From: cryofan@mylinuxisp.com
Date: Mon Mar 24 2003 - 16:36:06 MST
From http://washingtontimes.com/world/20030324-91340900.htm
Does the biological structure of our brains program us to believe in God?
Advances in "neurotheology" have prompted some researchers to claim they can
induce the kind of holy visions prophets may have experienced — even in those
who are not religious believers. Top Stories
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Neuroscience professor Michael Persinger of Laurentian University in
Sudbury, Ontario, has devised a helmet that uses electromagnetic fields to
induce electrical changes in the brain's temporal lobes, which are linked
with religious belief.
So confident is he that God is all in the mind — or the brain at least —
that Mr. Persinger says he can induce mystical feelings in a majority of
those willing to don his Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator.
So the British Broadcasting Corp.'s science series "Horizon" put his hat
to the ultimate test: Could it get arch-skeptic and militant atheist Richard
Dawkins to start believing in God by electrically massaging his temporal
lobes? Mr. Dawkins, author of "A Devil's Chaplain" and "The Blind
Watchmaker," was the ideal candidate for a test of whether science can
explain away religion, given his views of religion as a "virus of the mind"
and an "infantile regression."
The experiment is based on the finding that some sufferers from temporal
lobe epilepsy — a neurological disorder caused by chaotic electrical
discharges in the temporal lobes of the brain — seem to experience devout
hallucinations that bear striking resemblances to the mystical experiences of
holy figures such as St. Paul and Moses.
This theory received a boost from professor Gregory Holmes, a pediatric
neurologist at Dartmouth Medical School, who says one of the principal
founders of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, Ellen White, in fact suffered
from temporal lobe epilepsy. She was seen as divinely inspired as a result of
her religious visions. The new claim that her visions were, in fact, a result
of a brain disorder is likely to meet strong resistance from the more than 12
million Seventh-day Adventists worldwide.
If strong religious feelings are no less a part of brain function than
those linked with hunger and sex, the ultimate test would be to summon up
mystical and religious beliefs experimentally.
Indeed, it would be in Mr. Dawkins' interests to experience religion for
the first time under Mr. Persinger's helmet. After all, this would prove that
mystical visions at last could be controlled by science and no longer were
just at the mercy of a supernatural entity.
While Mr. Dawkins had some strange experiences and tinglings during the
experiment, none of them prompted him to take up any new faith. "It was a
great disappointment," he said.
"Though I joked about the possibility, I of course never expected to end
up believing in anything supernatural. But I did hope to share some of the
feelings experienced by religious mystics when contemplating the mysteries of
life and the cosmos," Mr. Dawkins said.
Mr. Persinger explained away the failure of this Transcranial Magnetic
Stimulator: Before donning the helmet, Mr. Dawkins had scored low on a
psychological scale measuring proneness to temporal lobe sensitivity.
Studies on identical and fraternal twin pairs raised apart suggest that
50 percent of our religious interests are influenced by genes. It seems that
Mr. Dawkins is genetically predisposed not to believe.
•Dr. Raj Persaud is a consultant psychiatrist at Maudsley Hospital in
London.
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