...this is the name of a post from Mayim Bialik [1], whom
many of you know as Amy Farrah-Fowler in the TV series "The Big Bang
Theory". It describes two topics that wouldn’t go together for many
neuroscientists. Or would they? Are religion and neuroscience (any
science, in fact) really that incompatible?
As scientists we try to deduce our knowledge from well-planned experiments and believe what we can see with our own eyes, or through the microscope. A religious person believes in the relation of humanity to the transcendental. On first sight it seems as if these are two contradictory paradigms since there seems to be no experimental evidence for the transcendent (yet), but nevertheless 51% of biological and medical scientists in the U.S. believe in either God or a universal spirit or higher power, according to a Pew Research Center survey in 2009 [2]. Therefore, religion apparently has an influence on today’s scientists and conceivably on their research.
Religious and a Scientist?
Dr. Andrew Newberg, for instance, uses neuroscientific methods to investigate religious and spiritual experiences, pioneering the field of neurotheology (see also article on page 10). Studying the connection between neuroscience and religion, he came to the conclusion that "whether or not God exists out there" is something that neuroscience cannot answer [3]. Dr. Mario Beauregard is another scientist who deals with the existence of a soul. In his book "The Spiritual Brain", he argues in favor of a reality outside the brain that people actually sense during intense spiritual experiences [4].
However, Dr. Michael Graziano, professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University, focusing on the brain basis of awareness, likes to describe spiritualism as a fundamental mode of perception by which humans relate to the world. The perceptual world that emerges from that theory is to him not contradicting or threatening science, but a psychological phenomenon that is of high importance to the human existence [5]. Taking this into consideration, the idea of bringing together the world of religion and neuroscience in a single person's belief system does not seem to be impossible anymore.
For Dr. Mayim Bialik, a former neuroscientist from UCLA and reformed-turned-orthodox member of the Jewish faith, working in neuroscience has even deepened her belief in a divine plan for the universe. Importantly, God to her is not an old man in the sky, fulfilling one's wishes if you pray hard enough, but rather "the force in the Universe that drives all of the phenomena that we experience as human beings“. Mayim explains that "understanding the relationship between science and God makes [her] a better scientist and a more complete person." When reading her post "Where faith meets science" you immediately recognize that for her, being religious doesn’t mean regarding the Torah as a science book. Instead, it signifies being grateful and humble in the face of how amazing our universe is, how amazing we are and how amazing our brains are [1].
Two Sides of the Same Coin
All these people seem to tell a story: the story of "Oneness". Even though religion and science seem to be different concepts, they might have more in common than we think. If we regard both as the quest for a description of the same entity, namely the universe and everything in it, then bringing them together could be a really interesting experiment worth trying.
Many great scientists throughout history seemed to be inspired by religiousness in the broadest sense. To quote Albert Einstein: "veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion" [6]. In a letter to Maurice Solovine in 1951, he wrote "whenever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism".
With all this in mind, we should put the relationship between religion and science to the test with skeptic but open reasoning!
[1] http://bit.ly/1LvV5Oi
[2] http://bit.ly/2ttD7sj
[3] http://bit.ly/2uZngpY
[4] http://bit.ly/2uQ5kgF
[5] http://bit.ly/2eHtmEl
[6] Kessler, The Diary of a Cosmopolitan, 1971
by Annika Stefanie Reinhold, MSc Student MedNeuro
This article originally appeared 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 3, Spirituality in Science
As scientists we try to deduce our knowledge from well-planned experiments and believe what we can see with our own eyes, or through the microscope. A religious person believes in the relation of humanity to the transcendental. On first sight it seems as if these are two contradictory paradigms since there seems to be no experimental evidence for the transcendent (yet), but nevertheless 51% of biological and medical scientists in the U.S. believe in either God or a universal spirit or higher power, according to a Pew Research Center survey in 2009 [2]. Therefore, religion apparently has an influence on today’s scientists and conceivably on their research.
Religious and a Scientist?
Dr. Andrew Newberg, for instance, uses neuroscientific methods to investigate religious and spiritual experiences, pioneering the field of neurotheology (see also article on page 10). Studying the connection between neuroscience and religion, he came to the conclusion that "whether or not God exists out there" is something that neuroscience cannot answer [3]. Dr. Mario Beauregard is another scientist who deals with the existence of a soul. In his book "The Spiritual Brain", he argues in favor of a reality outside the brain that people actually sense during intense spiritual experiences [4].
However, Dr. Michael Graziano, professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University, focusing on the brain basis of awareness, likes to describe spiritualism as a fundamental mode of perception by which humans relate to the world. The perceptual world that emerges from that theory is to him not contradicting or threatening science, but a psychological phenomenon that is of high importance to the human existence [5]. Taking this into consideration, the idea of bringing together the world of religion and neuroscience in a single person's belief system does not seem to be impossible anymore.
NEUROSCIENCE CAN’T ANSWER IF GOD EXISTS
For Dr. Mayim Bialik, a former neuroscientist from UCLA and reformed-turned-orthodox member of the Jewish faith, working in neuroscience has even deepened her belief in a divine plan for the universe. Importantly, God to her is not an old man in the sky, fulfilling one's wishes if you pray hard enough, but rather "the force in the Universe that drives all of the phenomena that we experience as human beings“. Mayim explains that "understanding the relationship between science and God makes [her] a better scientist and a more complete person." When reading her post "Where faith meets science" you immediately recognize that for her, being religious doesn’t mean regarding the Torah as a science book. Instead, it signifies being grateful and humble in the face of how amazing our universe is, how amazing we are and how amazing our brains are [1].
Two Sides of the Same Coin
All these people seem to tell a story: the story of "Oneness". Even though religion and science seem to be different concepts, they might have more in common than we think. If we regard both as the quest for a description of the same entity, namely the universe and everything in it, then bringing them together could be a really interesting experiment worth trying.
Many great scientists throughout history seemed to be inspired by religiousness in the broadest sense. To quote Albert Einstein: "veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion" [6]. In a letter to Maurice Solovine in 1951, he wrote "whenever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism".
With all this in mind, we should put the relationship between religion and science to the test with skeptic but open reasoning!
[1] http://bit.ly/1LvV5Oi
[2] http://bit.ly/2ttD7sj
[3] http://bit.ly/2uZngpY
[4] http://bit.ly/2uQ5kgF
[5] http://bit.ly/2eHtmEl
[6] Kessler, The Diary of a Cosmopolitan, 1971
by Annika Stefanie Reinhold, MSc Student MedNeuro
This article originally appeared 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 3, Spirituality in Science
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