Your Brain on God

The NPR website has an article and interactive page on some of the most recent findings in neuroscience, including short videos from various experts on the study of consciousness. It is a summary of Barbara Bradley Hagerty's research that has just been published in the book, Fingerprints of God:

More than half of adult Americans report they have had a spiritual experience that changed their lives. Now, scientists from universities like Harvard, Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins are using new technologies to analyze the brains of people who claim they have touched the spiritual -- from Christians who speak in tongues to Buddhist monks to people who claim to have had near-death experiences. Hear what they have discovered in this controversial field, as the science of spirituality continues to evolve.

Neuroscientists have become the priests and witch doctors of our society, explaining the hows and whys of mysterious human experiences by using language and imagery that most of us barely understand. (For instance, does anyone know how to interpret an EEG readout with all its jagged lines that track the electromagnetic activity of the brain, or an fMRI image with different sections of the brain colorfully lit up like a Christmas Tree?) It is interesting that these new authorities on consciousness are increasingly focusing their efforts on spiritual experiences like near-death experiences, epiphanies, ESP, and the power of prayer. Even if no conclusions are reached, it is encouraging that Science is finally treating the metaphysical as a valid field for research and developing new models to "measure" consciousness and spirit.

Although i am a spiritual person by nature, i tend to believe that neuroscience provides a more reasonable explanation for many of our most hallowed "spiritual" experiences than religion or even psychology. It makes much more sense to me that Paul's life-changing experience was an epileptic seizure so awesome and inexplicable that he interpreted it as the voice of God rather than encountering the actual voice of God. Neuroscientists have discovered that a certain kind of epilepsy, temporal lobe epilepsy, is often accompanied by religious hallucinations. While this is not proof that Paul had epilepsy, it does make more sense than the Biblical explanation.

Even though i am excited about some of the findings in neuroscience, the spiritual side of me remains skeptical about the scientific attitude that all human experiences can be measured, quantified, and verified through scientific means. This belief seems to be reinforced with every discovery and breakthrough so that we now turn to science to conclusively answer all the big questions in life. The scientific method has proven itself to have immense applicability but it is important to recognize the limits of scientific knowledge. Perhaps science can enlighten us about the nature of God, but how much does it have to offer us in the realms of art, love, and peace-making? I like the insight that science brings to religious matters but i sometimes wonder if it is becoming a new kind of religion in the process.

Paul Hawken's Commencement Address: Healing and Stealing: "You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring."

Paul Hawken - the entrepreneur and environmentalist who wrote Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming and who is at the forefront of the movement to make business practices more ecologically sustainable - gave a rousing speech at the University of Portland on May 3rd, 2009.

The complete speech can be found on Real Talk World. Below are some of my favorite excerpts. (I'll post video if and when it becomes available.)

"Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating... Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades."

"There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING."

"Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done."

"When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse."

"Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television."

Bodhisattva on the Subway

A wonderful short film called Merci! by Christine Rabette. It will bring a smile to your face - if it doesn't have you rolling with laughter!

Plastic Bags

I recently became a member of the Park Slope Co-op, here in Brooklyn. It is the largest and oldest member-owned food coop in the US. All the major decisions are openly discussed and voted on by the community of members. It is ironic, then, that the Coop has developed a reputation among some of its ex-members for being a "fascist" organization – as if the authoritarian structure of corporate grocery stores is more democratic!

Because of its member-governed system, the Coop has often been at the forefront of social change. This was evidenced again this week as the Coop passed a proposal to eliminate plastic shopping bags from the store. After a passionate discussion that felt like an old-fashioned New England town hall meeting where everyone knows the eventual result of the vote but still take the opportunity to speak their mind and voice their opinions, the proposal received overwhelming support and the Coop became plastic-bag free.

The enthusiasm for this proposal was especially encouraging to me. I recently joined the Interdependence Project’s initiative “Back to the Sack: No More Plastic Bags”, which is an attempt to employ the ideas of Integral Activism to the real world of political change. The goal of the initiative is to eliminate plastic shopping bags from New York City. It will require persistent effort and a strong commitment to the principles of nonviolent activism (we expect vigorous opposition from plastic bag lobbying groups) but it is good to know that, when left to choose for themselves, people do want to get rid of the bags.

Interestingly, the ubiquitous shopping bags that are quickly filling up our landfills – not to mention our sewers, parking lots, empty fields, and bushes – may not be as difficult to decompose as we think. This week, a young scientist was honored for discovering a way to reduce the decomposition period of plastic bags from 1000 years to… about three months! He is Daniel Burd from Waterloo, Ontario. And he is 16 years old. Basically, he figured out how plastic naturally decomposes and then created the conditions to speed up the process. His idea won top honors at Canada’s biggest science fair and earned the teenager $10,000 plus a $20,000 scholarship.

Jill Bolte Taylor

There is a neuroscientist who has been creating quite a stir lately. Her name is Jill Bolte Taylor and she had a stroke eleven years ago, at the age of 37. What is remarkable about her story is not that she survived the stroke but that she remained conscious through most of the ordeal and describes it as “nirvana”. In a talk given at the TED conference – a sort of think tank for creative nerds – earlier this year, Dr. Taylor describes in emotionally vivid language what it feels like to lose the rational, analytic, and verbal functioning of the brain and experience euphoric oneness with all of life. Her recent book, My Stroke of Insight, describes her experience of having a stroke and the spiritual lessons that she has learned from it.



Dr. Taylor is uniquely positioned – as a brain scientist, a stroke victim, and someone who has directly experienced a mystical state of consciousness – to act as a bridge between modern science and ancient mysticism. And there is hope that her work will lead to a more scientific understanding of spiritual experiences. However, i think there is reason to believe that this may not lead to the scientific validation of mysticism that many people expect.

One problem is that Dr. Taylor only experienced “nirvana” as a result of the malfunctioning of her body. A blood clot in the left hemisphere of her brain caused her left lobe to shut down so that her brain was operating with primarily the right hemisphere during her mystical feeling of oneness. She was basically working with half a brain. This is especially relevant to a scientific understanding of enlightenment because the traditional explanations of nirvana are almost always associated with right-brain functions: holistic; non-linear; intuitive; simultaneous; visionary; etc. In other words, by explaining her mystical experience in scientific terms, Dr. Taylor’s work may eventually consign mysticism to the abnormal development of the right lobe (and the underdevelopment of the left lobe, which governs analytical, linear, verbal, temporal, and numerical activities). It may be decided that mystical experiences are the result of cognitive deformity, not mental health. It is a common religious conceit to vilify the functions of the left brain but it is important to remember that the two hemispheres are mutually dependent and that mental health depends on their cooperation.

The Joy of Used Books

Don't you just love used book sales?! One of the best things about living in New England has got to be the plethora of used book sales. Last weekend my local library had their annual used book sale. It was a big event. It was scheduled for two full days but when i got there - ten minutes after it started - there were already over 300 people in the room! I spent about half an hour looking at my favorite categories - philosophy, biography, science, self-help, etc. - and walked away with almost two dozen nice additions to my library. Here is a selection of some the gems:

• The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
• Work as a Spiritual Practice by Lewis Richmond
• The Treehouse by Naomi Wolf
• The Fifth Miracle by Paul Davies
• The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama
• The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
• Wisdom Energy by Lama Yeshe
• Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
• an English translation of Einstein's papers on Relativity
• Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
• The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
• Faster by James Gleick

Not bad for $20!

The Side Effects of Religion

I met an interesting woman a couple weeks ago. She is an environmentalist in Boston who understands how our religious beliefs not only affect the world around us but actually create our earthly existence. We talked about how the prevailing Christian belief system has led us to an ecological crisis. As long as we believe that the afterlife is more important and a more worthwhile existence, why should we be concerned with the destruction of this world? When it comes time to make the hard choices and personal sacrifices needed to help the Earth recover from environmental damage, will we be able to wipe away the mesmerizing image of Heaven and get our hands dirty? Only time will tell…

I am intrigued by this relationship between our idealistic beliefs and the material world that we live in. Often we think that these two worlds are completely separate: that our beliefs are merely ideas that have little to no effect on the flesh and bones of reality. But more and more scientists are coming to understand that there is a very close relationship between the body and the mind, and between our beliefs and the world we live in. Our thoughts can make us physically ill. Our convictions can make us see things that nobody else sees. And our devoted belief in life after death can make us neglect life here and now.

It is no longer feasible for our religious beliefs to be hidden in the secrecy of our souls. The world just won’t survive. As the global community becomes more and more closely interconnected, we need to expose our so-called personal beliefs for all to see and evaluate in terms of the common good. Religion is not simply a personal matter anymore.

My friend in Boston said that of all the religions she has encountered, the most promising one for the future is Judaism because Jewish cosmology is the least concerned with an afterlife. This allows Jews to focus almost all of their energy on the immediate circumstances – something that we, as a species, will have to do if we hope to address the threat of global warming. I think that she has a very good point.

In God We Trust

I recently went to a family reunion and reconnected with many relatives who i hadn't seen in ten years. During a late-night discussion on God and the meaning of life - in which more than one person was drunk - my cousin remarked that believing in God is an essential part of being American.

I was amazed. I know that many conservative Christians hold the belief that the US is "God country" but it was surprising to find this view so close to home. And, to be honest, i found it a little disturbing that a well-educated person could so carelessly blur the distinction between being a citizen of the United States and being a faithful believer in God. But, of course, this is the whole problem: people like my cousin see their religious beliefs as self-evident truths, not one set of beliefs among many, equally acceptable beliefs. Sincerely maintaining the right of religious freedom implies accepting that there is more than one viable religious view - something that many Christians seem unwilling to accept.

To be fair, i think the fear that many Christians feel when faced with the challenge of allowing freedom to other religious views is prompted not only be sectarian protectionism but by a genuine desire for moral harmony. They feel that if we abandon Christian beliefs we will lose the moral cohesion that has provided our country's shared value system since the very beginning. They think that the loss of Christian ethics will result in the loss of all ethical sensibility.

To a certain extent, i think this is a valid concern. I don't think we need to fear complete moral chaos but as more and more Americans embrace atheism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other belief systems that do not rotate around a Creator, there will be less and less of a shared religious foundation. This will open up room for more religious freedom but it will also permit the growth of morally questionable behavior. (If there are fewer socially agreed upon "rules" of conduct, there will be more instances of impulsive and selfish behavior.) In order to preserve public peace and protect the needs of the many against the whims of the few, we will be forced to find some common values across religions that will function as moral guides in a secular society.

In an interesting sidenote, one of the reasons that my cousin used to support his argument that being American implies believing in God is that the phrase "In God We Trust" is printed on every dollar bill. Although this is true, i was surprised to learn from last week's Newsweek article on Billy Graham that this phrase has only been printed on our money for the last 50 years:

It is in part thanks to Graham that Eisenhower inserted "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance and stamped IN GOD WE TRUST on our bills.

Questioning Democracy

Nothing is perfect. This is especially apparent in human systems; every system has its faults and problems. Yet, in today's world, we constantly hear the virtues of democracy extolled with hardly any mention of its defects. Intellectually, we may know that democracy cannot be a perfect system... but are we aware of the specific problems of democracy? The Greek philosophers often wrote on the demerits of democracy but do we - proud democratic citizens - understand the weak points of our own system??