradley Hagerty, the religion correspondent for NPR, is the author of Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/06/the-god-choice.html
The God choice
By Barbara Bradley Hagerty
A few years ago, I witnessed two great British scientists in a showdown. Nine other journalists and I were on a Templeton fellowship at Cambridge University, and on this particular morning, the guest speaker was John Barrow. Almost as an aside to his talk, the Cambridge mathematician asserted that the astonishing precision of the universe was evidence for "divine action." At that, Richard Dawkins, the Oxford biologist and famous atheist, nearly leapt from his seat.
"But why would you want to look for evidence of divine action?" demanded Dawkins.
"For the same reason someone might not want to," Barrow responded with a little smile.
In that instant, I thought, there it is. God is a choice. You can look at the evidence and see life unfolding as a wholly material process, or you can see the hand of God.
For the past century, science has largely discarded "God" as a delusion and proclaimed that all our "spiritual" moments, events, thoughts, even free will, can be explained through material means.
But a revolution is occurring in science. It is called neurotheology, and it is sparked by researchers from universities such as Pennsylvania, Virginia and UCLA. Armed with technology Freud never dreamed of, these scientists are peering into the brain to understand spiritual experience. Perhaps, they say, God is not a figment of our brain chemistry; perhaps the brain chemistry reflects an encounter with the divine.
An awakening, of sorts
This dichotomy — Is He or isn't He? — nicely locates in Jeff Schimmel's brain. Jeff is a writer in Hollywood. He was raised Jewish but never believed in God, nor did he have any interest in spirituality — until a few years ago, when he had a benign tumor removed from his left temporal lobe. The surgery was a snap. But soon after that, unknown to him, he began to suffer miniseizures. He started hearing conversations and having visions. He remembers lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling and seeing a swirl of colors that gradually settled into a shape. Suddenly, it dawned on him that it was the Virgin Mary.
"Why would the Virgin Mary appear to me, a Jewish guy?" he told me. "She could do much better."
Jeff also became fascinated with spirituality. Eventually, he became a devout Buddhist. He wondered whether his new outlook could have anything to do with his brain. On the next visit to his neurologist, he asked to see his most recent MRI. His temporal lobe had become smaller, a different shape, covered with scar tissue. Those changes had sparked electrical firings in his brain. Jeff's doctor told him he had developed temporal lobe epilepsy. His newfound faith and love for his fellow man came from his brain.
Nonetheless, I wondered: Are transcendent experiences — not only Schimmel's, but also those of mystics down the ages — merely a physiological event? Or does the brain activity reflect an encounter with another dimension?
How you come down on this issue depends on whether you think of the brain as a CD player or a radio. Most people who believe that everything is explainable through material processes think that the brain is like a CD player. The content — the song, or in our analogy, God — is all playing in a closed system. If you take a hammer to the machine, the song does not play; if you surgically remove parts of the temporal lobe, "God" disappears. In this view, there is no "God" outside the brain trying to communicate; all spiritual experience is inside the brain.
But suppose the brain is not a CD player. Suppose it is a radio. In this analogy, everyone possesses the neural equipment to receive the radio program in varying degrees. Some have the volume turned low (Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens appear to have hit the mute button). Other people hear their favorite programs every now and again, as do most of us who have brief transcendent moments. In this model, the "sender" is separate from the receiver. The content of the transmission does not originate in the brain, any more than Rush Limbaugh or the hosts ofAll Things Considered are sitting in your radio. If you destroy the radio, you cannot hear your favorite program. But the program is still transmitting. In this model, God's communications never stop —even when the brain is altered, or stops functioning.
The Pam Reynolds case
This brings us to the puzzling case of Pam Reynolds — and one of the fiercest debates in science today: the nature of consciousness. In 1991, Reynolds was found to have an aneurism on her brain stem. Faced with a ticking time bomb, she opted for an experimental operation called a "cardiac standstill." The surgeons put her under anesthesia, taped her eyes shut and put molded speakers in her ears that emitted loud clicks, about as loud as a jet plane taking off. When her brain no longer responded to those clicks, the surgeons lowered her body temperature to 60 degrees and drained the blood out of her head, like draining oil from the engine of a car. The aneurism sac collapsed for lack of blood. The surgeons drilled into her skull, snipped the aneurism and sewed it up, and then reintroduced the blood into her body.
Finally, they raised her body temperature and brought her back to consciousness.
When Reynolds awakened, she had a story to tell. She said she floated upward and watched part of the operation. She could describe what the operating theater looked like and how many surgeons there were. She could describe the unusual-looking bone saw that cut open her head, as well as the drill bits and blade container. She heard conversations, including one in which a female surgeon observed that Reynolds' left femoral vein was too small for a tube, to which the chief neurosurgeon responded, "Try the right side."
Records from the surgery confirmed all these details. Reynolds' neurosurgeon says he is flummoxed by the episode: "From a scientific perspective," he told me, "I have absolutely no explanation about how it could have happened."
Her story raises the question: Was Reynolds' consciousness operating separately from her brain?
Reynolds' experience — and that of many others — is prompting researchers at institutions such as the University of Montreal and the University of Virginia to investigate the astonishing proposition that a person might have a consciousness — or (gasp) a soul — that can operate when the brain is off-line.
In the end, we could learn that we are nothing more than nerve cells and molecules. But it is too early for believers to raise the white flag. It is just as plausible —indeed, more elegant — to believe that our brain activity reflects an unseen reality. Perhaps our brains are reflecting an encounter with the divine — unseen, surely, but still real.
Science can't referee that question. Either way, whether you are Richard Dawkins or doctor and spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, what you believe is a matter of faith. Given the choice, I opt for God.
Barbara Bradley Hagerty, the religion correspondent for NPR, is the author of Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality.
Sentenced to eternal death with his greatest enemy Darwin.
