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Debate has long raged between atheists and the faithful about whether God is all in our heads, and the discovery of a so-called “God module” in the 
brain has only fanned the flames. While a group of neuroscientists at the University of San Diego were studying the brain patterns of epileptics, they stumbled across something they weren’t expecting: that epileptics who suffer a certain kind of seizure are often intensely religious, reporting an unusual number of visions, communications with God and even paranormal experiences. Further tests revealed that there’s a specific place in the temporal lobe (the aforementioned “module”) which flares up when faithful subjects are asked questions about their faith, and that this spot was a common focal point for electrical discharges during epileptic seizures. Those San Diego neuroscientists quickly issued forth a theory: that “there may be dedicated neural machinery in the temporal lobes concerned with religion, which may have evolved to impose order and stability on society.” So did our brains create God — or did God create our brains?
Another fascinating neuro-religious study hit the news 
in 2006, concerning evangelical Christians who “speak in tongues” during church services. Tongues-speakers have long claimed that their glossolalia is something greater than themselves speaking through them; that they give themselves up to the sacred during services and are in a state of benevolent possession (also known as being “baptized in the Holy Spirit,” “getting the ghost,” and so on). University of Pennsylvania researchers decided to see what was really going on in the evangelicals’ heads, so they took brain images of five women while they spoke in tongues at church and found that, much to their surprise, the results did little to cast doubt on the womens’ own descriptions of their state. While speaking in tongues, the language centers as well as the frontal lobes — the thinking, willful part of their brain that controls most behavior — were quiet. While these women were dancing and shouting, speaking in a gibberish that would take more concentration to invent on the spot than normal speech, their speech and behavior centers weren’t doing much. Which is to say, the images supported the women’s interpretation of what was happening to them; it was as if they were under the control of something else, in a state of mental possession. (Watch people speak in tongues here.)
We’re hearing more all the time about religion through the lens of neuroscience, and much of what’s come out has been like the two examples above — a fascinating mixed bag. What do you think? Do these studies prove or disprove anything? Can science and religion be friends and play nice?
Comments (20)
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I’m not so sure that these findings actually prove anything one way or another. No matter what, even if science proves anything relating to religion, the nature of religious people will keep them from changing their minds and renouncing their faith.
So, really, these stepping stones to scientifically explain these phenomena have proved nothing.
posted by Benjamin M Strozykowski on 5-28-2008 at 9:44 am
I don’t think there’s any point in trying to prove or disprove religion through science. It’s like trying to prove that a plant is living or dead by examining it with a stethoscope.
In terms of “speaking in tongues,” I think that could be closely related to humming during meditation, where the ideal is to decrease brainwave activity.
posted by TMo on 5-28-2008 at 10:10 am
I don’t think we will ever see science destroy religion, they can go hand in hand. I believe that God is the creator of all, I also believe in evolution, and I mock those who believe Earth is only 6,000 years old.
Does this make me a bad Christian? I don’t think so. The early part of Genesis is so poetic in nature I don’t think we are intended to mistake it for science, but rather as a basic interpretation of how things got started.
I do believe in a literal Adam and Eve in a literal Garden of Eden, and a literal worldwide flood (some religious scholars speculate the flood may have been a more regional even in Asia creating the Black Sea, if that were proven it would not shake my faith either)
posted by Witty Nickname on 5-28-2008 at 10:34 am
i don’t think anybody will ever resolve the science/religion debate. if science were to disprove the existence of god, the religious people would reject it. if science were to prove the existence of god, the scientific people would reject it. it’s all a difference of opinion.
posted by tami on 5-28-2008 at 10:53 am
I’d have to comment that religion and science go hand in hand.
Science is simply a series of finite laws and rules. there must be someone who put those laws and rules in place. Religion is how we are introduced to the One who put the rules of Science in place.
One cannot necassarily prove/disprove the other. By looking more globally at the Abrahamic religions in total, they all have some relationship to science. However in the age where church was seperated from state it was also seperated from science.
posted by Bill-Al on 5-28-2008 at 11:49 am
Religion and science are 100% compatible. Religion is the why and science is the how. They each serve different purposes so 1 disproving the other isn’t necessary.
Humans now understand more about their world then ever before but it doesn’t diminish the desire for love and purpose in life. Finding that the Earth revolved around the Sun seemed like heresy at the time but it didn’t change anything about the importance of religion.
As Witty Nickname stated above, Genesis provides understand and enlightenment into the question of why and who we are. The fact that it is not a science textbook is not relevant. It’s not suppose to be.
posted by BoilerBob on 5-28-2008 at 12:07 pm
@ BoilerBob:
Even though the Bible is not a “science textbook”, it is completely correct on every scientific aspect it touches on.
It’s ridiculous and immature to ask the question of “Science OR Religion?” (Why don’t we also ask ourselves “Water or Soil?” “Food or Drink?”) Oftentimes, people are just looking for the response of what people LIKE more.
Science and the Bible are not matters of opinion but matters of fact. The problems intelligent religious people have with “science” are not the facts but the theories and the persecution they suffer for believing the Bible is more than poetry.
posted by Sarah on 5-28-2008 at 2:37 pm
I find the results of the first study very intriguing – I had juvenile epilepsy for about five years until I grew out of it in my early teens, and since that time I’ve considered myself to be an atheist.
posted by Laura R. on 5-28-2008 at 3:08 pm
Here here, Bill-Al, BoilerBob, and Sarah! Well said.
In response to the potential module that “flairs up” when concerned with religious views, I fail to see how that would suggest that we’ve made up God. For the most part, we don’t make up memories. For example, if I broke my arm roller skating at my seventh birthday and hear someone mention a broken arm, the area that stores memory is going to flair up because I am recalling that memory. This discovery only proves that human beings digest their religious beliefs and store them into one particular area of the brain, which is not at all surprising.
posted by Bethany on 5-28-2008 at 3:19 pm
Hah! From now on I’ll just say it “My god-module is broken!”
posted by Aemi on 5-28-2008 at 3:27 pm
I think religion is incompatible with science and that the less religion persecutes science, the better.
posted by Vorple on 5-28-2008 at 4:20 pm
Fascinating. I love the idea that we each have our own little chunks of brain that are connected to faith and God. It reinforces my belief that we each have the capacity to have our own relationship with a Higher Power irrespective of anyone else’s version.
I agree with Sarah in that it’s not really an Either/Or situation. Confidence in the methods of science and faith in the power of God are not mutually exclusive; there are many of us believers who are proof of that despite other believers in only one or the other who want to discount the rest of us. You can go to your Heaven without me if that’s how you feel; I’ve got my own journey ahead that’s independent of your dogmatic structure.
I think we need less argument and more acceptance that others can feel very differently because there isn’t One Right Answer to any question that truly matters in existence.
Just my two cents…
posted by frodopal on 5-28-2008 at 6:35 pm
I would have to say as a Biology/Psychology double major (one year left, yay!) That Sarah, Boiler Bob, and Bill-Al have a good point. Yes, religious people have persecuted science, but it does go both ways. I have seen sciece persecute those with religious beliefs, even when they are not bringing them into the science discussion.
If you really want to go back, it was Plato who first seperated the things spiritual realm and those of the physical realm.
There is no reason to seperate the two, and there isn’t a lot of reason that they should be pitted against each other. Everyone can have their own beliefs, but the truth will always be true.
posted by lady H on 5-28-2008 at 8:04 pm
Who is to say either one is right? My personal beliefs are that science is the proof that God exists. I feel that God created everyone and everything and that includes science, which he created to allow things to progress systematically and orderly. But that is my beliefs.
posted by daniel on 5-28-2008 at 8:49 pm
The ‘god module’ is the genetic implant put into us by the aliens, who will use them to easily subdue, then harvest us near the ‘end times’… obviously! ;p
posted by tona b. on 5-28-2008 at 10:04 pm
I don’t think it proves anything either way. But it makes me wonder what the “god module” really entails. I’m agnostic, so I’m more inclined to believe it includes things such as philosophy and general spirituality. Surely not everyone they studied was religious, or already believe in paranormal things, or whatever it was that manifested after the seizures..?
posted by Celeste M. on 5-29-2008 at 12:40 am
It all boils down to one, alas, unanswerable question: Which is cause and which is effect?
posted by Steve on 5-29-2008 at 10:07 am
God is the metamorphosis of man.
posted by Mark on 5-29-2008 at 11:37 am
i’m an agnostic. this means, to me, that i doubt my faith…and not yours.
that said, i agree with the more moderate thoughts in this comment space: i think if the extremes from both religious and scientific might stop focusing on what they disagree on, and instead focus on more common ground, we may be able to move forward with our intelligent thought(s)…as opposed to stagnation.
are they just ‘glass-half-empty’ kind of people?
posted by Serena C. on 5-29-2008 at 12:28 pm
This entire article is conjecture based on an insignificant set of data. I wouldn’t waste my time evaluating it.
As for Science Vs. Religion. I leave that to you.
posted by The Squirrel on 5-29-2008 at 7:36 pm