Is the Supernatural Only Natural? Religion tastes sweet to the brain—especially the remarkable idea of an afterlife.
- By LIONEL TIGER, WSJ
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704100604575145650372903676.html
...challenges to religious supernaturality from research on the links between the brain and religious experience in studies by such noted researchers as Claremont University's Paul Zak and the University of Pennsylvania's Andrew Newberg.
Are people religious because they find a particular theology convincing? Some converts might, though they are a tiny number of believers. Far more likely is that their faith emerges from the group with which they are affiliating and in which they are likely to have been born and raised. Religious groups are intensely social, and hitherto unexpected links between social behavior and brain chemistry are now almost routinely identified.
One such connection, identified at UCLA Medical School by Michael Mcquire, is between secretion of the neurotransmitter serotonin and the sense of status an individual possesses—which for well or ill led to psychoactive drugs such as Prozac.
Other researchers, such as USC's Antonio Damasio and former University of Mexico faculty member Jay Feierman, have combined interests in neurophysiology and the sources of social cohesion to explore the fundamental nature of religion. ...
...there is a strange but durable connection between surviving in this world and contemplating another. There may or may not be such a world, but our sapient brain finds the idea easy to learn and entertain. Religion tastes sweet to the brain—especially the remarkable idea of an afterlife that holds people accountable for their sweaty and ambiguous earthly lives and rewards or deprives them elsewhere.
Any thoughtful answers to questions about the nature of religion must account for the fact that for centuries and everywhere human beings have created and sustained a set of ideas well outside the realm of daily experience—ideas claimed as versions of that supernature that persists in the different flavors and textures of contemporary religions.
The scientific conclusion may be that religion is a natural system that replaces what we can call "brainpain," which everyone experiences, with its antidote, "brainsoothing." This can result from exercise or meditation or perfume or simply chatting with friends. The evidence of millennia is that it also can result from going to a house of worship on a regular basis and communing with the almighty and a group of fellow believers. ...
Mr. Tiger, a professor of anthropology at Rutgers, is the author, with Michael McGuire, of God's Brain
, just published by Prometheus Books.
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