For those of us who follow Christ, and for others with an interest in the possibility of God, the up-and-coming field of research into the neurology of religious and spiritual experience is one to watch. It will be (actually is) a playground for those disposed to nothing-buttery, and it behoves us as Christ followers to look properly at the results emerging from the research and at the interpretations offered. We should recall that it is unlikely to offer us proof or otherwise of God or afterlife or whatever. However, it will be interesting to compare and contrast reductionist explanations with emergentist ones. The starting point, as Sacks points out is:
The tendency to spiritual feeling and religious belief lies deep in human nature and seems to have its own neurological basis, though it may be very strong in some people and less developed in others.
Remember though that the frame can interpret very differently. Is the spiritual tendency simply an evolutionary quirk or is it sign of a spacetime centred round the strange attractor of an Incarnation? Both readings could make sense.
Seeing God in the Third Millennium - Oliver Sacks - The Atlantic
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