Rating: 
Summary: A Neuroscientist Unashamed
Review: Neuroscientists have an irrepressible penchant for speculating about the significance of their findings. For instance, Eric Kandel - Nobel Laureate, in his public appearances talks about his field, Long Term Potentiation, as though it were the basis of all learning in creatures with nervous systems. This is to any of us in the field stretching things a bit, but we like it.Andrew Newberg with the late D'Aquili have put scientific observation inside the spiritual experience. They found a specific area of the parietal lobe lit up in some clever experiments. Is this area of the parietal lobe bound up with our sense of selfhood? Andrew Newberg runs with this idea in a breezy read. Of course, as practicing neuroscientists we know that so many of these great discoveries fall down after a very short run. So, this book is not one that sets a landmark for truth, but it is a landmark in bringing neuroscience and spirituality together in a satisfying fashion. Newberg does not pretend to get technical in this essay. Thus, those of you who are looking for new information about the brain should look elsewhere. But those of you who know about the brain already will find this book novel in its application of what is known about the brain to the spiritual domain. As a bachelor of philosophy and now practicing neuroscientist I found it difficult to put this book down.
Rating: 
Summary: In a word...Boring...
Review: Unfortunately, this neuroscientist has no penchant for philosophical discourse and so his treatise was bland, pendantic, convoluted, poorly organized and inconsistent in its ideology. There was nothing in here that I couldn't have read in the Newsweek article on the subject (May 7), only at least that article was only 4 pages, succinct...and only cost a few bucks.
Rating: 
Summary: A great introduction into neurotheology and neuropsychiatry.
Review: The book starts out very well. The author uses logic and clear terms to explain everything. But then he starts making stupid assumptions left and right. Newberg explains mystical experiences and the "feeling of the presence of God" and then says that they're just as real as eating an apple pie because they can be examined in the brain. That's like saying that my conversation with God while I'm on coke is just as real as eating an apple pie because you can see the neural processes in my brain. In short he says that because it feels as real as eating an apple pie it IS as real as eating an apple pie. But don't misunderstand me; the book is a great introduction into the field. Just don't base your beliefs on everything this book says.
Rating: 
Summary: two books
Review: Sometimes atheists and agnostics revert to lame and specious arguments against belief of the kind that some believers use against atheists. My favorite is that believers believe because they (we: okay, disclaimer time: I'm a believer six days a week and on Sundays I rest) can't face their mortality. They feel this somehow deals with Jeremiah, Christ, Gandhi, Bonhoeffer and the Berrigans. Drs. Newberg and D'Aquili's book is therefore most welcome. Without claiming to "prove" or "disprove" the "truth" of belief or mystical experience, they show that mystical experiences are rooted in brain biology, that mystical experiences are "real" human experiences. "Why God Won't Go Away" is, at first glace, a simple, reader-friendly text in which the authors invent cute names for complicated concepts. At second glance, that is, once one discovers the footnotes, the reader realizes he has a thoughtful, well-documented and incitfull book. I recommend the second. This is, as the authors admit, an attempt to disclose what little scientists and the rest of us know about mystical experiences. The book left me wanting more, not only concerning the neurobiology of mysticism, but also of conventional prayer, ecstatic prayer and shamanic trances. Do believers in conventional religion based upon obedience to precepts and authority use the brain is similar ways? What about believers in the prophetic religions of justice? The larger question, that of whether the mystical experience is the experience of a transcendent or transcendent other, remains unanswered. Evolution, being based on chance, even if the die are somewhat loaded, can err and produce a brain fixated on worshiping its own illusions. On the other hand, mystics may be in a position similar to that of the first amoeba to sense light. "I 'see' things," she tells her psychiatrist, "before I bump into them." The good amoeba doctor wisely prescribes a medication to rid her of such experiences. Only people who are impressed by how much we know will have answers. Those who are impressed by our ignorance will reserve judgment and keep studying and meditating.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent overview of the science of religious experience
Review: There is a very good overview of current scientific research and argument regarding the nature of religious and mystical exerience here. Recent research into the neurological origins of religion, the stunning compatibilities between various religious myths and inclinations, the function and universality of ritual (across the animal kingdom), the commonness of lesser mystical experience and ritual-such as music, art, or by simply taking a bath, and the social cohesian and function that religion plays in virtually any society, are all discussed. The book also details the long standing arguments about whether various deep religious experience is an expression of some kind of mental disorder(s), or a higher brain function useful for specific purposes. It notes for example that highly religious persons throughout the ages have often also been significant achievers. This appears to be imcompatible with the notion that they are 'mentally disordered'. The book asserts that for whatever reason 'altered brain states' occur, there was/is a significant evolutionary reason for them to have been selected in the first place. This is an important point;- altered brain states, including mystical/religious experience, probably had their origin in the struggle for existance, which was then utilised for other circumstances. The origin of myth-making and ritual in the human condition for example, is discussed in this way. There are also discussions on the importance of conflict, contradiction and resolution in religious ritual and myth, and their likely evolutionary origins. Many of the books early assertions appear to be summations and ideas strung together from elsewhere, but the book in the second half becomes more controversial in asserting that the altered mental states or 'higher reality', as described variously by mystics, may in fact BE an alternative/higher reality, and not a cultural interpretation of unusual brain functioning. This is a bold assertion, which requires some weighty evidence. The evidence presented in this book however appears to rest mostly on shaky anecdotal support, "I experienced a highly significant event, therefore my interpretation of this event must also be correct". The authors suggest that various mystical/religious experience may imply the existance of an independant 'higher reality', which brain evolution has already cottoned onto. The authors seem to suggest that whilst most people who have some kind of religious experience do in fact misinterpret them, it is still possible that they are ultimately right-an independant and profound reality exists, independent of the evolution of the senses and the self. Whilst conceding the possibility, I personally need more evidence of this concept of 'God' to accept that this experience isn't just a fundamentally important ability of the brain, to give us survival, purpose and meaning, but not necassarily a connection to an external 'God' or 'reality', however you may want to define this 'reality'. Ultimately there are two possibilities this book suggests to account for religious experience. 1) It is fundamentally a state of mind, selected by evolution and useful for survival in predominantly past environments 2) It is the evolution into a higher reality, something we are perhaps 'evolving into'. The jury is out for me on this one. I don't know whether as a scientist we are evolving into "religion", or out of it, but I do recognise its origins in the evolution of the brain. It seems clear to me, that evolution selected the altered mental states this book describes (and some of which I have experienced) for various individual/group survival purposes, which can then be used/modified for other purposes. Whatever is the case, soemthing strange is going on in this brain of ours. I agreed with the books view that many of the simple things we do for example, as humans, are simply variations of the 'ritual' experience-such as taking a relaxing bath, or listening to rythmical music. These have been shown to stimulate areas of the brain in a similar way to relgious ritual and association. Interestingly, there also seems to be a link between various altered brain states/mystical/religious experience and the evolution of the orgasm. There are many similarities-they are associated with the same brain areas, and they both produce deeply profound and satisfying 'brain-body' experiences. The evolution of some religious experience may in fact be linked with a kind of schism in the sexual experience within the brain. It is an interesting idea. There is also good balance in this book between recognising that 'religious experience' is not all for fuddy-duddies. It is real, and it has played a huge and benificial part in human development. It is asserted however, that it is often misunderstood. Rather than being a window to 'God', it may simply be a neuorological ability of the brain, to deal with difficult environments. It's apparently unusual social expression is easily misunderstood. The book only briefly touches on the negative side of religious experience, and simply notes that any human activity can be perverted, or misused. It was not the purpose of this book to focus on the negative social aspects of religion, other than to perhaps note that it is possible much of this is possibly the incomplete mental expression of these mental mechanisms. The title pretty much covers the content-'God' isn't going away so easily, primarily because we have a biological tendancy to religious experience. Science is only just beginning to learn of the social benefits of various religious states and mental associations. This book is definitely a step in the right direction. I don't think any scientist can call himself a lover of humanity who doesn't seek to at least examine the basis and the implications of the ideas presented in this book, with an open mind.
Rating:
Summary: Good for would be neuroscientests and psychiatrists
Review: "If one starts with the wrong assumuption and is logical from that point on, he will never get back on the road to the truth." The above quote from Cajetan pretty much sums up This book. The Authors are entirly logical in the research and writting but they begin with a few bad assumptions. (Mostly mired in new age theology). For instance the authors seem to feel that all religions are equaly Good (or bad depending on point of view) and that all religions spring from Evolution creating a human mind that needs to reconcile mans fear of death and the unknown with the desire to live. They also seem to feel that if God does exist he exist only within the mind. pg:37 "Correspodingly, God cannot exist as a concept or as a reality anyplace but in your mind. In this sense, both spiritual experiences and experiences of a more ordinary material nature are made real to the mind in the very same way- through the processing powers of the brain and the cognetive funtions of the mind..... Whether it is in fact a perception of an actual spiritual reality, or merely an interpitation of sheer neurological funtion-all that is meaningful in human spirituality happens in the mind. in other words , the mind is mystical by default." Pg:53 "The evidence futher compels us to belive that if God does exist, the only place he can manifest his existance would be in the tangled neural pathways and physiological structures of the brain." The problem of this kind of thinking (aside from the obvious theological objections based on western religous belifes) is that as the author's themselves point out every experience is "real" in your mind. If for instance you eat an apple your senses will fire neurons in varous parts of your brain in essence than eating an apple is merly a group of neurons firing in a precise order and could be said to exist only in your mind. So the argument that Because a religous experence can only be measured in the mind and thefor is not nessacerly real is a circular argument signifing nothing. I gave this book a second star because I found the science part of this book interesting and useful the authors explain the various parts of the brain and how they interact with each other in a very clear and easy to understand manner. Overall however I found the book wanting for a clear picture of the stated purpose of the book, at least as portrayed in the title.
Rating:
Summary: A Terse, Yet Thoughtful Scientific Explanation For Religion
Review: I inadvertently picked up a copy at a local library, intrigued by its premise. The authors must be commended for their plausible hypothesis accounting for mankind's religious faith. They show through neurological research - including theirs - why religious devotion has an important impact on human physiology. And then they describe, in convincing detail, how human neurology has given mankind the capacity to conceive and to embrace religious faith. Admittedly, I was highly skeptical when I started reading this book, but now I believe the authors have a plausible hypothesis worthy of investigation by both neurologists and religious scholars.
Rating:
Summary: Steers Clear of Fallacies
Review: There have been a number of books on this sort of subject, and I've perused most of them - it is just so hard to finish something that is patently wrong-headed. This book is not wrong-headed. Generally, these books fall prey to some kind of fallacy by over-reliance on one mode of neurology. If you debunk "theta rhythms in the temporal lobes" as entirely non-specific and normal for a certain set of conscious people, the entire edifice of the book collapses. "Why God Won't Go Away" avoids all this. I am a rigorous amateur neuroscientist philosopher and these guys succeed brilliantly with a sound back-drop of neuroscience, woven with a full-blown theory. The neuroscience is quite thin, but it does not take any wrong turns. The theory fits with the evidence but is expansive enough to be a brilliant insight. Theists will love this book, as well as atheists. Are we organisms evolved to perceive God? or are we organisms that have stumbled upon the neural gears and mechanisms to achieve spiritual rapture? Obviously there is no answer to this question. For all those like Newberg and D'Aquili, get your books out there I want more.
Rating:
Summary: Insipid
Review: It would be ok if the author decided to offer a scientific understanding of spirituality, but he vacillates throughout saying God is neuroscience and then that God is more than that. The book therefore becomes an exercise in equivocation which is not only annoying but poorly written, the logic jumbled and chaotic.
Rating:
Summary: Empirical Methods Prove Nothing Concerning the Supernatural
Review: The authors valiantly attempted the impossible and were doomed to fail. Their central argument intrinsically had no chance of ultimately satisfying either the religious believer nor the village atheist. Both will finish "Why God Won't Go Away" and remain steadfast in their convictions. I am of the former persuasion but conceded long ago that God is totally Other. Many Judeo-Christians adherents recommending this book seem unaware that their theological tenets contradict the possibility of proving the existence of God and the Supernatural via empirical methods. Thomas Aquinas taught that the human individual on this side of the grave can reach the Divine only through faith. The Dominican scholar strongly argued that reason is of great value in ascertaining the reality of the universe created by God, but the Lord Jehovah remains hidden from our sight. St. Augustine for the most part shunned the hard sciences. Instead, the earlier Church theologian premised his insights upon the existential needs of all human beings to find meaning in a cold and uncaring universe. The dilemma remains forevermore because the possible dimension of the Supernatural cannot be verified with any degree of certainty by our five senses. The studies referred to in this book prove nothing. In many respects, the authors seem more in tune with New Age ideology than traditional theologies. Learning more about both how the brain responds to near death and alleged mystical experiences merely increases our intellectual frustration. Karl Popper warns us that our widely held theories are often tentative, and may be contradicted by new facts in the future. Paradoxically, we become humbler as our knowledge increases. The sophisticated inhabitants of the 21st Century laugh at the naiveté of the ancient Egyptians for their peculiar explanations of the body's internal organs. During the process of mummification, the embalmers threw the brain away perceiving it of no significance whatsoever. Alas, it is intellectually arrogant to believe that our modern day speculations are significantly better. Should one therefore conclude that this book is a waste of time? Of course not. Andrew Newberg and the Eugene D'Aquili are highly trained medical practitioners. Their area of expertise allows them to minutely study the physical aspects of human brain activity. Such study is to be encouraged. It is of mandatory necessity in treating various brain diseases, and aids us in learning how to overcome mental exhaustion and trauma. The authors indirectly address the false dichotomy between mind and body which has inhibited our research since the time of Rene Descartes. More recently, the inane nostrums of the Logical Positivists added to our confusion. "Why God Won't Go Away" merely needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt. I still give it 4 stars.
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