Posted by:
Reed Smith
(
)
Date: May 25, 2011 07:13PM
This looks familiar, Steve. Thank you for removing the personal attacks. I appreciate it.
I have a very serious and honest question. Why is it you always respond with a list of quotes, instead of your own opinions based upon your own critical thinking. Do you just assume that everything you read, and every scientific discourse, must be true, and by simply quoting it you establish your point? In this particular post, I do not see how your response relates to my response. This post is about the formation of beliefs, not about the "God gene."
I am going to answer your post, and see if you have a substantive response:
I am very familiar with essentially all of the research programs cited, apparently from Wikipedia's reference to "neurotheology." But I have read the actual literature in support of this research, as well as their critics. By way of background, all of this research is an attempt to determine correlations between belief in God, or religious experience, with either genes or brain states. The suggestion is that if it can be shown, for example, that belief is related to a particular gene, or set of genes, or that spiritual experiences correlate with specific brain states, the metaphysical religious interpretations of these beliefs and experiences are somehow undermined. If spiritual experiences are nothing more than brain states, states that can be reproduced via drugs, or diseases, such as LSD and epilepsy, then they cannot, so the argument goes, relate to a metaphysical cause, i.e. God. Thus, if NDE experiences correlate with brain states and functions, they are not after-life experiences after all. If out-of-body experiences correlate with brain states, they are only illusions, and not real OBE experiences.
In considering this line of research, we can first question the assumption that if a given religious experience correlates with a brain state, it cannot have metaphysical implications. This is a legitimate criticism, because logically one might well have a “spiritual” experience actually from a metaphysical source that nonetheless causes a corresponding brain state. The issue is causation, not correlation. Thus, even if that same or similar brain state (or phenomenal experience) is also caused by LSD or epilepsy, this does not establish anything as to the ultimate source of the experience, unless one assumes that mental events must always have a physical cause, which assumption begs the question. Thus, the anti-religious motivations of such researchers, such as Michael Persinger in particular, are flawed from the outset. Persinger, by the way, has also been roundly criticized from methodological deficiencies, and the notorious failure of his research results to be replicable. Frankly, he is no longer taken seriously.
Arnold Newberg and Eugene d’Aquili are more honest in their approach. But here again they focus on correlations between religious experience, on the one hand, and mysticism and brain function, on the other, but without drawing anti-religion conclusions. The Newberg research is most interesting, however, for its enlightenment as to causation. Newberg recruited Buddhist monks and wired their brains to EKG monitors during the meditation process. When they entered a self-induced trance state, he noted the correlated brain states. Although Newberg did not mention this in his book, “Who God Won’t Go Away,” a serious oversight in my view, it is quite apparent that the monks by their mental meditation activity were able to cause changes in their brain states. In short, this research, if valid, shows that the mind has causal efficacy over the brain. If this research is valid, it suggests that the standard materialist assumption of the causal closure of the physical is false, and that some form of Cartesian dualism is true. This is a serious blow to the materialist thesis, which has long denied what to the rest of us is obvious, i.e. that the mind is a causative agent in its own right. (For example, if you “decide” to raise your hand, it seems that you made a mental decision, causing a physical result. The materialist view would say that no, the raising of your hand had a physical cause, i.e. brain function, and that the correlated mental phenomena was either an illusion, or simply an unimportant corollary to the actual physical cause.) Moreover, it suggests that mind has an ontological status separate and apart from the brain, calling into question identity and eliminativist theories that attempt to resolve the mind-body problem.
The research programs you summarized require that researchers establish that belief in God, or religious experience, is associated with a particular gene, or brain state, such that an individual having such an belief or experience, also has the associated brain state or gene, and the person having the associated gene or brain state, has the associated phenomenal experience. This has never been established in a way that for me is anything but trivial. Certainly, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that belief in God, or having spiritual experiences, are direct byproducts of Darwinian evolution, as manifested in evolved genotypes or brain states. Moreover, as indicated above, even if an interesting correlation is established, the causation issue must also be addressed and determined because conclusions can be drawn related to proper understanding and interpretation of religious belief and experience.
Now, what are your thoughts?
Reed