Is Religion Rooted in the Biology of the Human Brain?
`Newberg and d’Aquili base this revolutionary conclusion on a long-term investigation of brain function and behavior as well as studies they conducted using high-tech imaging techniques to peer into the brains of meditating Buddhists and Franciscan nuns at prayer. What they discovered was that intensely focused spiritual contemplation triggers an alteration in the activity of the brain that leads one to perceive transcendent religious experiences as solid, tangible reality. In other words, the sensation that Buddhists call “oneness with the universe” and the Franciscans attribute to the palpable presence of God is not a delusion, or subjective psychology, or simple wishful thinking. Rather, it is triggered by a chain of distinct neurological events that can be objectively observed, recorded, and actually photographed.
The inescapable conclusion is that God seems to be hard-wired into the human brain. [..]’
