As a Christmas gift this year, I received the book “How God Changes Your Brain” by Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, which discusses the latest neurological studies as to where in the brain spiritual and religious impulses originate. Of course, with a topic such as this, I consumed the whole book in two or three sittings and was left feeling like a little boy who shoved a whole cookie in his mouth. Clearly, I should have taken the time to savor this book and digest its meaning fully; I need to reread it to appreciate the scope of what these scientific findings mean and work out how they might impact my views on spirituality and religion.
Having said that, there is one thing that struck me about the research that goes a long way explaining a particular dichotomy – what I like to call the Big God / Small God Dynamic. In religions world-wide there seems to be roughly two distinct camps. One camp emphasizes God’s love for humanity, concerns itself with alleviating human suffering, and places a fair amount of importance on similarities between different religions. This is the Big God camp, because their God is big enough to accept everyone. The other camp emphasizes God’s judgment, concerns itself with human sin, and places a greater importance upon the differences between religions. This is the Small God camp, because this is uncompromising, wrathful, and discriminating.
As it turns out, there is a scientific reason behind this dichotomy in people’s views on God. Religious impulses originate in two areas of the brain – the frontal lobe and the limbic system. The frontal lobe, which is the more recently developed portion of the human brain, lights up with activity when the Big God is contemplated; it is also the origin abstract ideas such as love, peace, truth, and wisdom. The limbic system, which is the oldest portion of the human brain, lights up with activity when the Small God is contemplated; it is also the origin of our “fight or flight” response and very basic emotions such as anger and fear.
Both of these “Gods” exist as parts of the human mind, and most spiritual experiences are a blend of the two. However, if we look at spiritual trends over the last 100 years or so, there is a definite shift in which of these two concepts of God are favored; humanity is moving away from the judgmental wrathful God and towards a more peaceful loving God. I think this is proof of human evolution within the last century or so; we are slowly transitioning from a limbic religion to frontal lobe spirituality. The implication of this is that our brain is still evolving, and along with it, our concept of God is evolving as well.
Of course, it could also be argued that this is proof that belief in God is a product of our evolution and that we should see God as a defect of the human brain. I’m not in favor of such an argument, although I understand why and how that argument would be made. If God is nothing more than an adaptation, however, it would seem odd that this adaptation would continue to evolve over the last 100 years – a time frame during which physical demands on the human species have decreased, while intellectual demands have increased. It would make more sense if we saw belief in God slowly disappearing, instead of rapidly changing.
Or… perhaps I missed something in my first reading of “How God Changes Your Brain.” As I’ve already said, it is worth a second read.
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“and was left feeling like a little boy who shoved a whole cookie in his mouth.”-I love this line!
You know my views on God. The only God there is is yourself and what it is you choose to do, and how you choose to do it.
Maybe the evolution has occured because as intellectual demands increased so did the level of comfort causing our minds and consciousnesses to shift from fear and surivival to the kind of society we have now. This change in thinking could have also caused our biology to slowly change. I personaly believe that to a lesser extent a person’s thinking affects their biology. Over the span of a few generations I could see how evolution could change the brain.
Most people, myself included have delusional concepts of God born out of the need to feel comfortable and secure. If there is a ‘God’ I don’t believe it can be known. The ‘God I know’ I don’t know, sure sometimes maybe we experience small fragments of it, but that is not all of god (or is it?), and thus we can’t hold onto only that if we are to know god. To me God would have to be ever new, and thus ever changing and thus beyond time because we’d never be able to know it all at once. Maybe that’s the secret… We as people are to close-minded to truly let ‘God’ in. We hold onto one concept and judge another. Rarely do we hold onto one concept while learning to expand into and out of another.
It’s been said God is all things, maybe it’s true, but it is very hard to embrace and express the heart of every single thing you interact with. We’re much more selfish than that. We’d much rather feel that others have to be like us, understand us, love us unconditionally, than us doing those things.
Does the long silence mean you are done with blogging again?
Good post here, John… It’s the first time I’ve ever been here… I think. But I guess we’ve been friends on SU for some time… well… you know. And I’m sure you already know about the mythological crow, Bhusundha? (not sure about that spelling)
On the above… good thinking… well done… There are, perhaps, broader metaphors for “god” that are more intuitively appealing than big god small god. But how would one know? Otto Rank presents his take on the human-god metaphor better than anybody I’ve ever read… Check out “Psychology and the Soul” by Otto Rank… the recent translation is the way to go.
keep writing… but no rush on my part. And Bhusundha agrees whole heartedly.
Tommy (baloooma)