The Neurology of Religion

The Neurology of Religion PDF Author: Alasdair Coles
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107082609
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
Examines what can be learnt about the brain mechanisms underlying religious practice from studying people with neurological disorders.

The Neurology of Religion

The Neurology of Religion PDF Author: Alasdair Coles
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107082609
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
Examines what can be learnt about the brain mechanisms underlying religious practice from studying people with neurological disorders.

Neurology and Religion

Neurology and Religion PDF Author: Alasdair Coles
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108764169
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
This innovative book examines what can be learnt about the brain mechanisms underlying religious belief and practice from studying people with neurological disorders, such as stroke, epilepsy and Parkinson's disease. Using a clinical case study approach, the book analyses the interaction of social influences, religious upbringing and neurological disorders on lived religious experience in a number of different religions. The interdisciplinary contributors to the book ensure a variety of perspectives to help understand how the religious life is affected when different cognitive functions are impaired; how faith modifies the effects of neurological disorders; and how awareness of faith practices may assist in the treatment of these conditions.

The Neuroscience of Religious Experience

The Neuroscience of Religious Experience PDF Author: Patrick McNamara
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139483560
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
Technical advances in the life and medical sciences have revolutionised our understanding of the brain, while the emerging disciplines of social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience continue to reveal the connections of the higher cognitive functions and emotional states associated with religious experience to underlying brain states. At the same time, a host of developing theories in psychology and anthropology posit evolutionary explanations for the ubiquity and persistence of religious beliefs and the reports of religious experiences across human cultures, while gesturing toward physical bases for these behaviours. What is missing from this literature is a strong voice speaking to these behavioural and social scientists - as well as to the intellectually curious in the religious studies community - from the perspective of a brain scientist.

Neuromatic

Neuromatic PDF Author: John Lardas Modern
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022679962X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 443

Get Book Here

Book Description
"The story Modern tells ranges from eighteenth-century brain anatomies to the MRI; from the spread of phrenological cabinets and mental pieties in the nineteenth century to the discovery of the motor cortex and the emergence of the brain wave as a measurable manifestation of cognition; from cybernetic research into neural networks and artificial intelligence to the founding of brain-centric religious organizations such as Scientology; from the deployments of cognitive paradigms in electric shock treatment to the work of Barbara Brown, a neurofeedback pioneer who promoted the practice of controlling one's own brainwaves in the 1970s. What Modern reveals via this grand tour is that our ostensibly secular turn to the brain is bound up at every turn with the 'religion' it discounts, ignores, or actively dismisses. Nowhere are science and religion closer than when they try to exclude each other, at their own peril"--

Minds, Brains, Souls and Gods

Minds, Brains, Souls and Gods PDF Author: Malcolm Jeeves
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830895620
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this hypothetical correspondence, Malcolm Jeeves urges Christian students to enter the brave new world of neuroscience ready to have their faith examined and their experiences of God put to the test. When we do this, he argues, being mindful of oversimplifications as we go, the integration of Christianity and psychology becomes possible.

Neurotheology

Neurotheology PDF Author: Andrew Newberg
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231546777
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Get Book Here

Book Description
Religion is often cast in opposition to science. Yet both are deeply rooted in the inner workings of the human brain. With the advent of the modern cognitive neurosciences, the scientific study of religious and spiritual phenomena has become far more sophisticated and wide-ranging. What might brain scans of people in prayer, in meditation, or under the influence of psychoactive substances teach us about religious and spiritual beliefs? Are religion and spirituality reducible to neurological processes, or might there be aspects that, at least for now, transcend scientific claims? In this book, Andrew Newberg explores the latest findings of neurotheology, the multidisciplinary field linking neuroscience with religious and spiritual phenomena. He investigates some of the most controversial—and potentially transformative—implications of a neurotheological approach for the truth claims of religion and our understanding of minds and brains. Newberg leads readers on a tour through key intersections of neuroscience and theology, including the potential evolutionary basis of religion; the psychology of religion, including mental health and brain pathology; the neuroscience of myths, rituals, and mystical experiences; how studies of altered states of consciousness shed new light on the mind-brain relationship; and what neurotheology can tell us about free will. When brain science and religious experience are considered together in an integrated approach, Newberg shows, we might come closer to a fuller understanding of the deepest questions.

Religion, Neuroscience and the Self

Religion, Neuroscience and the Self PDF Author: Patrick McNamara
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429671431
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Get Book Here

Book Description
The purpose of this book is to use neuroscience discoveries concerning religious experiences, the Self and personhood to deepen, enhance and interrogate the theological and philosophical set of ideas known as Personalism. McNamara proposes a new eschatological form of personalism that is consistent with current neuroscience models of relevant brain functions concerning the self and personhood and that can meet the catastrophic challenges of the 21st century. Eschatological Personalism, rooted in the philosophical tradition of "Boston Personalism", takes as its starting point the personalist claim that the significance of a self and personality is not fully revealed until it has reached its endpoint, but theologically that end point can only occur within the eschatological realm. That realm is explored in the book along with implications for personalist theory and ethics. Topics covered include the agent intellect, dreams and the imagination, future-orientation and eschatology, phenomenology of Time, social ethics, Love, the challenge of AI, privacy and solitude and the individual ethic of autarchy. This book is an innovative combination of the neuroscientific and theological insights provided by a Personalist viewpoint. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Cognitive Science, Theology, Religious Studies and the philosophy of the mind.

Neuroscience and Religion

Neuroscience and Religion PDF Author: Volney P. Gay
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780739133927
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is a unique set of multidisciplinary reflections on how the neurosciences shape our understanding of religious experience and religious institutions. Twelve scholars and scientists assess how advances in the neurosciences affect our traditional sense of mind, self, and soul.

The Believer's Brain

The Believer's Brain PDF Author: Kenneth M. Heilman
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317812891
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Get Book Here

Book Description
About 90% of people have faith in a supreme being, but our yearning for the divine, and whatever it promises, involves a large divergence in mental states and behaviors. Some adhere to doctrine, supplication, and fastidious religious practices; others have a strong sense they are part of something greater and more universal. However, all religious and spiritual paths are mediated by complex brain networks. When different areas of the brain are stimulated, a person can have a variety of experiences, but there is no specific ‘God spot’ where stimulation enhances religiosity or spirituality. Functional brain imaging shows that there are specific areas of the brain that ‘light up’ when subjects perform certain religious activities, but imaging only provides anatomic correlations, not functional explanations. The Believer's Brain takes a step beyond these singular methodologies, providing converging evidence from a variety study methods of how humans’ brain networks mediate different aspects of religious and spiritual beliefs, feelings, actions, and experiences. Although the book reveals how our brain is the home to the religious and spiritual mind, understanding this gift will not diminish our spirituality or our love or our belief in a supreme being, but will increase appreciation of the apparatus that mediates these mental states.

The United States Congress

The United States Congress PDF Author: Robert Goehlert
Publisher: New York : Free Press ; London : Collier Macmillan
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book Here

Book Description