The cognitive revolution and the decline of monotheism
An essay by Kelly Bulkeley at The Immanent Frame:
The point is that there is no single model for religious experience. Humans are capable of many different modes of being religious, and the brain subserves them all in predictable and measurable ways. Brooks may follow Newberg in advocating belief in a single totalizing deity, but the actual findings of neuroscience are pointing in the opposite direction. What’s emerging is a new appreciation for the radical pluralism of religious experiences that humans are capable of generating. As better brain imaging technologies come online, we will begin to study a wider variety of spiritual phenomena (not just what occurs when people are sitting perfectly still in a laboratory), revealing new multiplicities of cognitive processing involved in different modes of religiosity. This research will not support traditional monotheistic faith in God, though it may spark a renaissance of spiritual exploration by researchers of a poly- or pantheistic bent. That’s the cultural-scientific revolution we may yet live to see.