Rating: 
Summary: Exciting subject
Review: I was impressed that subject matter of this nature is gaining more widespread interest in the last few years. It seems there was a real dearth of study on the concepts of religion and the science of the brain. This book dovetails nicely then with a number of great books that have recently hit the market exploring this topic. Horgan's "Rational Mysticism," Pinker's "The Blank Slate," and even the Dalai Lama's "Art of Happiness" were books I was reading at about the same time as this one. The cumulative effect was very thought-provoking. This book is again refreshing because it dares to explore the relationship (all too often the struggle) between Religion and Science - concepts as old as humankind itself. I think a truly free-thinker has to entertain ALL possibilities so as not to become a raving theophobe that excludes possible answers in the name of the deity of Science. Religion has taken its toll in human casualties throughout history, true, but we may well be living in an age that can embrace both without stigma or favouritism to the other? The research at times appears hit and miss, even inconclusive, but a systematic approach to the world of mysticism is long over-due and for this reason the seminality of the work is to be applauded. Perhaps in time others will stand on the shoulders of this kind of study, taking it further. A fascinating book well worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile read
Review: Not perfect, but a good read. The authors are on to something here and have done their homework. They present a well thought-out body of theories based on scientific evidence and reason, but while they deeply examine how brain structure and function relate to religious belief and experience, they do not use this as an opportunity to *invalidate* religious belief. Carefully done.
Rating: 
Summary: more about philosophy than science
Review: I expected a book about "brain science" to be, well, scientific. I would categorize Newberg, D'Aquili, and Rause's book as philosophic, or perhaps mystic, but certainly not scientific. While the book contains some description of their method and findings, the description is so vague that the reader is given no understanding of how "brain science" can foster such voluminous speculation that pervades this book. That said, I was intrigued by the philosophy and the speculation about the origins of mysticism and its relationship to ritual and religion. And, if I wasn't so disappointed by the books title, I might have given it a slightly better rating.
Rating: 
Summary: Mythology, mysticism and malarkey
Review: The Pope of Paleontology once bemoaned the woeful inadequacies of education in evolution in America. The authors of this book represent a prime example of the validity of Stephen Gould's lament. It may seem an oversimplification of the authors' theme to call it "neurotheology" or "hardwired for gods", but their case is so overstated that perhaps a balance is thereby achieved. Relying on Buddhist meditators and praying nuns, the authors recorded brain activity states to compare with "normal" conditions. They then go on to link various areas and functions of the brain to demonstrate that religion is an evolutionary product. For the prurient reader, they contend that the transcendental feelings we obtain from sex links through the limbic system to other parts of the brain becoming the foundation for "religious experience". Freud would have loved this book. The authors map the brain/mind to build a framework to explain the universality of religion. Their outlook is almost entirely from Western Civilization - even the Buddhist meditators are American. From this flimsy foundation and the contributions of some Western philosophers, the authors go on to construct their edifice. The brain, they argue, is designed as a "window to [g]od" which they rename the Absolute Unitary Being. They contend that gods are not the product of a cognitive, deductive process, but were instead "discovered" in a mystical or spiritual encounter. Shoring up their structure with numerous spurious assertions of the brains' processes, they see this capability having been designed through evolution. Not since the concept of "the Great Chain of Being" have humans been granted such a glorious role. GCoB exalted reasoning as giving humans "superiority" over the rest of the animal kingdom - telepathy to the divine was a step too far. Many fine books reflecting recent brain research have been published in recent years. While their descriptions of brain processes make vivid reading, there are far better sources available on the topic. The authors cite a few and ignore the rest. The ones they cite utilise information with adroit selectivity. In fact, most of their sources have been chosen with finesse. A glaring omission is Walter Burkert's Creation of the Sacred. Whatever Burkert's flaws he, at least, makes a serious attempt to extract valid evolutionary roots for religious ideas. Newberg and D'Aquili begin with the premise that there is a god [one, please note] and then manipulate neurological research to "discover" it. Like Burkert, this pair ignores the power of memes to propagate ideas and stimulate response behaviour, a major element in the dissemination of religious thought, but Richard Dawkins is ignored in this book at any level. It's interesting that after pages of "neurotheology" explaining how the brain is there to communicate with a god, at the end they waffle over its actual existence. Although the flaws in the authors' logic are immeasurable, their frequent references to human evolution display even more glaring faults. They assert that Australapithicines likely didn't have sufficient brain power to invoke deities, but grant this level of intellect to Homo erectus. They assert H. erectus was the first to have a mind capable of considering "existential dread", but unable to perceive their deity. Not until H. Neanderthalis did the concept of deities arise, which they claim is evidenced by ritual burials. Ritual burial and deities are linked in today's world, but there isn't a shred of evidence to suggest this is the way of Neanderthal thought. Nor is there any reason to believe that "dread" alone was the prime mover in considering the natural world. Benefits were clearly available - successful hunts, available fruits and vegetables, water - were these not also granted divine status? Their theme, rife with inconsistencies, keeps the deity at arm's length until a hominid evolved to talk to It. That presupposes 3.6 billion years of their god waiting in limbo. Divine patience, indeed! And if the Chixculub asteroid had missed the Earth, who would the AUB communicate with today? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating: 
Summary: So Is It a Brain Thing or a Real Thing?
Review: I must admit that I'm very torn as to how to review this book. On the one hand, I thoroughly enjoyed the first 80% of it. It was new information for me, it was insightful, it was affirming, and I was devouring it. Then I came to this transition point, where the authors make the leap from neuroscience to philosophy, and suddenly my notes in the margins kept getting more and more critical. So here's what I think I'll say about it... First, I enjoyed enormously the discussion on the biological brain functioning, and the conclusions that they derive in the first few chapters. The best way to summarize that particular discussion is as follows. Your brain is designed to keep you alive. As it developed particularly unique and complex abilities, most notably the ability for causal analysis, it discovered that there is one thing that the brain cannot do with regard to our surival...it cannot ultimately prevent our death. Since the limbic system creates an "anxiety response" to physical threats, the brain must create a response to quiet the anxiety produced by this existential discovery. If it is a normal stimulus, the brain knows how to tell the self to flee or fight. But with the ultimate death, there is no such possible response. So the brain invents answers, including God, life after death, etc. to quell the anxiety, and the neurology of the brain creates such powerful physiological response that we "feel" we have come to "true" conclusions. I liked that part. But then they make some major leaps and begin to describe a concept that they call "Absolute Unitary Being," about which I never did get a clear idea of what they mean. On the one hand, it sounds like they are simply describing a "ground-state" of reality, from which all our neurological perceptions arise. I'm okay with that. But then they go further and posit the notion that this Absolute Unitary Being is a higher plane of reality, more real than ordinary reality, and may be identified as "God." For me, things just ground to a halt, both because I philosophically disagree (which is okay), and because I felt like they never did establish a firm linkage between the science and the philosophy. Maybe I'm too dense to get it, but it just seemed to fall apart at that point. That said, I still think this is a book well worth reading. It's short, so it won't take you long to get some good stuff out of it. And maybe you'll get more out of their leaps into philosophy than I did.
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