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Faith Is More Than a Feeling

Skeptics used to argue that anyone with half a brain should realize there is no God. Now scientists are telling us that one half of the brain, or a portion thereof, is “wired” to religious experiences. But whether this evolving “neurotheology” is theology at all is doubtful. It tells us new things about circuits of the brain, perhaps, but nothing new about God.

The chief mistake these neurotheologians make is to identify religion with spiritual experiences and feelings. Losing one’s self in prayer may feel good or uplifting, but these emotions have nothing to do with how well we communicate with God. In fact, many people pray best when feeling shame or sorrow, and the sense that God is not present is no less valid than experience of divine presence. The sheer struggle to pray may be more authentic than the occasional feeling that God is close by, hearing every word. Very few believers have experienced what Christian theology calls mystical union with God. Nor, for that matter, have many Buddhists experienced the “emptiness” that the Buddha identified as the realization of “no-self.”

Neurotheologians also confuse spirituality with religion. But doing the will of God involves much more than prayer and meditation. To try to love one’s enemies does not necessitate a special alteration in the circuits of the brain.

On the other hand, most of us at one time or another experienced the dissolution of the boundaries of the self – and a corresponding sense of being at one with the cosmos. But such peak moments need not be religious. What else is a rock concert but an assault on all the senses so that individual identities can dissolve in a collective high?

According to neurotheologians, evolution has programmed the brain to find pleasure in escaping the confines of the self. Some religious practices bear this out. As every meditator quickly learns, reciting a mantra for 20 minutes a day does relax the body and refresh an overstimulated mind. The Bible, too, recommends contemplative prayer for the busily self-involved: “Be still and know that I am Lord.”

Science, of course, does not deal with the immaterial (though aspects of modern physics come pretty close). The most that neurobiologists can do is correlate certain experiences with certain brain activity. To suggest that the brain is the only source of our experiences would be reductionist, ignoring the influence of other important factors, such as the will, the external environment, not to mention the operation of divine grace. Even so, it is hard to imagine a believer in the midst of mystical transport telling herself that it is just her neural circuits acting up. Like Saint Augustine, who lived 15 centuries before we discovered that the brain makes waves, the religious mind intuits that “Thou has made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.”

(From ‘Newsweek’, abridged)

Role play. You are members of a discussion club in which you hold discussions on different controversial issues. The problem today is neurotheology. Divide into two groups according to your views and elect the leader who will conduct the discussion. One group must be in favour of neurotheology, and the other group must be against it. The teacher will be the listener who hesitates between the two basic views. The two groups must do their best to win over the “hesitating audience.”

Remember that you must be brief and to the point. Try to make your speech expressive and use different ways to emphasize ideas.

Professional Reading

Read the article below very carefully. You must achieve complete understanding of the text, so use a dictionary by all means. While reading, find the following words and word combinations in the text and learn their meaning. Use these words in the further discussion of the problem.

To have much to gain from …, to command respect, to be misleading, a mosque, to shy away from…