Abstract
Human culture has modernized at a much faster pace than has theology and religion. We are at the point where many moderns apparently think that religion is losing relevance. Satisfying the need for relevance and ecumenical harmony requires more reasoned and mature approaches to religion. Science is one of those secular activities that seems to undermine religious faith for many people. Unlike the sciences that give us the Big Bang, relativity, quantum mechanics, and theories of evolution, neuroscience is the one science that applies in everyday life toward developing a faith that promotes nurturing of self and others. Modern neuroscience and the mental health understanding that it creates can contribute to satisfying this need. Neuroscience and religion have numerous shared areas of concern, and each worldview can and should inform and enrich the other. Neuroscience may help us understand why we believe certain religious ideas and not others. It helps to explain our behavior and might even help us live more righteous and fulfilled lives. Religion can show neuroscientists areas of religious debate that scientific research might help resolve. New educational initiatives at all levels (secondary, seminary, and secular college) can provide a way to integrate neuroscience and religion and lead to religious perspectives that are more reasoned, mature, satisfying, and beneficial at both individual and social levels. Neurotheology is an emerging academic discipline that seems to focus on integrating neuroscience and theology. About only 10 years old, neurotheology has not yet consolidated its definition, ideology, purpose, or scholarly or applied strategies. Acceptance by the scholarly community is problematic. This manuscript raises the question of whether neurotheology will survive as a viable discipline and, if so, what form that could take.
Highlights
This review of the emerging discipline of neurotheology aims to explain what the discipline is currently about and how it might evolve more maturity and usefulness
Where will we find leadership for guiding the evolution of neurotheology? One obvious answer is that theologians should lead the way, and seminary curricula could benefit from reform
You can see why I created a Texas A&M course in Neuroscience and Religion. This emerging discipline of neurotheology is fraught with enemies on both sides of the divide who threaten to strangle this infant discipline with suffocating disdain, specious argument, and outright attack
Summary
This review of the emerging discipline of neurotheology aims to explain what the discipline is currently about and how it might evolve more maturity and usefulness. Evolution precludes religious belief, because they think it eliminates the need for a creator God. In the provocative book, Science vs Religion, (Ecklund 2010), the author cites survey results showing that 34% of university scientists say that they “do not believe in God,” compared to only 2% of the general U.S public. Neuroscience can and should help us all lead more fulfilling and happy lives that are compatible with sound spiritual values Both neuroscience and religion are inextricably tied to a concept of the human mind. As you can find in any modern neuroscience textbook, neuroscientists have uncovered overwhelming evidence that the human mind is a biological process that comes from the brain (LeDoux and Hirst 1986; Kosslyn and Koenig 1992; Sternberg 1999). Whatever their origin, such spiritual encounters are inevitably scenarios that occur inside a conscious brain
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