The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul
The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul Books
- ISBN13: 9780060858834
- Shape up: USED – VERY GOOD
- Notes:
Product Description
Do religious experiences come from God, or are they merely the random firing of neurons in the brain? Drawing on his own research with Carmelite nuns, neuroscientist Mario Beauregard shows that genuine, life-changing spiritual events can be documented. He offers compelling evidence that religious experiences have a nonmaterial origin, making a convincing case for what many in scientific fields are wary to consider—that it is God who makes our spiritual experiences, not the brain.
Beauregard and O’Leary explore recent attempts to locate a “God gene” in some of us and claims that our brains are “hardwired” for religion—even the weird case of one neuroscientist who allegedly invented an electromagnetic “God helmet” that may possibly yield a mystical experience in anyone who wore it. The authors argue that these attempts are misguided and narrow-minded, because they reduce spiritual experiences to material phenomena.
Many scientists ignore hard evidence that challenges their materialistic prejudice, clinging to the limited view that our experiences are explainable only by material causes, in the obstinate conviction that the corporal world is the only reality. But scientific materialism is at a loss to clarify irrefutable accounts of mind over matter, of intuition, willpower, and leaps of faith, of the “placebo effect” in medicine, of near-death experiences on the operating table, and of psychic premonitions of a loved one in crisis, to say nothing of the occasional sense of oneness with nature and mystical experiences in meditation or prayer. Habitual science clarifies away these and other occurrences as delusions or misunderstandings, but by exploring the latest neurological research on phenomena such as these, The Spiritual Brain gets to their real source.
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As a Christian I felt some strong, conflicting emotions even as reading this book. Very early on in the book the authors stated that it wasn’t their purpose to refute evolution, because it is essentially a moot top, and then went on to compare similarities between humans and chimps. I was quite surprised to read that as one of the co-authors has won a Canadian Christian Writing Award, as this simply isn’t biblically right. I would urge Kent Hovind’s creation run on DVD to clear up some of this confusion.
But, the book was an enlightening read in terms of learning how the vast majority of scientists now view the mind – only materially. I feel that the authors did an brilliant job of presenting materialism as a belief system that is not founded on scientific principles, and that can only survive by averting the eyes from anything that points to the divine Creator of the universe (God).
Certainly a meaty book, with lots to chew on and digest, and a very informative, but still accessible source of in rank both in terms of evaluating materialistic neuroscience, even as opening the readers eyes to the possibilities of the divine at work in us.
For those who feel that we, as humans, lack a mind, and that we are simply ‘bags of chemicals’as it were this would certainly be an enlightening source of in rank as to the limitations of this theory, and will help to top the way past blind faith in matter, and perhaps (if we can read past the stance on evolution – another theory not grounded well in science, just like materialistic neuroscience) help to top people to our Creator and God.
Rating: 3 / 5
This book is for the Christian believer who wants scientific insight in the debate mind/brain/body. A attractive book.
Rating: 5 / 5
The Spiritual Brain is a wonderful and vital book. I hope it will be successful, because it deserves to be read throughout the world.
Rating: 5 / 5
The long philosophical arguments hostile to materialism were largely redundant and less fascinating to me. The quantity of space devoted to new scientific data about the brain was much shorter, and that discussion was more fascinating.
Rating: 3 / 5
Carl Sagan warned that the general populace’s ignorance of science would have extremely negative consequences for our species in the long-term. The popularity of this pseudoscientific book is a perfect indicator that he was aptly about one thing: people have absolutely no know of what science involves – nor any respect for the helpful tools that the administer of science brings about.
Just so I’m not complaining about people’s ignorance, allow me to end some ignorance with this review…
Science (and the scientific method) is: a never-ending administer of developing, revising and replacing theoretical models (theories) about the natural universe that are used to make right, consistent, reliable and robust predictions about the natural universe based on observations, experiments, and tests hostile to nature that are both consistent, reliable, right, robust and peer-reviewed (repeated corroborating evidence, observations or consequences).
*There is a valid philosphical standpoint for what the administer of science is never-ending: we can never know (even if we really have) whether or not we have explored, experimental, and tested the current develop (scientific theory) hostile to every inch of the universe.
I digress. On to the book: I read this book from beginning to end, and the feeling of nausea stayed with me the entire time. One is slapped in the face that the author of this book doesn’t have any thought what science is about over and over and over and over. The only evidence this book provides is that these authors don’t deserve the degree they used in the subtitle. They do science injustice and deceive keen minds into believing something is scientific, when it couldn’t be any farther from it. This book is science-fiction, nothing more.
Words that come to mind when reading this book: abysmal, pseudoscience, biased, subjective, intellectual hijacking
I really feel like my intellect has been drained slightly after reading this book. I promise to never theme my brain to such non-academic garbage ever again.
Rating: 1 / 5