The God Module and humanity - Interview with Matthew Alper
Here is my interview with Matthew Alper, author of "The God Part of the Brain". Information on his book can be consulted at http://www.godpart.com/
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Q: What compelled you to write this book ?
A: From the moment I conceived of my own mortality, I was compelled to question the notions of a spiritual reality, a god, a soul, and an afterlife. Was I mortal or immortal? Was I a physical or spiritual being?
Q: What led you to take the approach you did ?
A: Having studied the cognitive sciences, I came to realize that every aspect of my conscious experience could be reduced to neurophysiological processes. Perhaps, I thought, the same might be true for what we refer to as spiritual experiences as well.
Q: What do you mean exactly by a "God" part of the brain ?
A: What I mean by this is that the human species possesses a mechanism, an evolutionary adaptation in our brain--a religious/spiritual function--which compels us to perceive and believe that there exists a transcendental/supernatural quality in the universe.
Q: And why would our species have evolved such a mechanism ?
A: With the advent of self-conscious awareness, humans became the first animal that could conceive of its own mortality, its own inevitable death.
In order to survive the excruciating anxiety that resulted from this awareness, a cognitive mechanism was selected into our species that compelled us to believe in an alternate, spiritual reality, one which allowed us to perceive ourselves as able to transcend physical death and therefore live forever in some type of afterlife.
Q: What evidence is there that we possess such a "spiritual" mechanism in our brain ?
A: Empirically, the fact that every culture from the dawn of our species has believed in some form of a spiritual reality as well as engaged in specific religious practices (building of religious shrines; creation of a mythology and a priestly class; praying; birth, puberty, marriage and death rituals; etc,.) would imply that spirituality and religiosity represent an integral part of our genetic inheritance.
Ethnobotanically, the fact that there exist certain plants and/or chemicals that can trigger a spiritual experience in us demonstrates that there must exist some part of the brain that is receptive to these chemicals.
Moreover, recent neurobiological evidence supports such a hypothesis.
a) Temporal lobe epileptics: people whose seizures trigger intense religious feelings.
b) Religiously-oriented "organic psycho-syndromes" in which people who have suffered a head injury, afterwards, become excessively religious.
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