Episode 24: Dr. Patrick McNamara and The Neuroscience of Religious Belief
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- Episode 24: Dr. Patrick McNamara and The Neuroscience of Religious Belief
Did you know that religious belief and experiences have a profound effect on our brains? In this unique episode we speak with neuroscientist Patrick McNamara on how folklore affects our brains? We discuss how the brain processes and interprets religion, as well as mythology, mystical experiences. We ask existential questions like why and how people develop relationships with supernatural agents such as God, gods, prophets, angels, ghosts? Our guest, Dr. McNamara is a co-founder of The Center for Mind and Culture, a non-profit research institute dedicated to the study of the neurologic and evolutionary correlates of religious beliefs, behaviors, and practices.
Links:
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I hear what Dr McNamara is saying, and I understand. But I’ve been trying to grapple with how my departure from religion triggered what he described around the 30 min marker about having a massive “update” about your being. Is it possible that religion can also create circumstances that lead people to such crises?
Thanks to Dr. McNamara for this very good explanation. His book (2nd edition now) is the standard text in universities. For those too young or ignorant for some other reason of the example of a deadly cult that Dr. McNamara mentioned, here's the WIkipedia article on Aum Shinrikyo:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo
An example of the power of imagining alternatives, in fact in a dream vision, was the discovery in organic chemistry of the molecular structure of the benzene ring. The German discoverer dreamed of a snake with its tail in its mouth. Another example of imagining an alternative world was that of Gautama Siddhartha, known as the Buddha, who dared to teach ethics without ritual or sacrifices, and broke away from the Hindu caste system and ignored its gods. The Jewish teacher Yeshua (known in the Greek form as Jesus) taught of a new dispensation in which the humble would be elevated, the proud would be brought low by divine intervention, and a kingdom of heaven would be established on this earth as in heaven. It hasn't happened, but it has been a powerful vision for twenty centuries.
Very good.
Dr. McNamara is an underrated scientist in the fields of religion and neurobiology.
His work is certainly incredible!
As for the reasons for gods, prophets, angels, divine sons of god, etc. one reason is the "security blanket" - the need to feel protected and safe of the infant, who cannot survive without such protection, usually from a mother, but from a substitute, if a mother is not available. It's easy to re-imagine our parents as gods and goddesses, angels, saints, etc. or equally to imagine such beings in the place of parents who were absent of not that loving or available. And of course, like an angry mother or father, the gods could be fearful if displeased. The most basic beliefs of early peoples were not in the great imperial gods of civilizations - Zeus, Jupiter, Vishnu, Shiva, etc. All human societies began with ancestor worship, and plausibly ascribed souls to the animals they hunted and needed. It was natural to believe ancestors were around, either to help or harm if not gratified (e.g. by offerings) after all people saw them in their dreams. There were also shamans who spoke in strange voices after special austerities, who claimed to transport themselves in the air and to control the elements of nature or to speak directly with gods or angels and channel them. It was natural to give these awesome people higher - divine status. Even if they were hallucinating or schizophrenic, they were convincing. (No one asked why no prophet or revealed scripture came up with something totally weird and strange about the universe like E= MC2. Even today, most people can't understand something like that, it doesn't excite or inspire them. But if someone ten or twenty centuries ago had said that or put that in a sacred book, that would indeed be totally convincing of a supernatural source.
Stories of rising from the dead, of turning water to wine, or of walking on water were common not only to the life of Jesus but to other holy figures. People needed, once they were farmers and herders, to have rain for their crops and fodder for their cattle, so it made sense to reduce anxiety by praying to gods of rain and thunder. Other divinities arose for human needs of strength - e.g. the monkey-shaped loyal and powerful god of Hinduism who can fly through the air carrying a mountain, or the elephant-headed god invoked at the beginning of all rites who breaks obstacles. Or for the human need for children - e.g the phallic god of regeneration of the Hindus, Shiva, or of the Greeks and Romans. Cities and royalty were conceived in the image of the gods to give them more power and a hold on subjects - so Ashur or Roma or the Divine Augustus or the Pharaoh God-Kings of Egypt. There were gods for specific terrible diseases - like for plague and small-pox in India or Apollo in Greece. In brief, when people felt powerless, fearful of the future, whether in battle or in the vicissitudes of life, relying on an unseen benign power provided courage and strength. That was true of soldiers in fox-holes and also true of the Khalifa's followers who believed their amulets with the words of the Koran would give them immunity from the bullets of Maxim machine guns at the battle of Omdurman.