AT ALL-enlightenment & brain

[Guest guest]

In the May 7 issue of Newsweek, there was a very

interesting article on 'Religion and the Brain'. It looked at

spiritual states from a neurological point of view and

claimed that all mystical experiences, spiritual moments

and religious epiphanies exhibit the same brain

circuitry. The same circuits were interrupted and the same

circuits were activated in each test case. <br><br>But the

conclusion cannot be reached that spiritual experiences are

caused by those circuitry changes. As the article

states, 'The bottom line is that there is no way to

determine whether the neurological changes associated with

spiritual experience mean that the brain is causing those

experiences or is instead perceiving a spiritual

reality.'<br><br>This attempt to cast experience as a brain function

has been around for a long time. The limitations of

this approach can be seen with the example of a

subject reporting seeing the colour blue and the

neurosurgeon lifting the subject's skull, looking into the

subject's brain and saying, 'I don't see any blue there,

you must be mistaken.'<br><br>It's one thing to say,

"This is your brain. And this is your brain on God."

But it cannot be concluded that, "God is only this

activity of your brain."

[Guest guest]

<<'The bottom line is that there is no way

to determine whether the neurological changes

associated with spiritual experience mean that the brain is

causing those experiences or is instead perceiving a

spiritual reality.'>><br><br>Well, what do you guys

think? I think that spiritual experience is a wonderful

byproduct of our consciousnesses and neural circuitry.