How God Changes Your Brain | Reflections & Notes - Vialogue

Andrew Newberg, and Mark Robert Waldman. How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist. Ballantine Books, 2009. (348 pages) [Full book @ “publicism.info”]

REFLECTIONS

Wow!

“Theology” in all the ways I’ve been taught, has been an exercise in discerning the “objective truth” of the “divine.” I confess, while in my earlier stages I was enthralled with that approach, I have since come to disdain the systematized structure we have put on the discipline of “Theology Proper.” One of the reasons is the mere incoherence of the thousands (“millions”?) of theologies that have filled the pages of seminary books. They simply all can’t be “true,” even as they are purported as such, with forceful “absolutism.” The religious explanations that have the most traction in my faith journey have always been grounded in the flesh. And what better flesh is there to consider when thinking or contemplating “God” than the three pounds of gray matter that encapsulate all of life’s experiences?!

I love this book, and the ideas that are found in its pages. Newberg and Waldman help us understand why children need concrete images of God, and adults hold more abstract concepts of God. They show us the power that biological variants have over theological beliefs, and how beliefs and spiritual practices can have power over our biology. Faith, as a “will to expect” something we cannot see is also a very powerful evolutionary tool of survival that has been adapted to generate purpose, meaning, and accomplishments. The “personality” of God can be traced through the long evolution of our brains as well, that wrathful, harsh, and fearful “gods” are rooted in the earlier parts of our brain, while compassion, love, openness, empathy, and pluralistic “gods” emerge from the most recently evolved parts of our brain. Could this help explain the evolution of religious ideas as well, that we are all growing more compassionate over time?! That is astonishing and breathtaking! And, because I am a pattern-seeking creature, knowing that the anterior cingulate’s regulation of the amygdala by activity in the prefrontal cortex translates to less fear as we become more loving towards one another is just beautiful, as stated in 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” For those still challenged with the dictates of religious texts, understanding the neurobiological roots of these ideas can truly help increase appreciation of the why behind religious dogma, and how it can be shaped and shifted over time; yea, even how it has been shaped over time, and how some texts (I’m partial to the Jewish and Christian texts) expressly exemplify the redemptive movement of faith over thousands of years.

I had one significant inquiry. The prescriptions we find in this book are predicated on “free will,” that we can choose which parts of our brains we develop, what activities we focus on, and what chemical balances we work to nurture. While this may be a good premise for a book like this, it is in no way philosophically satisfactory. I would love to hear the neurobiological inner workings of “free will” next.

In line with the thesis of the book, I commend this to your reading, to quell your anxiety, lower your anger, increase your empathy, and maximize your faith. May we continue down the path of becoming more open, capacious, egalitarian, pluralistic, loving, gracious, compassionate, patient, forgiving, and creative. Oh, perhaps, more like God!

NOTES

ONE. RELIGION AND THE HUMAN BRAIN

Our time is distinguished by wonderful achievements in the fields of scientific understanding and the technical application of those insights. Who would not be cheered by this? But let us not forget that knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of th einquiring and constructive mind. – Albert Einstein, The Human Side

1. Who Cares about God?Prelude to a Neurological and Spiritual Revolution

THE SCIENCE OF GOD

In fact, as far as we can tell, most of the human brain does not even worry if the things we see are actually real. Instead, it only needs to know if they are useful for survival. (5)

Having an accurate perception of reality is not one of the brain’s strong points. Indeed, as Mark and I pointed out in Why We Believe What We Believe, [The paperback edition is entitled Born to Believe: God, Science, and the Origin of Ordinary and Extraordinary Beliefs (The Free Press, 2007).] the human brain seems to have difficulty separating fantasies from facts. (5)

Indeed, the more one contemplates God, the more mysterious God becomes. (5)

Our research has led us to the following conclusions:

1. Each part of the brain constructs a different perception of God.
2. Every human brain assembles its perceptions of God in uniquely different qualities of meaning and value.
3. Spiritual practices, even when stripped of religious beliefs, enhance the neural functioning of the brain in ways that improve physical and emotional health. (6)
4. Intense, long-term contemplation of God and other spiritual values appears to permanently change the structure of those parts of the brain that control our moods, give rise to our conscious notions of self, and shape our sensory perceptions of the world.
5. Contemplative practices strengthen a specific neurological circuit that generates peacefulness, social awareness, and compassion for others. (7)

…our research has led us to conclude that three separate realities intermingle to give us a working model of the world: the reality that actually exists outside of our brain, and two internal realities–maps that our brain constructs about the world. One of these maps is subconscious and primarily concerned with survival and the biological maintenance of the body. But this map is not the world itself; it’s just a guide that helps us navigate the terrain. Human beings, however, construct a second internal reality–a map that reflects our conscious awareness of the universe. This consciousness is very different from the subconscious map formed by our sensory and emotional circuits. (7)

Overall, our consciousness represents a reality that is the farthest removed from the world that actually exists outside of the brain. Thus, if God does exist, there would be three separate realities to consider: the God that exists in the world, our subconscious perception of that God, and the conscious images and concepts that we construct in a very small part of our frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes. (7)

ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK

EXPLORING THE COMPLEXITIES OF GOD

From a neurological perspective, God is a perception and an experience that is constantly changing and evolving in the human brain, and this implies that America’s spiritual landscape is virtually impossible to define. You can’t nail God down for good or for bad. And you can’t intuit a person’s innermost values based upon their creed or the church they choose to attend. If more people realized that everyone was talking about something fundamentally personal and different, perhaps a degree of distrust would fall away. (10)

Ultimately, it is a mistake to assume that any self-assigned label, category, or description of religious belief accurately captures a person’s value system or morality. Furthermore, our research suggests that the more a person contemplates his or her values and beliefs, the more they are apt to change. (11)

THE SHADOW SIDE OF GOD

The psychological, sociological, and neuroscientific data simply disagree. The problem isn’t religion. The problem is authoritarianism, coupled with the desire to angrily impose one’s idealistic beliefs on others. (11)

There is, however, a shadow side to religious and political organizations, especially when their tenets stipulate that there is only one absolute and undeniable truth. When such individuals band together, they unconsciously foster and “us versus them” mentality that neurologically generates fear and hostility toward people who hold different beliefs. Neuroscience tells us that the moment we see an angry face, or hear angry words, our brain kicks into overdrive, generating stress (11) chemicals that will make us fight or run. Anger generates anger, and the angrier a group of people get, the greater the possibility that violence will erupt. (12)

…you can’t judge people by their beliefs, but you can judge them by how they behave toward others. (12)

The enemy is not religion; the enemy is anger, hostility, intolerance, separatism, extreme idealism, and prejudicial fear — be it secular, religious, or political. (13)

…if our survey measurements are correct, each new generation is literally reinventing God in an image that points toward an acceptance and appreciation of our pluralistic world. (13)

| To survive in a pluralistic society, we must evolve our spirituality and our secularity, integrating religion and science in a way that can be beneficial to all. But to do this we must overhaul antiquated religious notions that interfere with the religious freedoms of others. Most important, we will need to devise innovative ways to promote peaceful cooperation between people, especially between those who hold different religious views. In this respect, scientists, psychologists, sociologists, theologians, and politicians must forge new cooperative alliances in order to improve our global interactions with others. (14)

GOD AND THE NEUROPLASTICITY OF THE BRAIN

Contemplating God will change your brain, but I want to point out that meditating on other grand themes will also change your brain. … But religious and spiritual contemplation changes your brain in a profoundly different way because it strengthens a unique neural circuit that specifically enhances social awareness and empathy while subduing destructive feelings and emotions. (14)

The development of particular neurological connections or skills does not occur gradually over time. … Instead such changes tend to occur suddenly, appearing in short intervals after robust stimulation. It is as if there is a single important trigger and then a functional circuit rapidly comes online. – Akira Yoshii

If you alter the environmental stimulus, the internal function of the nerve cells will change, causing them to grow new extensions called axons capable of sending different information to other parts of the brain. In fact, every change in the environment–internal and external–will cause a rearrangement of cellular activity and growth. Even more interesting, every neuron has its own “mind,” so to speak, for it can decide whether to send a signal, and if it does, how strong a signal to send. (15)

So what does neuroplasticity have to do with God? Everything, for if you contemplate something as complex or mysterious as God, you’re going to have incredible bursts of neural activity firing in different parts of your brain. New dendrites will rapidly grow and old associations will disconnect as a new imaginative perspectives emerge. In essence, when you think about the really big questions in life — be they religious, scientific, or psychological — your brain is going to grow. (16)

NEUROSCIENCE 101

There are six structures that we want you to keep in mind: the frontal lobe, limbic system, anterior cingulate, amygdala, thalamus, and parietal lobe. (16)

RELIGION THAT MAKES US MORE “HUMAN”

LEARNING TO FEEL COMPASSION

Ultimately, this book is about compassion… Compassion, as I am using it here, is similar to empathy, and it expresses our neurological capacity to resonate to another person’s emotions. But compassion goes a step further, referring to our ability to respond to another person’s pain. It allows us to be more tolerant of others and more accepting of our own shortcomings and faults. (18)

If you have a larger or more active anterior cingulate, you may experience greater empathy, and you’ll be far less likely to react with anger or fear. If the anterior cingulate malfunctions, your (18) communication skills will be compromised and you won’t be able to accurately sense what others are thinking or feeling. (19)

HUMANITY’S GREATEST ENEMY: ANGER

No matter how discreet, anger generates anxiety, defensiveness, and aggression in the other person–the famous fight-or-flight reaction that every living organism contains. And if you respond to someone else’s anger with irritability–which is the way most brains are designed to react–the problem only gets worse. (19)

| Anger interrupts the functioning of your frontal lobes. Not only do you lose the ability to be rational, you lose the awareness that you’re acting in an irrational way. When your frontal lobes shut down, it’s impossible to listen to the other person, let alone feel empathy or compas-(19)sion. Instead, you are likely to feel self-justified and self-righteous, and when that happens the communication process falls apart. Anger also releases a cascade of neurochemicals that actually destroy those parts of the brain that control emotional reactivity. (20)

HAVING FAITH

…if I had to pick two things that I have learned–as a doctor, a teacher, a husband, and a father–I would first say that life is sacred. (20)

The second thing I’ve learned is that behind our drive to survive, there is another force, and the best word to describe it is faith. Faith not just in God, or in science or love, but faith in ourselves and each other. Having faith in the human spirit is what drives us to survive and transcend. It makes life worth living, and it gives meaning to our life. Without such hope and optimism–synonyms for what I am calling faith–the mind can easily slip into depression or despair. Faith is embedded in our neurons and in our genes, and it is one of the most important principles to honor in our lives. (20)

What is your ultimate pur-(20)suit and dream? What do you truly desire in your life–not only for yourself, but for the world as well? And how will you begin to make that desire a reality? (21)

2. Do You Even Need God When You Pray?Meditation, Memory, and the Aging Brain

From a spiritual perspective, each mudra or mantra is associated with a theological or metaphysical idea, but from a scientific perspective, any form of repetitive movement or sound helps to keep the mind focused. This particularly interested me because the neural deterioration of aging often affects muscle coordination and verbalization skills. (24)

MEDITATION FOR CONSTRUCTION WORKERS?

PROTECTING AND STRENGTHENING YOUR AGING BRAIN

…the prefrontal cortex, an area heavily involved in helping an individual maintain a clear, focused attention upon a task. The anterior cingulate…a structure that is involved with emotional regulation, learning, and memory, and is particularly vulnerable to the aging process. The anterior cingulate plays a major role in lowering anxiety and irritability, and also enhances social awareness, a feature that tends to deteriorate with age. (27)

Not only does activation in the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate improve memory and cognition, it also counters the effects of depression, a common symptom in age-related disorders. (27)

Overall, the evidence clearly demonstrates that most forms of contemplative meditation and yoga will exercise your brain in ways that maintain and promote cognitive health and vitality. (28)

Schematic showing the circuit activated by Kirtan Kriya: the prefrontal cortex (PFC), anterior cingulate (Cing), basal ganglia (BG), and thalamus (Thal). During meditation, we become more focused and alert (PFC), more empathetic and socially aware (Cing), and can better control your body movements and emotions (BG). This affects our sensory perception of the world (Thal), and this information is relayed to other parts of the brain.

Our brain-scan study showed that the meditation Gus performed strengthens a specific circuit–involving the prefrontal and orbital-frontal lobe, the anterior cingulate, basal ganglia, and thalamus–that would otherwise deteriorate with age. This circuit governs a wide variety of activities involved with consciousness, clarity of mind, reality formation, error detection, empathy, compassion, emotional balance, and the suppression of anger and fear. (28)

| When this particular circuit malfunctions or deteriorates, it contributes to the formation of depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and schizophrenia. We can keep this circuit healthy, and even improve it, by incorporating meditation into our daily activities and rituals, regardless of our beliefs. (29)

THE AMAZING PLASTICITY OF THE BRAIN

…parietal lobe. … We don’t fully understand the reason for it, but it appears that a loss of self-consciousness enhances one’s intention to reach specific goals. A loss of one’s sense of self also appears to improve one’s ability to perform a variety of tasks, with greater pleasure. (29)

The basal ganglia helps control voluntary movements, posture, and motor sequencing, but it also plays an important role in memory formation, behavioral control, and cognitive flexibility. Abnormal functioning in this area is associated with normal aging and movement disorders like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Tourette’s, and Huntington’s disease. This suggests to us that movement-based meditations, more so than passive meditations, should strengthen the neural functioning of those parts of the brain susceptible to many age-related diseases. However, other forms of meditation, such as Zen, also improve cognition by strengthening different circuits of the brain that normally decline with age. (30)

TESTING GUS’S COGNITIVE SKILLS

MEDITATION WITHOUT GOD

Our study also shows that meditation can be separated from spiritual roots and still remain a valuable tool for cognitive enhancement. (31)

GUS’S LEGACY: THE POWER OF SELECTIVE ATTENTION

Our frontal lobe holds the secret for making our dreams come true. That secret can be summarized in two words–selective attention–the ability to voluntarily choose, from millions of pieces of data, which ones seem most relevant to your life. (32)

The first step begins with a desire–the conscious wish to change. Once that decision is made, you must train yourself to remain focused on your goal. … Focused attention begins to build new neuronal circuits, that, once established, will automatically activate those parts of the brain that involve motivational activity. And the more that activity is repeted, the stronger those neural circuits become. This mechanism is known as Hebbian learning–often stated as “cells that fire together, wire together”–and it is the primary mechanism by which all living organisms gain new knowledge about the world. Repeating a new task, such as meditation or prayer, changes the synaptic activity at the end of a neuron and will eventually change the structure of the cell. (33)

HAVING FAITH IN REACHING YOUR GOALS

Underlying these four steps–desire, focus, regulated body control, and practice–is a fifth process, one that is essential for obtaining your desire or goal. We call it “expectation,” a term, much like faith, that reflects our neurological propensity to believe that we can, and will, accomplish our goals. Expectation is different from hope because it gives you the inner conviction that your goal is attainable, even if it seems irrational. It is one of the underlying principles of optimism, and it also governs the neurological mechanism known as the “placebo effect.” If you strongly believe in something–in other words, if you have enough faith in yourself–you will stimulate both your immune system and your motivational system into action. (34)

[via: I concur with the definition, but would suggest that there is a definition of “hope,” spiritually/biblically speaking, that is exactly the definition Newberg/Waldman give for “expectation.” In this understanding, “faith,” “hope,” and “expectation,” are all synonymous.]

IF you set your mind on reaching a spiritual goal, you’ll neurologically enhance your sense that a spiritual reality can be experienced. (34)

PROTECTING THE AGING BRAIN

Numerous studies have shown that the mere repetition of a sound, phrase, or finger movement over a period of time significantly reduces symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression, and anger, while improving the practitioner’s perception of quality-of-life and spiritual well-being. In fact, the addition of movement to any meditation should significantly enhance the cognitive performance of the brain. Repeated, skilled finger movements also appear to improve the central and peripheral nervous systems, offsetting the age-related loss of hand control. In one study, musicians who used repeated finger movements had lower rates of dementia, and in another, early musical training with children resulted in the “long-term enhancement of visual-spatial, verbal, and mathematical performance.” In fact, it is fair to consider any musical training a form of cognitive meditation. because it involves intense concentration, repetition of instructional techniques, body coordination, and motivational attention. (35)

[via: So a “worship” song that is repetitive, or my penchant for typing all these notes from these books I read, do these count too?! :-)]

| There is even considerable evidence documenting the effects of pleasant music on the brain. It deepens emotional experience, enhances visual and auditory processing, and improves attention and the processing of emotions. (35)

…stress is the number one killer in America because it damages nearly every organ in the body–especially your brain. (36)

EXERCISING YOUR DENDRITES

Mild, short-term, or chronic stress impairs memory by disrupting dendritic activity. (36)

In this simplified drawing, dendrites receive signals from other neurons and pass the information to the axon terminals, which will release neurotransmitter signals to other neurons.

DESIGNING A PERSONAL MEMORY-ENHANCEMENT MEDITATION

The key elements are simple: Maintain a state of relaxed awareness, regulate your breathing, and perform a simple or complex movement with any part of your body. As you do this, sing, chant, or silently repeat a sound or phrase that has personal meaning, and practice for at least twelve minutes each day. And don’t forget the most important step: Be clear about the goal you wish to reach. (38)

What you choose to meditate upon, or pray for, can do more than change your brain. You can damage it, especially if you choose to focus on something that makes you frightened or angry. (39)

3. What Does God Do to Your Brain?The Neural Varieties of Spiritual Practice

Storytelling may deepen a child’s fantasy about God, but rituals give personal meaning to theological ideas. (41)

THE “GOD” CIRCUITS IN YOUR BRAIN

From early childhood on, God exists in every person’s brain as a combination of ideas, images, feelings, sensations, and self/other relationships. Here is a thumbnail sketch of key neural structures and circuits that shape our perception of God:

OCCIPITAL-PARIETAL CIRCUIT Identifies God as an object that exists in the world. Young children see God as a face because their brains cannot process abstract spiritual concepts.

PARIETAL-FRONTAL CIRCUIT Establishes a relationship between the two objects known as “you” and “God.” It places God in space and allows you to experience God’s presence. If you decrease activity in your parietal lobe through meditation or intense prayer, the boundaries between you and God dissolve. You feel a sense of unity with the object of contemplation and your spiritual beliefs.

FRONTAL LOBE Creates and integrates all of your ideas about God–positive or negative–including the logic you use to evaluate your religious and spiritual beliefs. It predicts your future in relationship to God and attempts to intellectually answer all the “why, what, and where” questions raised by spiritual issues.

THALAMUS Gives emotional meaning to your concepts of God. The thalamus gives you a holistic sense of the world and appears to be the key organ that makes God feel objectively real.

AMYGDALA When overly stimulated, the amygdala creates the emotional impression of a frightening, authoritative, and punitive God, and it suppresses the frontal lobe’s ability to logically think about God.

STRIATUM Inhibits activity in the amygdala, allowing you to feel safe in the presence of God, or of whatever object or concept you are contemplating. (43)

ANTERIOR CINGULATE Allows you to experience God as loving and compassionate. It decreases religious anxiety, guilt, fear, and anger by suppressing activity in the amygdala. (44)

Anatomical location of specific brain structures. The limbic system consists of the amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and thalamus, in addition to other regions not shown.

CAN YOU SEPARATE SPIRITUALITY FROM GOD?

Spiritual practices are designed to stimulate dramatic experiences, but you can also transfer nearly any religious ideology from one spiritual practice to another and still receive the same neurological benefits from the experience. (45)

EASTERN MEDITATION AND WESTERN PRAYER

Formal Christian meditation was developed by early monastic orders. In the twelfth century, Guigo II, a Carthusian monk, categorized (46) four levels of practice: lectio (slowly reading biblical passages), meditatio (pondering the deeper meaning of the text), oratio (spontaneous prayer), and contemplatio (wordlessly focusing on God’s love). (47)

COMPARING THE CENTERING PRAYER TO BUDDHIST MEDITATION

…the benefits gleaned from prayer and meditation may have less to do with a specific theology than with the ritual techniques of breathing, staying relaxed, and focusing one’s attention upon a concept that evokes comfort, compassion, or a spiritual sense of peace. Of course, the more you believe in what you are meditating or praying about, the stronger the response will be. (48)

THE NEURAL CONSTRUCTION OF GOD

A person with an overly active limbic system might ruminate day after day on original sin, while a person with an overly active frontal lobe might become absorbed in (49) mathematically proving the ontological existence of God, as Kurt Gödel attempted to do. (50)

Other parts of the brain are associated with different notions and experiences of God. For example, the occipital cortex, which is at the back of the brain, helps us to envision an anthropomorphic God, while the temporal lobes (situated above the ear but below the parietal area) allow some individuals to hear God’s voice. If these areas are injured, some patients begin to see or hear all sorts of phenomena that they interpret as religious, mystical, or demonic. (51)

The parietal lobe, when active, gives us a sense of our self in relation to time, space, and other objects in the world. This allows us to imagine a God that is separate from ourselves, existing beyond the boundaries of our personal being. Our brain-scan studies of contemplative forms of Buddhist and Christian meditation show that when activity in the parietal areas decreases, a sense of timelessness and spacelessness emerges. This allows the meditator to feel at one with the object of contemplation: with God, the universe, peacefulness, or any other object upon which he or she focuses.

ENHANCING COMPASSION AND SOCIAL AWARENESS

The anterior cingulate is situated between the frontal lobe and the limbic system, acting as a mediator between our feelings and our thoughts. It is involved in social awareness and intuition, and is larger in women than in men. This may explain why women generally are more empathic, socially skilled, and more (52) reactive to fear-inducing stimuli. …men who have difficulties expressing their feelings, or recognizing the feelings of others, have a larger anterior cingulate area in the right half of their brain. Thus, they may have a greater capacity to shut down feelings by reducing fear-arousing activity in the amygdala. Such men simply experience less emotion, unless they are strongly provoked. Other studies have shown that insensitive men have less activity in the anterior cingulate, suggesting that they may still feel negative emotions but are unaware of them. (53)

Highly anxious individuals may be attracted to fundamentalist religions because they offer a highly structured belief system that reduces feelings of uncertainty. In this respect, membership in a strict religious order can reduce feelings of anger, anxiety, and fear. And, once you are accepted as a member, you will be joyously embraced by the entire congregation. This, we believe, will have a positive effect on the anterior cingulate in the development of compassionate feelings toward oneself and other members of the group. However, if the community emphasizes disdain toward members of other groups, this will ultimately inhibit the functioning of the anterior cingulate. (53)

If you want to maintain a healthy anterior cingulate cortex, frontal cortex, and limbic system, by all means meditate and pray, but only on those concepts that bring you a sense of love, joy, optimism, and hope. We believe that meditation is particularly important for the brain be-(53)cause it counteracts our biological propensity to react to dangerous situations with animosity or fear. However, it also appears to make us more sensitive to the suffering of others, which may explain why those traditions that emphasize meditation are often involved in community charities and peacekeeping ventures. (54)

WHAT PART OF THE BRAIN MAKES GOD REAL?

The thalamus plays a crucial role in identifying what is and isn’t real, and it gives a sense of emotional meaning to the thoughts (54) that emerge in the frontal lobe. (55)

Thus, the more you focus on God, the more God will be sensed as real. But it will not be a “symmetrical” reality. Instead, it will be perceived “asymmetrically,” meaning that the reality will appear different from one’s normal perception of the world. (55)

The thalamus makes no distinction between inner and outer realities, and thus any idea, if contemplated long enough, will take on a semblance of reality. Your belief becomes neurologically real, and your brain will respond accordingly. (55)

THE CHEMICAL NATURE OF GOD

Research has shown that spiritual practices affect other important neurochemicals in the brain. For example, gentle forms of yoga that involve breathing and stretching have been shown to increase gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels in the brain by as much as 27 percent, which is associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety. Transcendental Meditation (which is a simple combination of relaxation, breathing, and the repetition of a symbolic sound) also lowers the stress molecules, epinephrine and norepinephrine, which explains why contemplative practices leave you pleasurably relaxed. By altering the neurochemistry of the brain, spiritual practices bestow a sense of peace, happiness, and security, while decreasing symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress. (56)

CAN YOU FIND GOD BY SWALLOWING A PILL?

We still have much to learn about how and why certain drugs influence our spiritual and religious beliefs, but the fact remains that meditation is safer. (58)

REINVENTING GOD

To summarize, the neural varieties of religious experience are just that—varieties. There is no “God spot,” nor is there any simple way to categorize religious beliefs. The data points to an endless variety of ways in which spiritual practices can affect the cognitive, emotional, and experiential processes of the brain, and each one of these experiences will lead to a different notion about God. (60)

IS GOING TO CHURCH GOOD FOR YOU?

No matter how you want to interpret the findings, the evidence is clear that religious involvement has little down side and very often has a beneficial effect, especially when one feels positive about his or her religious beliefs. (61)

These studies support our argument that fear-based religions can be hazardous to one’s health. It’s too bad that the Surgeon General can’t place a warning sign on certain passages from the Bible or Koran, especially those that encourage violence toward people who hold different beliefs. (62)

THE ELEMENT OF TIME

IN SUMMARY

By manipulating our breath, body, awareness, feelings, and thoughts, we can decrease tension and stress. We can evoke or suppress specific emotions and focus our thoughts in ways that biologically influence other parts of the brain. From a neuroscientific perspective, this is astonishing because it upsets the traditional view that we cannot voluntarily influence nonconscious areas in the brain. Only human beings can think themselves into happiness or despair, without any influence from the outside world. Thus, the more we engage in spiritual practices, the more control we gain over our body, mind, and fate. (63)

TWO. NEURAL EVOLUTION AND GOD

4. What Does God Feel Like?The Varieties of Spiritual Experience

…spiritual experiences can be defined in either religious or secular terms. (67)

…if you think about God as a feeling, as opposed to an entity that exists in the universe, it will take more neural time and energy to process. It also suggests that people who spend a great amount of time contemplating God are more likely to perceive God in more sophisticated ways. (68)

…a gradual shift is taking place in America, where the importance of God’s physical characteristics is declining, while an interest in spiritual values is increasing. (69)

SURVEY OF SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES

SEARCHING FOR THE REALITY OF GOD

PERSONAL VARIETIES OF SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

In essence, hardly anyone used the same words, phrases, or expressions to describe his or her personal encounter with the divine. Truly religious and spiritual experiences are unique, at least when it comes to our ability to describe them in words. (72)

The only common denominator we found was not in the description, but in the positive effect that such experiences had on the participants’ lives. (73)

Cognitive processes turn God into an idea, but sensory processes turn God into a generalized feeling that changes the way we perceive the world.

IS GOD PRIMARILY A FEELING OR AN IDEA?

Based upon what we know about the brain’s processing of sensations and the conscious recognition of experiences, we believe that a person’s spiritual experience (such as being born again) precedes cognitive awareness by approximately a half second. Then, to translate that awareness into language, the brain must engage in dozens of unrelated activities to turn that experience into words. This takes additional neurological time, so the gap widens between the actual experience and the (75) expression of it through language. The experience may be common to many people, but the words used to describe it will inevitably vary from person to person. Thus, it is possible that different spiritual texts are describing a universal experience but using language that is idiosyncratic to the culture and denomination in which it was written. (76)

So why do people call this experience “God”? For the simple reason that the brain must affix a name onto anything it experiences in order to file it into memory. Vague experiences stimulate many parts of the brain, generating uncertainty and anxiety, and so for survival reasons the brain will consolidate and reduce a feeling into an identifiable category. If you consciously interrupt the labeling process that naturally occurs in your frontal lobe, you will interfere with your ability to communicate the experience to others. Religious practitioners who do this are often considered mystics because they refuse to define their experiences in unambiguous ways.

GOD FEELS LIKE LOVE AND EVOKES PEACE

RELEASING THE DEMONS

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES ADD NEW DIMENSIONS TO LIFE

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES CHANGE YOUR OLD BELIEFS

BECOMING ONE WITH GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND OURSELVES

Nearly every spiritual experience, in some small way, changes our sense of reality and the relationship we have with the world. Generally, it increases our sense of unity and wholeness, not just in a metaphoric sense, but in the way we conduct our lives. In fact, almost three-quarters of our respondents indicated that they felt a sense of oneness with the universe or a unity with all of life. These feelings are also associated with a greater sense of purpose and meaning in one’s life. (81)

Religion and spirituality operate on different levels, but they ultimately affect each other. Religion creates a template for spiritual practice, and spiritual experiences alter one’s conception of religion. (81) Thus as long as people have experiences they equate with spirituality, religious beliefs will change. (82)

THE FUTURE OF GOD

All of the research that we and others have accumulated allows us to make a prediction about the future of God. Clearly, God is not going to go away, but it won’t necessarily be the God depicted in our sacred texts. According to a recent Barna survey, the biblical views of an all-powerful, all-knowing creator is waning. What will take its place? If our survey sheds any light on the question, it will be a God that maintains its mystery, a very intimate experience that cannot be captured by words. And if the trend toward personal spirituality continues, we should see a world where many notions of God coexist. Hopefully, this will inspire greater tolerance between people of different religious faiths as they realize the underlying unity and diversity of these experiences. (82)

| How will traditional religious institutions respond? In the same way they have in the past—reinventing themselves to meet the needs of the next generation of seekers. Mainstream churches are liberalizing their theologies. Evangelicals are moving away from the rhetoric of fundamentalism, and New Age churches are growing throughout the country. Even in Muslim countries, support for extremist politics and beliefs is beginning to decline.15

Religion and spirituality are constantly changing and evolving, and this is a good thing, for both society and the human brain. New ideas challenge us to think more deeply about personal values and survival, and the more you think about the mysteries of human nature, the more likely it is that you’ll have an epiphany that can improve the inner quality of your life. For most Americans, that is what spirituality is about. (82)

5. What Does God Look Like?Imagination, Creativity, and the Visual Representation of Spirituality

DRAWING PICTURES OF GOD

It actually takes a person longer to respond to no, which suggests that the brain does not take kindly to having its behavior interrupted. (84)

Catholic children associated God with family. Jewish children talked about God in relationship to suffering. For Baptist children, God was controlling, providing order, organization, and structure to one’s life. Hindu children identified their gods with community. (85)

A CHILD’S IMAGE OF GOD

Drawings of God from a seven-year-old girl (left) and a fourteen-year-old boy (right). Both children attended Sunday school.

As religious children grow older, their depictions of God become more abstract, reaching 80 percent by the age of sixteen. Only 20 percent of the pictures drawn by older non-religious children were abstract; 80 percent remained anthropomorphic. (Chart modified after Hanisch.)

IMAGINING GOD

Young children do not have the cognitive skills to articulate abstract concepts of God, but they can use their visual imagination to comprehend spiritual realms. Even in the adult brain, ideas appear to be associated with internal visual processes, and mathematicians often think in pictures when they describe the invisible forces of the universe. Even when we imagine the distant past or future events, we activate the visual-spatial circuits in the brain. In fact, if you cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell something, the brain’s first impulse is to assume that it doesn’t really exist. Thus, for anyone, the brain’s first response is to assign an image to the concept of God. (87)

GOD IS A NOUN

EXAMINING ADULT PICTURES OF GOD

ADULT CHURCH ATTENDEES

Drawing from a twenty-two-year-old Religious Science woman who was raised Catholic (left), and a seventy-two-year-old man (right) who had been affiliated with Religious Science for forty years.

Unlike the children, there wasn’t a single representation of a biblical theme, perhaps reflecting the nonbiblical theology of the church. (93)

…as the brain matures, the more abstract and mysterious one’s concept of God becomes. (93)

cf. James Fowler’s model of faith development, Stages of Faith

COLLEGE STUDENTS

Does this imply that adolescents as a group are less religious than adults? Yes. We know, for example, that religious interests rapidly decline during adolescence and that many teens will reject their parents’ values as they attempt to redefine their spiritual beliefs. Indeed, for many people religiosity continues to decline through the rest of life, a trend that has continued since 1970. (95)

Drawing by an agnostic nineteen-year-old female college student who saw God as a natural loving energy that was both male and female and that permeated the universe.

ADULT NONBELIEVERS

THE PICTORIAL MEANING OF GOD

Our ongoing research continues to demonstrate that all human beings develop multiple images of God, many of which are largely hidden from consciousness. Yet these images affect the way we think and feel. (99)

Drawing by a forty-year-old male atheist who reported having spontaneous mystical and transcendent experiences at various times in his life.

In every child, and perhaps every adult, there is an artist that is capable of reaching out beyond the confines of a limited human mind to touch some deeper essence of life. So wherever you turn, and whomever you ask, it appears as though everyone has some image of God, even if it is represented by nothing other than a blank sheet of paper. To a neuroscientist this suggests that believers and disbelievers may harbor a “God neuron” or a “God circuit” somewhere inside the brain. For one individual, such a neuron might connect with feelings of pleasure and awe, but for another, to feelings of disappointment or pain. There may even be people who lack the neural circuitry to construct either a positive or negative image of God. Instead, they must find meaning and purpose somewhere else. (101)

IS THERE A GOD NEURON IN YOUR BRAIN?

Is it possible that some people could have a neuron, or specific set of neurons, that would fire when they are asked to envision God? Yes, but it would probably be associated with the image they were introduced to in early childhood. (102)

As brain-scan technology becomes more refined, I suspect we will see that each human being has a unique neural fingerprint that represents his or her image of God.(102)

ENVISIONING TRANSCENDENCE

For the genuine mystic, God transcends every concept the brain can possibly generate. But what happens in such a brain? What happens when you go against your biological propensity to turn God into an image? At first your brain rebels. It doesn’t like uncertainty, and when it encounters a problem that appears to be impossible to solve, it releases a lot of neurotransmitters, which put you on alert. You’ll feel an odd combination of anxiety, curiosity, irritability, frustration, and excitement—feelings that stress chemicals trigger in your brain. And if you don’t find a solution, you could easily end up depressed. In religious circles this is called the dark night of the soul. (103)

[via: “Golden Calf” moment?]

Based upon the research we have accumulated, we believe that the more you examine your spiritual beliefs, the more your experience of God will change. And if you cannot change your image of God, you may have trouble tolerating people who hold different images of God, and that may threaten our planet’s survival. In the words of the religious philosopher Martin Buber:

Time after time, the images must be broken … [for it] is the human soul which rebels against having an image that can no longer be believed in, elevated above the heads of humanity as a thing that demands to be worshipped. In our longing for a god, we try again and again to set up a greater, more genuine and more just image, which is intended to be more glorious than the last and only proves more unsatisfactory. The commandment, “Thou shalt not make unto thee an image,” means at the same time, “Thou canst not make an image.” This does not, of course, refer merely to sculptured or painted images, but to our fantasy, to all the power of our imagination as well. But we are forced time and again to make images and forced to destroy them when we realize that we have not succeeded. The images topple, but the voice is never silenced. – Buber M. The Way of Response (Glatzer, ed.). Schocken, 1971.

From a neurological perspective, images of God are unavoidable, but from many theological perspectives, there is no true image of God. Thus, if you cling to your childhood perceptions, you will limit your perception of truth. This is the drawback to any religion that insists upon a literal, biblical image of God. If you limit your vision, you might feel threatened by those who are driven to explore new spiritual values and truths—people who one day might turn out to be our future leaders and saints.

THE SELF-EVOLVING BRAIN

The neural evolution of God is unavoidable in most human beings, but not in the Darwinian sense of the word. Human beliefs are not tied to the principles that govern genetic evolution, and thus we are free to reinvent ourselves, and our spirituality, with every new generation.

What makes human beings unique is the extraordinary impermanence of their ideas, and this impermanence is reflected in our extraordinary neuroplasticity. Neurons do not have fixed properties. Instead, they are changing all the time. It takes less than two weeks for a neuron to grow new axons and dendrites, and in some cases the change occurs suddenly. Competitive behavior, environmental influences, education, or even a rousing sermon can trigger a rapid rewiring of circuits. In essence, evolution gave us a nervous system that actively participates in its own neural construction, something we do not see in other animal brains. (104)

It even appears that our brain has a mutant strand of DNA that contributes to our creativity, inventiveness, and individual uniqueness. These “jumping genes,” as scientists are fond of calling them, can cause cells to change their functioning as we grow. This explains why identical twins are not really identical, why one family member can be brilliant at math, while another excels at sports, or why one relative ends up struggling with a serious mental illness when no other family member has any semblance of a problem. No two people perceive the world, or God, in the same way, because no two human brains begin with the same genetic code. (104)

Terrance Deacon, the esteemed professor of anthropology and neuroscience at the University of California in Berkeley, describes the human brain as an “evolutionary anomaly” because human beings have unparalleled cognitive abilities to imagine the unimaginable:

We think differently from all other creatures on earth, and we can share those thoughts with one another in ways that no other species even approaches…. We alone brood about what didn’t happen, and spend a large part of each day musing about the way things could have been if events had transpired differently. And we alone ponder what it will be like not to be…. No other species on earth seems able to follow us into this miraculous place.

We live most of our lives in a world that is filled with imaginative thoughts, and as we age, we continually modify our beliefs. We are born anew, as the evangelicals like to say, and we can do it as often as we like. We can change our religion, we can change our moral code, and we can change our pictures of God, thanks to the evolution of a truly unusual brain. (104)

6. Does God Have a Heart?Compassion, Mysticism, and the Spiritual Personalities of the Brain

Whether we are conscious of it or not, we all assign a personality to God, which appears to be neurologically based on the nature of our own personality and beliefs. (107)

THE FOUR GODS OF AMERICA

…authoritarian, critical, distant, or benevolent. (107)

THE AUTHORITARIAN GOD

THE CRITICAL GOD

When combined with the first group of believers, nearly 50 percent of all Americans embrace a God that is cold, critical, and harsh. This, to me, reflects an underlying pessimism about the human condition and the moral state of the world. (109)

THE DISTANT GOD

THE BENEVOLENT GOD

Since most of the Old Testament describes a wrathful God, this may be the primary reason why so few people see God as a symbol of eternal love. To see God as primarily loving, a person must embrace a liberal interpretation of the Bible, ignoring or rejecting the vindictive passages. (110)

[via: So, this is a complicated claim and one that perhaps needs nuance. By what objective measure can we say “most of the Old Testament describes a wrathful God,” or is that not, again, a mere function of our neurology, a bias that leads us toward that conclusion based upon our generational, theological, or chronological position?]

THE NURAL PERSONALITY OF GOD

The personality you assign to God has distinct neural patterns that correlate with your own emotional styles of behavior. For example, according to the Baylor study, most of those who embrace an authoritarian God tend to favor the death penalty, want to spend more money on the military, want to give the government more power to fight terrorism, and insist that prayer should be allowed in public schools. (110)

| Envisioning an authoritarian or critical entity—be it another person or God—will activate the limbic areas of the brain that generate (110) fear and anger. Thus, the brain is primed to fight, and so it should come as no surprise that the strongest advocates of an authoritarian God often call themselves “God’s warriors.” (111)

We suggest that the anterior cingulate is the true “heart” of your neurological soul, and when this part of the brain is activated, you will feel greater tolerance and acceptance toward others who hold different beliefs. The God of the limbic system is a frightening God, but the God of the anterior cingulate is loving. (111)

THE MYSTICAL PERSONALITY OF GOD

THE 99 ATTRIBUTES OF ALLAH

In Islam, the various personalities of God are named, to be meditated upon in silence. Some are loving, some are cruel, and others are unique to the Muslim and Sufi traditions. Allah is: compassionate, merciful, sovereign, holy, bestower of peace, grantor of security, guardian, mighty, irresistible, majestic, creator, organizer of all, perceiver, illustrious, all inclusive, everlasting, all able, determiner, expediter, delayer, the first, the last, victorious, hidden, patron, supreme, kind and righteous, relenting, avenger, pardoner, pitying, owner of all, majestic, equitable, unifier, all rich, emancipator, defender, harmful, benefactor, light, guide, incomparable, immutable, inheritor of all, teacher, timeless, fashioner of forms, forgiver, subduer, bestower, provider, victory giver, all knowing, abaser, exalter, giver of honor, giver of dishonor, all hearing, all seeing, arbitrator, just, kind, all aware, indulgent, infinite, all forgiving, grateful, sublime, great, preserver, nourisher, reckoner, majestic, generous, watchful, responsive, vast, wise, loving, glorious, raiser of the dead, the witness, truth, dependable, strong, steadfast, friend and helper, praiseworthy, originator, producer, the restorer, giver of life, bringer of death, ever living … and the ninety-ninth name of God is sustainer. (114)

THE NEURAL EVOLUTION OF GOD

In practice, most people maintain multiple images of God. But just as human personalities evolve, so does one’s concept of God. I’m going to (114) suggest that the different personalities of God—authoritarian, critical, distant, benevolent, and mystical—correlate to the neurological evolution and development of the brain. (115)

I’m also going to go a step further and argue that authoritarian gods are associated with the oldest, most primitive structures of the brain, whereas a benevolent or mystical God is experienced through the most recently evolved parts of the brain, structures that appear to be unique in human beings. This developmental view, by the way, roughly parallels the cultural evolution of religious traditions throughout the world. For example, the mythological gods of nearly every tribal community had nasty personalities. Zeus was an arrogant bully, Huitzilopochtli—the bloodthirsty god of the Aztecs—needed a steady diet of human sacrifices, killing everyone in her path, and the God of the early Hebrews wiped out nearly every living creature with forty days of rain. But as societies and religions developed, you tend to see the emergence of kinder deities and gods. (115)

Something happened in the brains of our ancestors that gave us the power to tame this authoritarian God. No one knows exactly when or how it happened, but the neural structures that evolved enhanced our ability to cooperate with others. They gave us the ability to construct language and to consciously think in logical and reasonable ways. Our research shows that they are the same structures stimulated when we meditate and pray, which is what allows us to consciously envision a loving and compassionate God. Without these new neural connections, humans would be limited in their ability to develop an inner moral code or a societal system of ethics. (115)

[via: I want to know what that “something” is! And, how can we distinguish, and/or “will” to existence this reality? Through philosophy? Biology? Combination of both?!]

THE CULTURAL EVOLUTION OF GOD

GLIMMERS OF AMERICAN MYSTICISM

Then something unusual occurred in the mid-1800s. Small groups of people—many of them wealthy, educated, and culturally sophisticated—became enamored of various esoteric, spiritualistic, and transcendental philosophies imported from Europe and Asia. These were the people who introduced the notion of a truly mystical God, and the movement captured the imagination of America. One could argue that the “spirit” of Christianity was reborn, and it spawned new sects across the country. For example, Christian Science practitioners embraced the notion that God was entirely good and perfect and that, through divine love, all forms of sickness could be healed. Evil was simply an absence of truth. (118)

These “New Thought” churches changed the religious landscape of America by taking the authority of God completely out of the hands of the clergy and giving it to their congregants. Suddenly, God was no longer a distant heavenly power, but an internally active force that anyone could directly experience and use. Evangelical revivalism swept through the nation as tens of thousands of people were touched by gifts of the Holy Spirit. The mystical God had arrived. (118)

DOES GOD HAVE A WALLET?

Along with the Unitarians, Unity Churches, and Quakers, the Church of Religious Science developed philosophies of greater open-mindedness by proclaiming the inner divinity of the human being and extending kindness to every person regardless of their religious orientation or belief. In these churches, God, consciousness, morality, and science are melded into a universal human spirit that is simultaneously mystical and materialistically pragmatic. In many ways these modern churches reflect the same deist philosophy that had captured the imagination of the eighteenth-century leaders of the Enlightenment. God had fallen out of heaven and taken up residence in the mind. (119)

OLD GODS NEVER DIE

THE WAR BETWEEN THE AMERICAN GODS

We can’t get rid of our old limbic God, which means that anger and fear will always be part of our neural and spiritual personality. However, we can train the newer structures in our brain to suppress our biological tendency to react with anger and fear. (123)

EXERCISING YOUR COMPASSIONATE NEURONS

The emotional circuits of our limbic brain have less plasticity than the frontal lobe. (123)

The anterior cingulate acts as a kind of fulcrum that controls and balances the activity between the frontal lobes and limbic system.

In this example, the emotional limbic system, which includes the fear-producing amygdala, has a reciprocal relationship with your frontal lobe and your ability to use logic, reason, and language. The anterior cingulate, which sits right on the boundary between the limbic system and the frontal lobe, acts like a fulcrum, balancing your feelings and thoughts. If you get too emotional, blood flows into the limbic system, stimulating alertness, defensiveness, and fear in the amygdala. Just like a seesaw, as activity goes up in the limbic area, activity goes down in the frontal lobe. Thus, when you’re angry or anxious, you stop being logical or reasonable, and your cognitive skills are suppressed. (125)

When the amygdala becomes active, the anterior cingulate shuts down, which allows your reptilian brain to run the show. Empathy and intuition decline, and you lose your ability to accurately assess how other people feel. (126)

| On the other hand, if your frontal lobe becomes active, you stimulate the anterior cingulate, which slows down activity in the amygdala. Thus, logic and reason subdue anger and fear. It’s that simple. When one side of the imaginary seesaw goes up, the other side goes down. But if the anterior cingulate is damaged—through a stroke, a lesion, or even too much anger—everything becomes unbalanced. Thus, it is essential that you nurture that inner negotiator, which is what meditation and spiritual practices do. They strengthen the frontal lobe—which stimulates the anterior cingulate—and this allows you to pursue your conscious goals in life with greater purpose and serenity. A strong frontal–anterior cingulate circuit also inhibits anxiety, depression, and rage. (126)

EMBRACING COMPASSION AND PEACE

…the more you activate your anterior cingulate, the less you’ll perceive God as an authoritarian or critical force. It’s quite easy to do. Simply focus on compassion or an image of peace as you breathe deeply and relax. (126)

THE ELUSIVE MYSTICAL GOD

Your brain just doesn’t like mysteries, and people who are overly sensitive to uncertainty might prefer to embrace a more traditional notion of God. (128)

THE FUTURE OF GOD

If our description of the neural evolution of religious belief is correct, it might be possible to predict the future of God. … I think we will see a very slow acceptance of pluralism, in which believers of different faiths struggle to incorporate the disparate spiritualities that populate our world. But as one study reported, this may lead to lower levels of religiosity. However, the research we’ve reported on suggests that spiritual interests will continue to prosper and grow. (129)

The God of the future would have to fill many roles and transcend many interpretations of historical religious texts. But as I have always argued, if God is truly infinite, then God must have infinite manifestations. Each person can only see a very limited version of whatever God or the universe might be. It is like the old story of the blind men who are asked to describe an elephant. The one who touches the trunk says that it is long, flexible, and wet. The one who touches the foot says it is short, stout, and rough. And the one who handles the tusk disagrees with the other two, saying that it is slender, smooth, and hard. They are all correct but will not be able to grasp what an elephant is until they put all the parts together. Perhaps, in a similar way, if we bring together all of our descriptions of human nature, reality, spirituality, and the universe, we might achieve a fuller understanding of what God is.

The enemy of a pluralistic God would reflect selfishness, anxiety, fear, anger, and racism—in other words, all the qualities that manifest themselves in an “us versus them” mentality. But you can’t pluck out your amygdala, that neural fundamentalist in your brain. Instead, you must tame it, through education, contemplation, and love. That’s what (129) your frontal cortex and anterior cingulate are designed to do. They can imagine a better future, and they can manipulate the world to make those dreams come true. And as long as there are unanswered questions about ourselves, the universe, or the meaning of life, our brains will constantly invent new spiritual frameworks to make sense out of an incomprehensibly complex world. (130)

7. What Happens When God Gets Mad?Anger, Fear, and the Fundamentalist in Our Brain

THE TWO WOLVES

Once upon a time, or so the Cherokee legend goes, a young Indian boy received a beautiful drum as a gift. When his best friend saw it, he asked if he could play with it, but the boy felt torn. He didn’t want to (131) share his new present, so he angrily told his friend, “No!” His friend ran away, and the boy sat down on a rock by the stream to contemplate his dilemma. He hated the fact that he had hurt his friend’s feelings, but the drum was too precious to share. In his quandary, he went to his grandfather for advice. (132)

| The elder listened quietly and then replied. “I often feel as though there are two wolves fighting inside me. One is mean and greedy and full of arrogance and pride, but the other is peaceful and generous. All the time they are struggling, and you, my boy, have those same two wolves inside of you.” (132)

| “Which one will win?” asked the boy. (132)

| The elder smiled and said, “The one you feed.” (132)

| We all harbor a pack of neurological wolves in our brain. The old ones reside in the limbic system, and they are filled with aggression and fear. They’re fast, efficient, and potentially deadly, and they’ve been running the show for 150 million years. The younger ones reside in our frontal lobes and anterior cingulate, where empathy, reason, logic, and compassion reside. These pups are playful and imaginative, but they are also neurologically vulnerable and slow when compared to the activity in the emotional parts of the brain. (132)

| So, when it comes to making sophisticated moral decisions, which one will win? The selfish brain or the cooperative one? Again, as with the two wolves, it depends on the one you feed. If you allow anger and fear to dominate, you will lose the neurological ability to think logically and act compassionately toward others. In fact, it is nearly impossible to find peace and serenity if your mind is preoccupied by negative, anxious, or hateful thoughts. (132)

Excessive anger or fear can permanently disrupt many structures and functions in both your body and your brain. These destructive emotions interfere with memory storage and cognitive accuracy, which, in turn, will disrupt our ability to properly evaluate and respond to social situations. Anger makes people indiscriminately punitive, blameful, pessimistic, and unilaterally careless in their logic and reasoning skills. Furthermore, anger encourages your brain to defend your beliefs—be they right or wrong—and when this happens, you’ll be more likely to feel prejudice toward others. You’ll inaccurately per-(132)ceive anger in other people’s faces, and this will increase your own distrust and fear. It’s an insidious process that feeds on itself, and it can influence your behavior for very long periods of time. Eventually, it will even damage important structures in your brain. (133)

Nor is it good for your heart. Regardless of your age, gender, or ethnicity—anger, cynicism, hostility, and defensiveness will increase your risk of cardiovascular disease and cerebrovascular problems. What makes anger particularly dangerous is that it blinds you to the fact that you’re even angry; thus, it gives you a false sense of certainty, confidence, and optimism. (133)

| When people use their religion or politics—or even humor or teasing—as a weapon to aggressively disparage others who embrace different beliefs, they unwittingly stimulate the other person’s brain to retaliate with similar aggression. Aggression and hostility shut down activity in the anterior cingulate and striatum—the two key areas of the brain that control anger and fear—and when this occurs, the amygdala takes over, generating a “fight or flight” response that is spread through every other part of the brain. (133)

| In fact, brain-scan evidence suggests that you won’t even be able to read this chapter without having some of your “limbic buttons” pushed, because the moment the brain hears or sees words that have a negative meaning, your amygdala goes on the alert. Words like anger, fear, selfish, danger, and punish—which are used more than fifty times in this chapter—are neurologically unpleasant, whereas emotionally positive words like love, compassion, and trust activate the striatum and other parts of the brain that are related to pleasure, happiness, peace, and the sense of impending reward. In this chapter, we’ll be addressing the positive and negative aspects of “fundamentalism,” but because the word has become so closely associated with authoritarianism, right-wing conservatism, and terrorism, it is virtually impossible to talk about this important societal issue without stirring up feelings of discomfort.

[via: The phenomena described here, I have called “the swirly of doom” and the “emotional echo-chamber.”]

SELFISHNESS AND MORALITY

Children do not know how to behave morally because their brain has not developed the cognitive skills to comprehend abstract ethical principles. (134)

Not only are we neurologically inclined to act selfishly, but we are also neurologically equipped to detect acts of selfishness and deceit in others. (134)

TAMING YOUR SELFISH BRAIN

We all begin life with a biological propensity for selfishness, and evidence shows that we rarely, if ever, completely abandon these traits. We may suspend them temporarily in order to get along with others, but even then, altruism frequently appears to be a by-product of mutually satisfying each individual’s personal desires. (135)

How do we find the “right” balance between punishment and reward? It is a question that has never been satisfactorily answered from either a psychological or theological perspective. Nor has anyone been able to conclusively show that religion strengthens moral convictions. (136)

So is there something more definitive that we can do to tame our selfish brain? Neurologically, the answer is surprisingly simple, be-(136)cause all we need to do is consciously exercise kindness and fairness toward others. As many studies have shown, the more compassionate we become, the more generous those around us become. And when we perceive others as being sensitive to our needs, our brains respond with greater generosity, a condition known as reciprocal altruism. (137)

…when people embrace egalitarian beliefs, they become less authoritarian in behavior. (137)

AN “US VERSUS THEM” MENTALITY

As Princeton University professor Susan Fiske explains, if you want to decrease your natural tendency toward prejudice and out-group bias, don’t “categorize” yourself. People, she states, can get beyond—and even prevent—“their automatic use of category-driven impression formation and decision making.” You’ll do your brain, and society, a lot of good if you don’t identify yourself as a Christian, Muslim, Jew, or atheist. Even labels like Democrat, Republican, or American can trigger an unconscious “us versus them” mentality in your brain. (138)

[via: “Tribalism.” cf. Mason’s book, Uncivil Agreement.]

FUNDAMENTALISM AND ANGER

cf. The Fundamentalism Project

People feel comforted by strong beliefs because it gives them an unambiguous understanding of the world. And within the fundamentalist community, there exists a strong sense of social support. (140)

As we see it, the neurological problem of fundamentalism does not lie in the firm adherence to a specific set of beliefs. Rather, the problem arises when individuals use their religion to justify angry feelings toward others. Specifically, expressing or listening to angry thoughts can disturb the normal neural functioning of many parts of the brain. In fact, just reading emotionally evocative words stimulates the amygdala and hippocampus in ways that resemble the encoding of traumatic memories. (140)

Unfortunately, as far as the brain is concerned, negative speech has a stronger effect than positive speech. Negative remarks and memories are more strongly encoded in the brain, and they are the most difficult memories to eradicate. In fact, simply being around negative people will make you more prejudiced, because listening to negative opinions can easily undermine your positive opinions about virtually anything. (141)

In essence, our brains are designed to mimic the emotional expressions of others. Not only does this allow us to feel what others feel, but it causes what is known as “emotional contagion,” a universal neurological process whereby subjective feelings are transferred to other people and spread through social groups. So how fast does it take the brain to react to another person’s emotion? When you see an angry expression, it takes less than one second for your brain to respond with fear. (141)

RESPONDING TO ANGER WITH COMPASSION

No matter what our beliefs are, our brain is making a leap of faith. (42)

I also wondered whether it was ever possible to easily alter someone’s way of thinking, especially if he or she was a “true” believer. It is a question I have pondered for decades, and the short answer is, “No.” From a neurological perspective, the more we immerse ourselves in a specific ideology, the more the brain responds to that belief as if it were objectively real. Thus, there is no simple technique, or drug, that will change a person’s fundamental beliefs. (142)

WILL SKEPTICISMHURT YOUR BRAIN?

No, but cynicism will. Skepticism implies open-mindedness and the willingness to suspend judgment until both sides of an argument are considered, and this enhances neural functioning, particularly in the frontal lobes. A cynic, however, is a person who has taken their disbelief to a point of emotional distrust and rejection that borders on hostility toward the other point of view. This “limbic” personality is pessimistic and is so neurologically dangerous it can even shorten your life.

I believe that the best manner for dealing with strong fundamentalists is through education and exposure to other ideas. Our research has shown that the more you hear, read, and think about different ideas, the more those ideas take root. Over time, distrust toward those who hold different beliefs begins to decline. (143)

“NOBLE” IDEOLOGIES

The problem, as we see it, is not religious fundamentalism but authoritarianism and the impulse to impose one’s ideals on as many people as possible. (143) [cf. Stanford Prison Experiment]

WHEN GOD GETS ANGRY WITH YOU

When things don’t go the way we think they should, the brain will wonder what went wrong. If you blame the world or God, you’ve relinquished self-responsibility, and that certainly won’t solve the problem. But if you blame yourself, guilt can shut your frontal lobes down. If that happens, you lose your ability to analyze the situation, and the longer you stay focused on negative self-beliefs, the more likely you are to become depressed. (145)

As doctors, we have come to realize that people need to deal with their spiritual pathology in addition to their physical and mental concerns. In this (145) context, I am reminded of the biblical story of Job, who suffers terribly, even though he lives a virtuous life. His friends believe that he is a sinner and is being punished by God. Job questions God, but God declines to answer, until he finally says, “Where were you when I created the world?” The implication, at least for me, is that we can never know the mystery that is God. Nor should we be so arrogant as to think that we truly understand how the world works. This is where faith comes in, be it in ourselves, in medicine, in science, or in God. Faith tempers our anxiety and fears, and it may even temper one’s belief in an angry God. The beauty of Job’s story is that it reminds the suffering believer that God is ultimately compassionate. And from the perspective of medicine and neuroscience, compassion can heal the body as well as the soul. (146)

But no matter how open-minded you become, and no matter how tolerant or compassionate you think you are, there will always remain the remnants of a neurological exclusiveness and fundamentalism in your brain—a wolf that will respond with fear and anger to all that is different and new. The struggle between good and bad, between tolerance and intolerance, between love and hate, is the personal responsibility of every individual on this planet. The question remains: Which wolf will you feed, and which wolf will you tame? (146)

THREE. TRANSFORMING YOUR INNER REALITY

8. Exercising Your BrainEight Ways to Enhance Your Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Health

THE EIGHTH BEST WAY TO EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN

Smile.

THE SEVENTH BEST WAY TO EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN

Stay intellectually active. … Nearly every age-related cognitive disability is related to the functioning of your frontal lobe, so it’s particularly important to exercise this specific part of your cortex, which, by the way, has more neural interconnections than any other lobe. (153)

Imagination even improves the motor coordination of your body, and if you rehearse a dance step or a golf swing in your mind, you’ll actually perform the task better. The same is true for attaining personal goals. The more often you imagine what you want, the more likely you are to achieve it. (153)

…be sure to make your intellectual pursuits enjoyable. (153)

THE SIXTH BEST WAY TO EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN

Consciously relax.

THE FIFTH BEST WAY TO EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN

Yawn.

Yawning will relax you and bring you into a state of alertness faster than any other meditation technique I know of,… (157)

Besides activating the precuneus, [yawning] regulates the temperature and metabolism of your brain. (157)

12 ESSENTIAL REASONSTO YAWN

1. Stimulates alertness and concentration
2. Optimizes brain activity and metabolism
3. Improves cognitive function
4. Increases memory recall
5. Enhances consciousness and introspection
6. Lowers stress
7. Relaxes every part of your body
8. Improves voluntary muscle control
9. Enhances athletic skills
10. Fine-tunes your sense of time
11. Increases empathy and social awareness
12. Enhances pleasure and sensuality (158)

Our advice is simple. Yawn as many times a day as possible: when you wake up, when you’re confronting a difficult problem at work, when you prepare to go to sleep, and whenever you feel anger, anxiety, (158) or stress. Yawn before giving an important talk, yawn before you take a test, and yawn while you meditate or pray because it will intensify your spiritual experience. (159)

THE FOURTH BEST WAY TO EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN

Meditate.

THE THIRD BEST WAY TO EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN

Aerobic exercise.

Combined strategies are always more effective, so why not assemble all of the above techniques into a cardiovascular meditation? Warm up with a dozen yoga stretches and yawns, then put on your running shoes and smile. And, since there’s no reason why you can’t contemplate God or focus on developing inner peace as you strengthen your muscles, bones, heart, and brain, why not pick a spiritual or personal goal that you want to accomplish in your life? You can literally sprint to success. Get together with a small group of spiritually minded friends and sponsor an interfaith marathon with your church. Become a cardiovascular Christian. Do isotonics for Islam. Jog for Judaism. Bike for Buddhism. Eat plenty of vegetables and be as healthy as a Hindu. And don’t forget to yawn. You’ll open your heart and your mind, in both a spiritual and literal way. (161)

THE SECOND BEST WAY TO EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN

Dialogue with others.

THE NUMBER ONE BEST WAY TO EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN

Faith. No matter what choice we make concerning our physical, emotional, and spiritual health, we’ll never know for certain if we are absolutely correct in our beliefs. We can make educated guesses about the world, but some degree of uncertainty will always remain. This is true for medicine and science, and it’s certainly true when it comes to our religious beliefs. (163)

Faith is equivalent with hope, optimism, and the belief that a positive future awaits us. Faith can also be defined as the ability to trust our beliefs, even when we have no proof that such beliefs are accurate or true. The psychiatrist Vicktor Frankl, who was imprisoned in a Nazi death camp until the end of World War II, said that the single most important thing that kept a survivor alive was faith. If a prisoner lost faith in the future, he was doomed, because the will to live seldom returned. (165)

To me, it doesn’t matter if God is an illusion or fact, because even as a metaphor, God represents all we are capable of becoming, an ideal that offers hope to millions of people throughout the world, especially for those who may have little to fall back on other than their religious ties. Faith in an optimistic future may be a placebo, but it’s important to remember that placebos can cure, on average, 30 percent of most physical and emotional diseases. Even an irrational belief in a cure that has been proven not to work can significantly boost the body’s immune system when dealing with a deadly disease.(164)

THE PRINCIPLES OF AFFIRMATION

Now, as I have emphasized throughout this book, truth can only be approximated by the brain. Instead, what the brain does best is calculate the odds of success. Here is where faith kicks in, because it is essential to remain optimistic about your chances of reaching your goals. (166)

The magic comes when other people feel and see your optimism and excitement about your project, which makes similar circuits in their brain resonate to yours. If they have the time, energy, and mutual interest, they will be neurologically inclined to join forces with you, or at least support you and give you helpful advice. (167)

ARE THERE ANY DRAWBACKS TO UNREALISTIC OPTIMISM?

Evolution has given us the biological ability to be optimistic and hopeful about the future, even when there is no concrete evidence to support our beliefs. This too is one of the functions of our frontal lobes, but we need to exercise it daily, having faith in humanity, and especially in ourselves. (169)

9. Finding SerenityMeditation, Intention, Relaxation, and Awareness

INTENTION

You begin with a goal-oriented thought, and the more you focus on it, the more your brain begins to plot out strategies to carry that thought into the world. (171)

RELAXATION

AWARENESS

It heightens the quality of the experience and reminds you that there is so much “experience” in everything we do. Meditation broadens your scope of conscious experience, and this strengthens important circuits in your brain. (173)

WHAT HAPPENED TO GOD?

CONFRONTING THE BELLIGERENT BRAIN

That old limbic system, which is largely responsible for maintaining synaptic stability, is not as flexible as the creative frontal lobes. Thus, it’s easy to dream up a new idea, but exceedingly difficult to get the rest of the brain to comply. Even if you succeed in changing different aspects of your personality, don’t be surprised if old patterns of behavior reassert themselves from time to time. (175)

| So what is the solution to this neural resistance to change? Mark and I recommend three things: a conscious commitment to make a small improvement every day, a good dose of social support to help you honor that commitment, and a hefty serving of optimism and faith. (175)

Oh, and one other thing: a willingness to practice, at the very least, for a few minutes every day. With practice, you can build up to twenty to forty minutes a day, which may be the ideal range of time to enhance the neural functioning of your brain. (175)

BEGIN WITH A SIMPLE GOAL

But if you ultimately want to promote world peace, start by generating a few minutes of peacefulness during a coffee break. Then extend it into your lunch hour. Yawn a few times and take several deep breaths when you find yourself stuck in rush-hour traffic, and send a small blessing to the driver who just cut you off. At first you’ll feel some resentment, but soon you’ll notice an overall lessening of frustration. (176)

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

Here’s a list of the exercises that we have included in this chapter:

1. Breathing Awareness (page 179)
2. Deep Yawning (page 182)
3. The Relaxation Response (page 184)
4. Progressive Muscle Relaxation (page 185)
5. Visualization and Guided Imagery (page 187)
6. Candle Meditation (page 192)
7. The Centering Prayer (page 193)
8. Walking Meditation (page 195)
9. Memory Enhancement (page 199)
10. Sitting with Your Demons (page 201)
11. The Imaginary Fight (page 205)
12. Sending Kindness and Forgiveness to Others (page 206)

In fact, mere repetition of any positive phrase will reduce stress, anxiety, and anger while simultaneously improving one’s quality of life. (184)

Anger is a defense we are born with, but it is an enemy to dialogue, empathy, and trust. (201)

…research has shown that victims of violent crime and war who can forgive their perpetrators have decreased anxiety and depression, while those who can’t forgive are more inclined toward psychiatric disease. (207)

FINAL REFLECTIONS ON MEDITATION, RELAXATION, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

The truth of the matter is this: Each person should do what feels intuitively right. Otherwise, it becomes work. (209)

Exercise, social interaction, and optimism all tie for first place in terms of keeping your brain healthy, and meditation comes in second. (210)

DESTROYING THE ILLUSION OF THE UNIVERSE

…there is one style worth mentioning that has a very different objective. … It involves the conscious pursuit of having no goal at all. You are attempting to achieve absolute inner silence. No emotions or thoughts–just pure awareness or consciousness of what is. (212)

TEST-DRIVING YOUR BRAIN ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM

10. Compassionate CommunicationDialogue, Intimacy, and Conflict Transformation

…we define compassion as the neurological ability to resonate to the emotional feelings of others, to share their suffering and their joy. (215)

PRACTICING COMPASSIONATE COMMUNICATION WITH STRANGERS

COMPASSIONATE COMMUNICATION WITH COUPLES

Human brains are designed to resonate to the inner emotional states of others, so as long as one of you maintains a posture of openness and serenity, the other person will unconsciously respond in kind. (220)

CHANGING OUTER GOALS INTO INNER VALUES

HOW TO PRACTICE COMPASSIONATE COMMUNICATION

Sit down on two chairs placed close together and face your partner. If you are comfortable enough, your knees or hands can touch each other. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, relaxing all the muscles in your face. Let your forehead relax, and then let the muscles around your eyes relax. Take another deep breath and relax your jaw. Now relax all the muscles in your neck. Take a deep breath and relax your shoulders, and take another breath as you relax the muscles in your arms and your hands. Feel your shoulders drop and relax some more. Each time you hear a bell,* it is a reminder to pause, relax, and breathe. Take another breath, and feel all of the tension draining out of your body as you become more and more relaxed. Now relax all the muscles in your back. Feel your legs relax as they melt into the cushion of your chair. Now relax your feet. Scan your entire body for any excess tension in your muscles, then take a deep breath and let that tension go.* (224)

Now, yawn ten times, because it will make you extraordinarily relaxed and alert. It doesn’t matter if you fake it, just try to yawn; by the fourth or fifth one, they’ll begin to feel real, and you’ll feel yourself becoming more and more relaxed. Yawn again, and listen to your partner yawn, and feel how relaxed you become. Once more, take another deep breath and yawn.*

Still keeping your eyes closed, smile and visualize your partner sitting across from you and smiling. Stay aware of your breathing as you hold a compassionate image or loving thought in mind. Think about something you like about that person, or recall a memory that brought you pleasure or peace. Take a deep breath and continue to relax.*

Imagine having an intimate conversation with your partner. It’s a beautiful conversation, filled with compassion and respect. In this conversation, you take turns as each one of you speaks slowly and briefly, less than thirty seconds, saying only a sentence or two—only ten or twenty words. Then stop. After each sentence, come back to your breath, and let all your thoughts melt away, staying present, staying in the moment, and focusing on your relaxation and breath.*

Imagine hearing your partner talk slowly, and no matter what your partner says, you will stay relaxed, smiling and holding a compassionate thought in your mind. As you listen, all your defenses fall away. Remember, all you have to do is talk … breathe … listen … breathe … and relax.*

The conversation that emerges in your imagination is slow, spontaneous, and relaxed. There is no need to rush. All you need to do is talk softly, breathe, listen, breathe, and relax. In your mind let the conversation take any direction it wants. Don’t control it. Don’t try to make a point, and don’t worry if the subject changes. Just stay relaxed as you imagine having a compassionate dialogue: talking, listening, breathing, and relaxing.*

Take one more yawn, and open your eyes. Gaze compassionately into your partner’s eyes as you hold a loving thought, and continue to do this for ten seconds. Smile warmly as you hold that thought in your mind.*

In a moment you will begin your conversation by opening up with a compliment and listening to a compliment from your partner. (225) It does not matter if the compliment feels forced at the beginning, because the other person will still respond in a positive way.*

Keep your eyes focused on each other as you let a spontaneous conversation emerge. Speak only a sentence or two, as slowly as you can, for no longer than thirty seconds, and then let your partner speak. Continue for the next five minutes, breathing, talking, breathing, listening, and staying as relaxed as you can.*

After five minutes take the conversation a little deeper by sharing a more intimate thought. Then, after another three minutes have passed, close the conversation by giving each other a compliment.* (226)

Research, by the way, has shown that a person needs to hear five compliments before he or she can listen nondefensively to a criticism. So I highly recommend that you train yourself to deliberately give compliments to different people throughout the day. (226)

RESISTANCE

In Compassionate Communication, the purpose is not to make a point. Rather the goal is to train the mind to watch where a sponta-(227)neous conversation leads. (228)

COMPASSIONATE COMMUNICATION AND CORPORATE MINDFULNESS

ACCEPTANCE

By simply observing destructive thoughts and feelings, people feel less anxious about what they feel they can’t control, and this actually allows them to have more control over their lives. (23)

MOVING FROM ACCEPTANCE TO COMPASSION

When we accept ourselves for who we are–as people filled with strengths and weaknesses–it’s easier to accept the flaws we find in others. Acceptance makes it easier to tolerate differences, and this allows for greater cooperation. … And, unlike other animals, we appear to have the only brain that can show compassion toward every living thing on the planet. That, truly, is an amazing neurological feat. (231)

TWENTY-ONE STRATEGIES FOR KEEPING THE PEACE

Human brains may not be very good at discerning truth, but they are superb at picking out lies. (232)

THREE STRATEGIES FOR BEGINNING A CONSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUE

1. Pick the right time. (233)
2. Find the best location.
3. Open your dialogue with kindness. (234)

SIX STRATEGIES TO CONTAIN DISRUPTIVE MOTIONS

1. Avoid provocative language.
2. Soften the tone of your voice. (234)
3. Don’t blame.
4. Be aware of nonverbal communication.
5. Monitor your anger and recognize the danger zone. (235)
6. Call for a time-out. (236)

SIX STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION

1. Be specific.
2. Show respect for your partner’s point of view. (236)
3. Take equal responsibility.
4. Don’t monopolize the conversation.
5. Ask for clarification.
6. Avoid mind-reading. (237)

SIX STRATEGIES FOR FINDING CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

1. Search for constructive ideas. (237)
2. Try brainstorming.
3. Sit with your problem for a week.
4. Implement your plan.
5. Close with kindness.
6. Get a progress report. (238)

DON’T WAIT: GET STARTED NOW

Twenty-one strategies–plus the first commandment: Thou shalt not get angry when you talk. (239)

…the brain literally can become entrapped by its own production of anger. (239)

PAY IT FORWARD

EPILOGUE: Is God Real?A Personal Reflection

To me, it seems rather arrogant to believe that we fully comprehend what God is, or how God wants us to live. Even the Ten Commandments strikes me as a very limited version of what God must want us to understand, and it reminds me of the way we give simplistic commands to our pets. Instead of “Don’t bite,” “No barking,” and “Heel,” we are told “Don’t lie,” “Don’t kill,” and “Honor the Sabbath.” (242) Dogs often fail to carry out our commands, and people often fail to honor God’s commands. Please understand that I am not in any way trying to belittle the holiness of God. I am merely pointing out that as incredible as God is, we can only hope to understand the smallest aspect of God. It’s like the story of the blind men and the elephant. Each touches only a small part, and that is what they know. And when it comes to God, we are all partially blind. (243)

There may be a universal or ultimate truth, but I doubt whether the limitations of the human mind will ever allow us to accurately perceive it or find any common ground, especially when it comes to the reality of God. (243)

THE ULTIMATE METAPHOR

In looking at the positive side of our ability to understand our universe, I like to think of God as a metaphor for each person’s search for ultimate meaning and truth. Financial and relationship stability may be a major goal for most people, but I believe that within each of us there is a primal drive to reach for something higher. We want to understand why we’re here and what our purpose should be. We want to understand where we came from, and where we will eventually go. And we want to understand what reality actually is. With that understanding, we are then compelled to act in a more intuitively rational way. (244)

| Immanuel Kant called this the “categorical imperative,” the notion that we are essentially driven by reason to follow an intrinsic moral law. This concept was quickly adapted by other philosophers to reflect a divine voice that guided the human spirit into consciousness. But I see the human spirit as being driven by a cognitive imperative, and from the moment we are born, we strive to learn as much as we can about the world. That philosophical drive is biologically embedded in our brain. (244)

| Sometimes I think that my dog, Rock, may be a philosopher too, but only to the extent that he wonders where I am. He does not think about what it means to be a dog or how he should act according to the natural “dogginess” inside of him. He does not wonder how he is guided through his life. But I think all human beings ponder what it means to be human, and I believe that most people try to act according to the natural humanity inside of them. Yet that humanity is often a challenge to maintain because of the selfish and negative tendencies generated by our brain. Thus, many people, beginning in childhood, conceive the possibility that there is someone, or something, that is guiding them through life in a positive direction. But the human brain does not rest. Instead, it wants to know where God might be. At that moment, the philosopher brain becomes a theologian. (244)

| However, we are not born with either a philosophical or theologi-(244)cal mind, but only the potential for it. As children, our neural connections are so incomplete that we are utterly dependent on others for direction on what to believe. We’re too young to invent or discover God, yet we are surrounded by others who actively proclaim God’s existence. For better or worse, we start out life with our parents’ and society’s religious beliefs. (245)

| At this vague stage of awareness, God remains an uncertainty. But the human brain doesn’t like ambiguity, so it tries to give God a shape, starting with a face. Why? Because faces tell us about the inner emotional states of others. With this information, the brain can determine if the person or being is a friend or a foe, something that is essential for a young child to grasp. In fact, most children will shy away from a doll that has an angry or fearful expression on its face. (245)

| For the first few years of life children can only construct the world using concrete images in the mind, so in all cultures, spiritual concepts are first embedded in familiar objects that exist on the physical plane. And then, at around the age of ten, something happens in the child’s brain. The more he or she thinks about God, the more God becomes an abstract or supernatural force. This is because the neural connections that govern abstract reasoning are growing at a stupendously rapid pace. (245)

| When adolescence hits, most neural connections are almost complete, and the human brain, having access to greater knowledge and cognition, begins to reevaluate its old beliefs. In this biological quest for independence, the skeptical brain is born, and so most teenagers start to question nearly every aspect of life: values, morals, and especially religious beliefs. Some want to believe, but can’t, and those who do believe develop doubts. Some like the idea of a loving, protective God, but most despise the image of an angry, authoritative God. (245)

| At this stage of human development, many adolescents are burdened by the emergence of an agnostic brain. For some, God may be real, but distant. For others, science and spirituality may appear incompatible. And for a few, negative religious experiences may cause internal conflict and pain. But for those who remain open-minded, or experiment with different religious rituals, something happens in the brain that can tip the scale toward an acceptance of spiritual truths. For (245) some people, God takes on a living reality. For others, God becomes a metaphor for inner values. And for a few, old notions may give way to a transcendent perception of the world. Such experiences can be so profound that it changes a person’s career. (246)

| For those who embark on a spiritual journey, God becomes a metaphor reflecting their personal search for truth. It is a journey inward toward self-awareness, salvation, or enlightenment, and for those who are touched by this mystical experience, life becomes more meaningful and rich. (246)

| Personally, I believe there has to be an absolute truth about the universe. I don’t know what it is, but I am driven to seek it, using science, philosophy, and spirituality as my guide. Mark, however, takes a more skeptical view:

Personally, I find science more satisfying and mysterious than philosophy or theology. So for me, God is a metaphor, not a fact. Yet I consider a person’s search for God a noble quest, and the questioning of God’s existence is an essential part of that quest. I’m utterly fascinated by the stories people tell me about their spiritual journeys, be they fundamentalists, atheists, agnostics, or mystics. I see truths and values in people’s beliefs and disbeliefs, so I suppose this makes me a humanist and a pluralist. But even these terms fail to capture who I am or what I really believe. In fact, I dislike all categories and labels because they create arbitrary lines of separation between people.

Personally, it really doesn’t matter if one chooses to believe or disbelieve in God. What matters more, at least to me, is how one behaves toward others. If you use your belief in God to practice charity, compassion, and acceptance, that’s great. But if you use your beliefs to generate any level of discrimination, then I personally have a problem with that. Still, I have faith in human beings, and I believe that each of us can be held responsible for creating an ethical life that allows us to get along with others, irrespective of one’s religious or political beliefs. If we can do a good job at that, everything else will hopefully fall into place.

Unlike Mark, I harbor the hope and feeling that God or some ultimate reality, in whatever form it may take, actually exists. I don’t know if my intuition is true, but I am quite comfortable with my uncertainty. (246) Indeed, it allows me to appreciate both sides of any argument or debate. I have my father to thank for this, for I spent many adolescent hours debating everything under the sun, including God. My father is a true agnostic, with a law degree, so whatever side I took, he could brilliantly argue—and win—the opposing point of view. But he did it with immeasurable love, so I grew up with the belief that every perspective is neither right nor wrong and that both sides reflect valid points of view coming from a limited brain trying to understand a limit less universe. (247)

| Mark can attest to this quality of mine, because every time he tries to pin me down to a position, I involuntarily argue the other side. I would even say that it reflects a basic spiritual truth that borders on the mystical, a view that is captured in the following Sufi tale:

The Mulla Nasrudin [a whimsical character who appears in numerous Middle-Eastern teaching stories] was sitting court one day. A husband and wife came in to settle the matter of who should be in charge of the education of their son. The wife argued that she should be given sole custody, giving many fine reasons to support her view. The Mulla said, “You are absolutely correct!” Then the husband spoke to defend his position. In response, the Mulla again exclaimed, “You are absolutely correct!” Immediately, a cleric in the back of the court stood up and cried out, “Nasrudin, they both can’t be right!” To which the Mulla replied, “You are absolutely correct!”

[via: I’ve been calling this the “Tevye Principle.”:]

I must admit that I am like the Mulla, and this allows me to see some truth in everything. I only wish that more religious believers felt the same. Atheists, agnostics, and theologians have all made substantial contributions to humanity, morality, and the quest for ultimate truth. (247)

| I don’t know what that ultimate reality or truth may be, but as far as I can tell, no one does. This brings every one of us back to our inner beliefs and the faith we must rely upon as we strive to comprehend the world. Contemplating God brings us face-to-face with such ultimate issues, while lesser concepts (like money) won’t take you to those deeper questions. For some people, science will raise such questions, but I have also argued that science, by itself, is not enough to understand the underlying meanings of life. (247)

DON’T TAKE THE EASY WAY OUT

People often ask me if I believe in God. A simple answer like “Yes” or “No” can’t do justice to such a profoundly personal belief, so I used to answer with a rather long-winded discussion about the complex nature of God, science, and religion. Now I respond by asking for that person’s definition of God. It’s not easy to do, and again, as our surveys have disclosed, nearly everyone’s definition is unique. Depending on what the individual says, I might agree with some aspects of their definition while rejecting others. But the moment someone tries to confine the definition of God, I immediately know that it can’t be true. One cannot limit what is infinite, and thus science—as wonderful as it is—cannot hope to untangle this knotty problem of God’s existence by itself. Science can’t find God because we don’t even know what to look for. And if we did find God scientifically, we might not even realize it. (248)

| Science, however, can help expose some of the ways we think and feel about God, and this can help us broaden our personal beliefs. This is also why I think it becomes necessary to help science along by studying the concept of God on a personal, subjective, and theological level. By combining the goals and perspectives of science and religion, I think we stand a chance at answering the God question. Both science and religion, by themselves, face too many limitations and difficulties. This is the true nature of the journey—challenging ourselves to push our minds and brains to the limit. Then, and only then, can we begin to change the world. (248)

| But don’t take the easy way out. Work hard to explore the nature of the world, and share your uncertainties with others. If you let your curiosity and compassion play with all the possibilities, then you’ll enrich your life, and hopefully improve the world. And by all means, go deeply into your contemplation of God, because you’ll eventually discover yourself. (248)

This, for me, is how God and science, when the two come together in the brain, can affect and transform your life. (248)

APPENDIX A. Compassionate CommunicationCDs, Workshops, and Online Research

APPENDIX B. How to Participate in Our Research Studies

APPENDIX C. Meditation and MindfulnessBooks, CDs, and Resources

 

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