The other day, I posted a blog about modern scientific attempts to debunk the idea of God with attempts to explain everything — absolutely every darn thing that might possibly exist — through a self- selection process involving random trial and errors. I explained my own problems with this, pointing to a possible reduction ad absurdum, the same absurdity that scientists accuse the “God theory” of having.<\/p>\n
But the world of science is attacking the notion of God on another front . . . and that is “the quiet voice deep within”, i.e. the personal experience that makes one think that there is “something more” than we know in the immediate sense. This is also called “the spiritual experience” or a “religious experience”, and it seems to be quite universal. People of all sorts from many different lands and cultures seem to report similar experiences. Evidence, some might say, that there must be a God; even though humans still fight idiotic wars over what the nature of this God must be. <\/p>\n
But the brain scientists are fighting back, performing studies<\/a> and publishing papers on why our brains make us have such experiences<\/a> and interpret them as “transcendent”. They have come up with a variety of factors and explanations, including specific genes, evolutionary logic, neurotransmitters, and synaptic structures. <\/p>\n The religious institutions are not exactly making a vigorous effort to confront this movement, although there are a few good spokespeople who yet defend the potential of divine reality despite all the “neuroscientific implications”. One such person is Rev. Dr. Alasdair Coles<\/a>, a neuroscientist himself and an ordained priest in the Church of England. On the part of those who don’t maintain religious affiliations but still consider themselves “spiritual”, good old Ken Wilber has also taken up the cause against raging neuroscience. According to Wilber<\/a>, <\/p>\n “Conventional science has correctly dismantled the pre-rational myths but it goes too far in dismantling the trans-rational. The mythic and magic approaches tend to be pre-rational and pre-verbal, but the meditative or contemplative practices tend to be trans-rational.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Way to go, Ken! Finally saying something useful!<\/p>\n