Physiology of religion

I picked up the recent issue of "Discover" magazine at Target the other day, mindful of recent conversations with DW and coworkers about how woefully ignorant all of us are about scientific issues. I read an article about developments in the study of out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, religious experiences, and brain physiology. The author theorized that these experiences exist on a spectrum, and that different parts of the cerebrum are implicated. Of particular interest to Zen practitioners, brain scans reveal that activity in the parietal lobe--which is associated with movement, orientation, recognition, and perception of stimuli--slows dramatically during meditation. The individual's sense of boundaries and separation from the rest of the world is controlled by the parietal lobe, and the senses of boundaries and separation break down during meditation, allowing the practitioner to feel connected to everything and everybody. People who have experienced out-of-body and near-death experiences have reported the same feelings. Also, a brain scan of a monastic engaged in lengthy prayer indicated the same slowing of activity in the parietal lobe, so people who pray extensively can have the same kind of sensations.

The Discover article used a brain scan to show that activity in the frontal lobe-- associated with reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, and problem solving--also decreased during the experiences being studied. However, a Time magazine article from a couple of years ago used a brain scan of a Tibetan monk to show just the opposite result. Both could be right, I suppose. As I understand it, the Tibetans focus intently on an object or topic during meditation, while we Zen types focus only on breathing and posture.

Finally, the right temporal lobe--which is usually associated with perception and recognition of auditory stimuli, memory, and speech--appears to be closely linked with religious experiences generally. Back in the 1950s, a neurologist discovered that patients with right temporal lobe epilepsy appeared to have religiously based delusions associated with their seizures. Brain scan imagery apparently confirms that activity in the right temporal lobe picks up during ecstatic and mystical religious experiences. A couple of neurologists wrote a book about this in 2002, titled "Why God Won't Go Away." A friend directed me to that book a couple of years ago, arguing that religion is bogus because it has a neurological origin. However, it seems to me that a neurological explanation of these experiences is perfectly compatible with the theologies I'm familiar with. Zen and Buddhism, of course, focus on the mind, so those are not problmatic from a neurological point of view. As far as Christianity is concerned, it makes sense to me that an omniscient, omnipotent creator would implant a mechanism that would lead people to seek spirituality. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with other theological traditions to take a guess at how they would view these questions. Anyway, that's just my take on it; I'd be interested to hear other thoughts.

The big news in Randyland over the weekend is that I upgraded my cell phone from a very basic Nokia model to a fancy Sony/Ericsson cameraphone. Some of the buttons on my old phone were hard to press, especially the one to make and accept calls. DW and I took advantage of a buy one/get one free promotion to get the fancier phones. Cingular Wireless is doing a Star Wars III promotion, so I've got Darth Vader wallpaper and an intergallactic fighter jet ringtone. Also, we get to go see the movie for free, if I could get the dang free-ticket website to work.