Rant: Doc: Religion

It started out as an ordinary day for Saul back in A.D. 36. He wanted to murder
disciples of a man who claimed to be the Messiah, and he was on his way to
Damascus to do so. Then, on the way to Damascus, a light flashed all around Saul.
He fell to the ground and heard a voice that claimed to be Jesus Christ. The voice
told him to continue to the town, a task likely made no easier by the blindness Saul
experienced when he got up. Saul remained blind for three days, until a disciple
named Ananias laid hands upon him. Saul's sight was restored, and he immediately
became baptized. After his experience, Saul became a powerful preacher for
Jesus; today, he's better known as St. Paul.
Paul's story is interesting not just to biblical scholars, but to neuroscientists
as well. Some scientists claim that the account of this conversion, found
in the book of Acts, contains enough evidence to diagnose Paul with temporal lobe
epilepsy. The flash of light, the voices and the fall to the ground are the evidence of
a seizure, according to these neuroscientists, with the blindness a result of the post
ictal state that follows a seizure [source: Brorson, Brewer]. While most doctors
agree that it's impossible to diagnose epilepsy definitively in someone who lived so
long ago, Paul would join some other religious figures reputed to have brain
disorders, including Moses and St. Teresa of Avila [sources: BBC, Begley].
The link between epilepsy and the Lord doesn't end with that list, though. In one
study, researchers examined how certain words affected those with epilepsy
compared to those without. The words were divided into three groups: neutral
words, like "table," erotic words, such as "sex," and religious words, such as "God."
In those without epilepsy, erotic words produced the biggest change in body
chemistry, but in people with epilepsy, religious words created the biggest emotional
effect. Sexual words had a much lower response [source: BBC]. Like the story of
Paul, this study seemed to suggest that the temporal lobe has something to do with
religious feelings.
These examples represent the intersection of science and religion, a field currently
known as neurotheology. The goal of neurotheology is to determine what's
happening in the brain during a religious experience. Obviously, the field can be a
bit controversial; those with deeply spiritual -beliefs about the connection between a
person and his or her maker aren't thrilled about reducing religion to something
happening in the brain. But the work of the scientists does seem to show that
there's some connection with our gray matters and our pray matters. So, is nirvana
religion and the brain
all in our noggin? Are we simply responding to brain firings when we drag ourselves
out of bed on Sunday morning?
Comment by doc:
The fact that certain areas in the brain respond more to religious experience, in no
way proves or disproves the existence of God. It may be that these people are
more attuned to experience God or a spiritual reality, rather than the corse reality
that others create in their noggins. Nor does it detract from the usefulness of
people who experience it. It is hard to detract from the usefulness of Moses who
freed his people from slavery and enunciated a code of ethics and morality, that
lasted thousands of years. It is hard also to deny the goodness of Teresa of Avila,
Francis of Assisi, Mother Theresa of India, or Gandhi, nor the brilliant mind of
Thomas Aquinas, the einstein of his time.
None of us experience reality as it is, all of us rely on our minds to create our own
version of reality. It is the quality of that reality that counts.
Of course Nirvana is in our mind, that is what the Buddha was trying to tell us. We
create our own heaven or hell with our minds. Thomas said the same,”The kingdom
of heaven is inside you and outside you.”

B :-) doc Marvel at that awesome thing, you call your mind.