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A review by davehershey
How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist by Mark Robert Waldman, Andrew Newberg
4.0
The first part of this book was rather fascinating, as the authors discussed what affect religion has on the brain. In general, things like prayer and meditation and involvement in a religious community are helpful for bodily health. The big caveat I saw is that how we view God does matter. If you believe God is an authoritarian tyrant who is going to punish you every time you slip up, then this form of religion is not good for you. The question of whether there is an infinite being we call God in actual existence is beside the point for what this book is about. Heck, I'm sure a fundamentalist Christian wouldn't care if a God of extreme wrath is bad for you. Some believers may welcome this!
It was also intriguing how they talked about how different views of God may have evolved. The story they told, especially when they got to the last few millennia, seemed a bit sloppy. They kind of played the "once humans were dumb and believed in God of wrath but now we are more evolved" card. It seems they should stick to the science or at least brush up on their history. That said, the science of where different ideas of God reside in the brain and how this has changed was interesting.
Likewise, their discussion of how children develop views of God and how this changes over the years was also intriguing. They spoke of asking children to draw a picture of God and how children usually draw faces and people. When adults are asked the same, adults often draw suns or shapes or more abstract images. One thing they noted was that children who were raised in faith communities often develop such abstract understandings while non-religious children are more likely, in later years, to still draw faces (or to refuse to draw anything). My take-away from this is that this is why some religious education is important. Not to promote any religion, for sure, but so people understand what religions actually believe. Christians do not believe that God is merely a bigger version of ourselves, despite what some skeptics (and perhaps some Christians) may believe. If you are going to be critical of something, understand it.
The last few chapters were on spiritual practices that are beneficial for your brain and health. I mostly skimmed these, noting they may be worth coming back to at some point. Some of the practices are common, if you are in a faith community. Others might not be. The best was when they mentioned YAWNING as a spiritual practice and its health benefits!
Finally, and this was not touched on in the book, but there is a lot to think about how spiritual and physical relate. I could see an atheist arguing that since there is neurological evidence of what goes on during prayer, that it is just a physical thing. In meditation, they may argue, all that is happening is some relaxation in the brain which we can study and see. This seems to me, and admittedly, I believe in the supernatural, as reductionist. It seems to offer a false dichotomy that says there are spiritual things (or there are not) and there are natural ones and the two do not touch. Yet, I think most believers who know what they are talking about would have no problem with spiritual things making some sort of mark in the natural world.
There may be synapses in my brain that fire when I see my spouse, but love is deeper than a biological impulse. There may be synapses that fire when someone has a religious experience, but this does not mean it is ONLY a natural phenomena.
I suppose the real challenge for people of faith in light of books like this is that it demonstrates that these natural health benefits occur regardless of the truth of the religions. A Muslim, Buddhist, Christian and atheist can all meditate in similar ways and get similar benefits. So does it matter which one you are a part of?
I'll end with that :)
It was also intriguing how they talked about how different views of God may have evolved. The story they told, especially when they got to the last few millennia, seemed a bit sloppy. They kind of played the "once humans were dumb and believed in God of wrath but now we are more evolved" card. It seems they should stick to the science or at least brush up on their history. That said, the science of where different ideas of God reside in the brain and how this has changed was interesting.
Likewise, their discussion of how children develop views of God and how this changes over the years was also intriguing. They spoke of asking children to draw a picture of God and how children usually draw faces and people. When adults are asked the same, adults often draw suns or shapes or more abstract images. One thing they noted was that children who were raised in faith communities often develop such abstract understandings while non-religious children are more likely, in later years, to still draw faces (or to refuse to draw anything). My take-away from this is that this is why some religious education is important. Not to promote any religion, for sure, but so people understand what religions actually believe. Christians do not believe that God is merely a bigger version of ourselves, despite what some skeptics (and perhaps some Christians) may believe. If you are going to be critical of something, understand it.
The last few chapters were on spiritual practices that are beneficial for your brain and health. I mostly skimmed these, noting they may be worth coming back to at some point. Some of the practices are common, if you are in a faith community. Others might not be. The best was when they mentioned YAWNING as a spiritual practice and its health benefits!
Finally, and this was not touched on in the book, but there is a lot to think about how spiritual and physical relate. I could see an atheist arguing that since there is neurological evidence of what goes on during prayer, that it is just a physical thing. In meditation, they may argue, all that is happening is some relaxation in the brain which we can study and see. This seems to me, and admittedly, I believe in the supernatural, as reductionist. It seems to offer a false dichotomy that says there are spiritual things (or there are not) and there are natural ones and the two do not touch. Yet, I think most believers who know what they are talking about would have no problem with spiritual things making some sort of mark in the natural world.
There may be synapses in my brain that fire when I see my spouse, but love is deeper than a biological impulse. There may be synapses that fire when someone has a religious experience, but this does not mean it is ONLY a natural phenomena.
I suppose the real challenge for people of faith in light of books like this is that it demonstrates that these natural health benefits occur regardless of the truth of the religions. A Muslim, Buddhist, Christian and atheist can all meditate in similar ways and get similar benefits. So does it matter which one you are a part of?
I'll end with that :)