Neurotheology

Last year, a psychotherapist who I knew through a friend, called me and asked for legal advice. He told me that he had participated in a study of the "God Effect," and wanted to bring it into the mainstream. The study was a small scale version of the following test, which was reported by Religious News Service (RNS) in 2016.

Cancer patient Tony D. Head wasn’t sure he’d call it "God" exactly, but some extraordinary power touched him during his psychedelic-assisted therapy session.

“It was so powerful and so profound that it just took my breath away,” said Head, a a research subject in a new study of psychotherapy fueled by psilocybin, the active ingredient in the mind-altering drug known as magic mushrooms.

“Whatever it was, it was a power that is in the universe," he added after the session at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. "I feel like it changed my life.”

Head, an actor who played Major Bobby Reed in the popular HBO series "The Wire," was one of 80 cancer patients who volunteered to participate in two studies. The findings were published Thursday (Dec. 1, 2016) by researchers at Johns Hopkins and the New York University School of Medicine.

The separate but similar clinical trials were designed to see if a single dose of psilocybin could reduce psychological illness and existential distress among patients with a life-threatening diagnosis.

In a press release, Johns Hopkins University said the drug had been given "in tightly controlled conditions in the presence of two clinically trained monitors" and that use of the compound was not recommended "outside of such a research or patient care setting."

Psilocybin is illegal in many countries. In the United States, it is classified along with heroin, marijuana and LSD as a Schedule I controlled substance, which means that, according to the federal government, it has "no currently accepted medical use in treatment."

Still, the trials suggest that spiritual feelings triggered by the drug may play a role in alleviating depression and severe anxiety, especially when dealing with a life-threatening illness.

“Many of the patients,” NYU researcher Stephen Ross observed, “would say something like, ‘Now I’ve experienced the death of the body, so I’m not so afraid.’ They get through it. They come out the other side.”

The study of 51 depressed cancer patients at John Hopkins reported reduced depression in 92 percent of those who received a high dose of psychedelic psilocybin, compared with only 32 percent among those who got an extremely low dose that should not have had much of an effect. Tests to measure depression were done five weeks after the psilocybin session.

NYU researchers found that 83 percent of volunteers treated with psilocybin had a significant reduction in depression symptoms seven weeks after they received a single dose of the psychedelic compound. That compared with only 14 percent of a control group that got all the therapy — but with a placebo pill containing niacin. There were a total of 29 research subjects in that group.

Both research teams found that most of the improvement in mood remained six months after the psychedelic sessions. Those who randomly received the placebo pills in the double-blind trials were later able to undergo a high-dose psilocybin session, and they also showed significant long-term psychological gains.

Ross, director of addiction psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center, said half of the New York volunteers going into the study described themselves as agnostics or atheists, and half had some kind of religious affiliation. But roughly equal numbers in both groups had experiences that could be described as "mystical." (See https://religionnews.com/2016/12/01/study-drug-induced-spiritual-experiences-help-cancer-patients/; Emphasis mine).

I told the psychotherapist I couldn't (and wouldn't) help him in getting a Schedule I drug made accessible to the public. The possible consequences of such studies was not lost on the enemies of God. The subject of "religious experience" is not encountered by many of us. It may only come into our lives when a neighbor's 20 year old goes travelling to "find themselves," or when someone at the Vatican II sect parish takes up yoga. For me, it was this phone call with an eccentric psychotherapist. Luckily, the True Faith is not based on experiences and feelings as is the Modernist Vatican II sect.

Beginning around the year 2000, neuroscientists have published a great deal of research showing numerous brain regions to be especially active during religious practices. Have these discoveries proven that religious experiences are products of the brain? What about Catholic mystics and seers? Has neuroscience filled in a gap in which God is squeezed out? Many atheists are claiming the "death of God" has finally arrived. There is even a term for such studies---Neurotheology---where brain science meets religious experience.

In this post, I will examine the claims of neurotheology and its impact and value to both the True Faith and the Vatican II sect.

Is God in the Frontal Lobes of the Brain?

Professor Andrew Newberg has pioneered studies, such as brain imaging techniques, to see how the brain reacts during various religious experiences in different religions. Interestingly, all religious experiences are not the same. According to Medical News Today, Newberg:

...draws from his numerous studies to show that both meditating Buddhists and praying Catholic [V2 Sect] nuns, for instance, have increased activity in the frontal lobes of the brain.

These areas are linked with increased focus and attention, planning skills, the ability to project into the future, and the ability to construct complex arguments.

Also, both prayer and meditation correlate with a decreased activity in the parietal lobes, which are responsible for processing temporal and spatial orientation.

Nuns, however — who pray using words rather than relying on visualization techniques used in meditation — show increased activity in the language-processing brain areas of the subparietal lobes.

But, other religious practices can have the opposite effect on the same brain areas. For instance, one of the most recent studies co-authored by Dr. Newberg shows that intense Islamic prayer — "which has, as its most fundamental concept, the surrendering of one's self to God" — reduces the activity in the prefrontal cortex and the frontal lobes connected with it, as well as the activity in the parietal lobes.

Here's another interesting finding from the same source:

Researchers led by Dr. Jeff Anderson, Ph.D. — from the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City — examined the brains of 19 young Mormons using a functional MRI scanner.

When asked whether, and to what degree, the participants were "feeling the spirit," those who reported the most intense spiritual feelings displayed increased activity in the bilateral nucleus accumbens, as well as the frontal attentional and ventromedial prefrontal cortical loci.

These pleasure and reward-processing brain areas are also active when we engage in sexual activities, listen to music, gamble, and take drugs. The participants also reported feelings of peace and physical warmth.

"When our study participants were instructed to think about a savior, about being with their families for eternity, about their heavenly rewards, their brains and bodies physically responded," says first study author Michael Ferguson.

These findings echo those of older studies, which found that engaging in spiritual practices raises levels of serotonin, which is the "happiness" neurotransmitter, and endorphins.

The latter are euphoria-inducing molecules whose name comes from the phrase "endogenous morphine." Such neurophysiological effects of religion seem to give the dictum "Religion is the opium of the people" a new level of meaning. (See https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322539.php#6 for both stories; Emphasis within both from the original).

This information immediately generates two profound questions: (a) Does brain activity mean the religious experience isn't real? and (b) Does brain activity prove that God doesn't exist as some atheists assert, but He is merely a byproduct of the brain?

Both questions will be answered in turn.

1. The experience and the brain are distinct.

Just because we know where in the brain something is happening, does not mean we have explained the experience it produces. An example may help to illustrate my point. I love eating chocolate ice cream (people who  know me will confirm this is my guilty pleasure). The thought of eating a scoop of chocolate ice cream starts a neural network firing in the so-called "reward centers" of the brain, and there is a release of chemicals that send me to my "happy place" as I eat my chocolate ice cream. Note well: it is one thing to understand the workings of the brain when going to eat chocolate ice cream, and something altogether different to experience the taste.

There is a famous "thought experiment" in philosophy which illustrates this point well. Let's suppose their is a scientist named "Mary" who is unable to see in color, and has apprehended all objects in black and white since birth. Mary is a neuroscientist who understands perfectly how the cones in the eyes transmit colors to the optic nerve and how they are properly understood by the brain at the base of the occipital lobe. Mary understands color. She has been praying to God for a cure to her eyesight problem, and one day she wakes up to find that God has given her the miracle for which she prayed; she can see perfectly in color! Does Mary's experience of color give her new information that her knowledge of color could not possibly have given to her before? The answer must be YES. 

Just because brain areas are more at work during prayers, meditation or other religious experiences, it does not follow that (1) the experience can be properly understood and (2) that it is only a product of the brain. Something distinct from neurons firing is taking place. 

2. Brain activity does not mean God doesn't exist.

Just because something is experienced through the brain doesn't mean it originated in the brain. I experience eating chocolate ice cream, but that by no means implies that the ice cream doesn't exist. Likewise, a drug that induces an hallucination of an apple, doesn't thereby prove that all apples are illusory.

Moreover, brain activity during prayer doesn't negate God. If anything, it is a plausible argument for the existence of God. If our brains are active during the eating of chocolate ice cream, isn't it reasonable that God created our brains to respond when we encounter Him? 

Neurotheology, Modernism, and the True Faith

The New Atheists are jumping on board the "neurotheology train" to attack the existence of God. I have shown that nothing about brain states requires a disbelief in the Christian God. However, neurotheology is a big help to the Vatican II sect, built as it is upon Modernism. 

If all brains show reactions when engaged in religious activity, doesn't that mean that everyone comes into contact with God regardless of their beliefs? How do we call the belief of the seer at Fatima true, and that of a Hindu "guru" false? Pope St. Pius X,  as part of his condemnation and campaign against Modernism, composed the Anti-Modernist Oath, to be sworn by every Catholic cleric in the world beginning in 1910. (It was abolished, for obvious reasons, in the Vatican II sect on July 17, 1967). The Oath affirms five chief Catholic Truths:

1. The existence of God can be demonstrated by human reason

2. Miracles and prophecies are a criteria of divine revelation

3. The Catholic Church was founded by the historical Person of Jesus Christ, and is attested to by history

4. Catholic doctrine is immutable

5. The Catholic Faith is both supernatural and reasonable

Note well that all of this is based on objective criteria extrinsic to a person. It is not subjective. This is how we can ascertain the Fatima seer as true (The Miracle of the Sun witnessed by thousands), versus the Hinu "guru" and his demonic "gods." The fifth paragraph of the Oath states:

"Fifthly, I hold with certainty and sincerely confess that faith is not a blind sentiment of religion welling up from the depths of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality; but faith is a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source. By this assent, because of the authority of the supremely truthful God, we believe to be true that which has been revealed and attested to by a personal God, our Creator and Lord."

Modernism will hold all religions as equally valid, since every religion springs from the "Vital Immanence" within man. Every religion is a believer’s legitimate "experience of God" (brain states!) A "Church" is simply a group of people who adhere to the same religious feelings. So all religions are good, providing that they satisfy the yearnings of the human heart. There is no "One True Church." All religions are of God and more or less true, because they come from the source of all things divine, which is the religious inner feelings (experience) of humans. Modernists, by necessity, must be ecumenical.

Conclusion

Neuroscience is a fascinating field of study. However, there are definite limits to what it can tell us. Those who wish to reduce belief in God to brain states have failed miserably to prove such. Modernism is based on the idea that Faith is not external and rational, but subjective and experiential. They would also love to prove all experiences of God, regardless of religion, are true. Expect to hear about how neurotheology "confirms the teachings of Vatican II" by the sect's apologists in the near future.

True Catholics go "out of their minds," to escape the truly insane proposition of the Vatican II sect, namely, that all religions are more or less good, valid, and come from "God."