Top Highlights

• Of all the fields of science and medicine, neurophysiology is one of the most difficult topics to talk about in simple terms, especially when it comes to issues concerning consciousness, logic, emotional processing, and the reality-processing mechanisms of the brain—issues that are essential to address when dealing with the neurological correlates ...
• Neuroscience has yet to answer such questions, but it can record the effect that religious beliefs and experiences have upon the human brain. Furthermore, it can tell us how God—as an image, feeling, thought, or fact—is interpreted, reacted to, and turned into a perception that feels meaningful and real. But neuroscience cannot tell you if God does...
• Having an accurate perception of reality is not one of the brain's strong points. Indeed, as Mark and I pointed out in Why We Believe What We Believe,∗1 the human brain seems to have difficulty separating fantasies from facts.2 It sees things that are not there, and it sometimes doesn't see things that are there. In fact, the brain doesn't even try...
• Each part of the brain constructs a different perception of God. Every human brain assembles its perceptions of God in uniquely different ways, thus giving God different qualities of meaning and value. Spiritual practices, even when stripped of religious beliefs, enhance the neural functioning of the brain in ways that improve physical and emotiona...