Neurotheology: How Science Can Enlighten Us About Spirituality

Religion is often cast in opposition to science. Yet both are deeply rooted in the inner workings of the human brain. With the advent of the modern cognitive neurosciences, the scientific study of religious and spiritual phenomena has become far more sophisticated and wide-ranging. What might brain scans of people in prayer, in meditation, or under the influence of psychoactive substances teach us about religious and spiritual beliefs? Are religion and spirituality reducible to neurological processes, or might there be aspects that, at least for now, transcend scientific claims?

In this book, Andrew Newberg explores the latest findings of neurotheology, the multidisciplinary field linking neuroscience with religious and spiritual phenomena. He investigates some of the most controversial―and potentially transformative―implications of a neurotheological approach for the truth claims of religion and our understanding of minds and brains. Newberg leads readers on a tour through key intersections of neuroscience and theology, including the potential evolutionary basis of religion; the psychology of religion, including mental health and brain pathology; the neuroscience of myths, rituals, and mystical experiences; how studies of altered states of consciousness shed new light on the mind-brain relationship; and what neurotheology can tell us about free will. When brain science and religious experience are considered together in an integrated approach, Newberg shows, we might come closer to a fuller understanding of the deepest questions.

• How Enlightenment Changes Your Brain: The New Science of Transformation
• How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist
• Principles of Neurotheology (Routledge Science and Religion Series)
• Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges
• Words Can Change Your Brain: 12 Conversation Strategies to Build Trust, Resolve Conflict, and Increase Intima cy
• The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain (Second Edition) (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)
• Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
• The God-Shaped Brain: How Changing Your View of God Transforms Your Life
• The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind
• The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul