Neurotheology: Exploring Our Brain and God (Yom Kippur 5776 Morning Service, 9/23/15)
Thu, September 24, 2015
At the center of our faith, from the moment we enter Jewish awareness, the power of the Shema becomes a part of our lives. Whether you recite it twice daily, when you rise and when you go to sleep, or at services, or when you are in crisis, or at the moment of death, the Shema is the centerpiece of Jewish reality. Deuteronomy 6: 4 says,
“Shema Yisrael,
HEAR, O ISRAEL, ADONAI IS OUR GOD, ADONAI IS ONE!”
And in the very next line it continues,
“V’ahavta…AND YOU SHALL LOVE, THE LORD YOUR GOD, WITH ALL YOUR MIND, WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, WITH ALL YOUR BEING.”
According to the V’ahavta, we are to love God, with all of our mind. But the V’ahavta doesn’t tell us how our mind can access God.
In her correspondence with the great preacher Bishop Phillip Brooks, as an adult, Helen Keller told the bishop “… that she had always known about God, even before she had any words. Even before she could call God anything, she knew God was there. She didn’t know what it was. Helen had no name for God –
She had no concept of a name in her world where she was unable to use sight or sound. But in her darkness and isolation, she said that she knew she was not alone. Someone was with her. She felt God’s love. And when she received the gift of language and heard about God, she said she already knew.” *
From the moment I read about Helen Keller’s certainty about knowing God, I have been fascinated with how God finds a way into the human brain. We have archaeological evidence of early humans with beliefs from as early as 100,000 years ago. Anthropologists will tell you that no society has ever been discovered that did not have religion and rituals.
Historically, traditional religions, including Judaism, did not debate the existence of God. Ancients took the existence of gods as an axiom of faith. It has only been in the modern period when the actual existence of God came into question. With the veneration of science, we feel that we must prove everything empirically, preferably in a laboratory. For some faith has been replaced with faith in science.
As Rabbi Harold Kushner writes in his book, Who Needs God?:
“…for the religious mind and soul, the issue has never been the existence of God but the importance of God, the difference that God makes in the way we live. To believe that God exists the way you believe that the South Pole exists, though you have never seen either one, to believe in the reality of the Pythagorean theorem, as an accurate abstract statement that does not really affect your daily life, is not a religious stance. A God who exists but does not matter, who does not make a difference in the way you live, might as well not exist…The issue is not what God is like. The issue is what kind of people we become when we attach ourselves to God.”** Now, science is validating the importance of God for the human brain.
I never know what I will learn, or want to bring back to TBS, when I attend a CCAR rabbinic conference. At our annual gathering in Philadelphia this year, I knew, as I sat in a lecture by Dr. Andrew Newberg, that his work on God and the Brain would come home with me. As I sat in a Philadelphia ballroom, looking at brain MRI’s, I discovered a new way to understand and teach God in the 21st century.
As we sit in our sanctuary these High Holy Days, Dr. Newberg, and his colleagues in the new field of neurotheology, offer us a new and compelling way of understanding the human brain’s relationship with the sacred from God and spirituality to ritual, metaphor, music, prayer practice, and meditation. The emerging field of neurotheology is the field that explores the intersection between the brain and theology, between science and religion. ***
After 3 ½ decades of rabbinically answering questions about God from agnostics and atheists, as well as skeptics and believers, I now feel supported and validated by modern science. I have studied proof of the positive effect of what we are doing here today, how we practice our Judaism communally and personally, and what our spiritual experiences do to our brains and for our health, that scientifically validates not just our Jewish religious experience, but the religious experience of all human beings.
I have learned so much from studying the human brain’s process of understanding spirituality and religion from the work of Dr. Newberg and his colleagues:
1- “[W]hether or not God actually exists, is less important to the brain than the fact that our brains believe that God exists. As Newberg writes, “Focus on God long enough, and God becomes neurologically real.” (p. 167)
2- The variety of religious views and expressions are a direct result of our brain’s ability to continuously create concepts and images of God, and theologies that result from this ongoing brain activity. In fact, “every human brain, from early childhood on, contemplates the possibility that spiritual realms exist.” (p.5) Our brains are wired from birth to seek meaning, and spirituality, and to grow in that seeking so that our God idea becomes more sophisticated and less one dimensional as we age.
3- Perhaps the most important thing to me was learning that the scientific research revealed that [And I quote Newberg] “Spiritual practices, even when stripped of religious beliefs, enhance the neural functioning of the brain in ways that improve physical and emotional health.” (p.6) [unquote] And furthermore, God, or spirituality if you prefer, was proven over and over again, in experiment after experiment, to be good for our brain’s health and our body’s health. God is not just good. Science has now proven that God is good for you!
Newberg’s research team at the University of Pennsylvania consistently demonstrated that God is “… part of our consciousness and that the more you think about God, the more you will alter the neural circuitry in specific parts of your brain.” And so Newberg states unequivocally, “That is why I say, with the utmost confidence, that God can change your brain. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian or a Jew, a Muslim or a Hindu, or an agnostic or an atheist.” (p. 4)
In his book, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist, which he wrote with professor and therapist Mark Waldman, Dr. Newberg states, “Neuroscience … can record the effect that religious beliefs and experiences have upon the human brain… it can tell us how God – as an image, feeling, thought or fact – is interpreted, reacted to, and turned into a perception that feels meaningful and real. “ (p. 4) Newberg makes it perfectly clear that, “…neuroscience cannot tell you if God does or doesn’t exist. In fact, as far as we can tell, most of the human brain does not even worry if the things we see are actually real.” The brain is subjective, not logical. Logic only resides in one part of your brain, the newest part from an evolutionary point of view.
(p.3) According to the research, “If you contemplate God long enough, something surprising happens in the brain. Neural functioning begins to change. Different circuits become activated, while others become deactivated. New dendrites are formed, new synaptic connections are made, and the brain becomes more sensitive to subtle realms of experience. Perceptions alter, beliefs begin to change, and if God has meaning for you, then God becomes neurologically real.”
Newberg writes: “For some, God may remain a primitive concept, limited to the way a young child interprets the world. But for most people, God is transformed over time into a symbol or metaphor representing a wide range of personal, ethical, social, and universal values. And, if you happen to be a neuroscientist, God can become one of the most fascinating of human experiences to explore.” (p. 4)
Newberg continues, “If a belief in God provides you with a sense of comfort and security, then God will enhance your life. But if you see God as a vindictive deity who gives you justification for inflicting harm on others, such a belief can actually damage your brain as it motivates you to act in socially destructive ways. (p.5)
This investigation of the brain and its functions reveals that it is not a choice between having faith in God or science, for science is not capable of giving you your ultimate purpose, nor can science answer the questions we ask when seeking a life of meaning. Hope and faith are essential elements of the human need to survive and make life sacred. Religion satisfies the human need to feel connected with other humans in a way that has rules and guidelines so that the brain can function at peak performance without the fears and distractions that can undermine brain productivity.
Neurotheology has also shown that if we don’t actualize these efforts to access spirituality and God through sustained meditation, prayer, or practice that our brains and bodies will be less healthy and deteriorate and age more quickly. Meditation can be achieved in a variety of ways that have been studied to work, from yoga to knitting. Since 1972, scientific studies have shown that going to church, or synagogue, or mosque can change your brain and your health for the better, if you go at least once a month, faithfully, for many years.
A man named Gus came to Dr. Newberg concerned about his increasing loss of memory. The man had never meditated and wasn’t interested in religion. After taking a baseline brain scan, Dr. Newberg described a standardized meditation practice for Gus. Fearful of losing his memory, Gus was determined to follow through, even though it was all new to him.
Gus returned to Dr. Newburg two months later. The subsequent brain scan revealed a 50% increase in cognition in the brain’s memory center. Gus’s scans showed that it took less than two months to alter the neural functioning of his brain. The experiment with Gus revealed that a desire to improve, a commitment to focus, regulated body control, and regular practice helped to achieve the goal of retraining Gus’s brain. Newberg adds a fifth observation to this experiment — that faith, trusting what you believe, is an important element of wellness, which stimulates hope and optimism, as well as one’s immune system. In fact, of all the exercises Newberg suggests to achieve optimum brain health, to my surprise, having faith is number one.
Studies have revealed that brief prayer has no direct effect on cognition (p. 28) The more contemplative the prayer or the meditative practice, the more restorative. So, an occasional Shema before a test, said like a magical incantion, will not create increased memory based on these studies, but adding breathing and frequency, as well as regular weekly religious activity or intense meditative practice has therapeutic benefits, including increased mental clarity.
Another observation: Ironically, thinking uses up a lot of neural energy, but slow, deep breathing replenishes it. So, one could make the case that a shorter sermon and a longer silent meditation is better for the brain.
I find it amazing that a host of brain imaging techniques including MRI, functional or fMRI, as well as PET and SPECT imaging can show us where God lives, or doesn’t live, in all of our brains. In addition, measuring such changes as blood pressure, heart rate, immune function, and brain chemistry can reveal clues as to how and why we respond when we engage our brain in thoughts or practices involving God or spirituality.
What about atheists, those who don’t believe at all? It seems the balance of activity between left and right hemispheres of the brain can actually predispose us to spirituality or atheism. Neurotheology is rigorously designing studies and protocols to ask and answer questions about how our brains access God. Is it possible that increasing dopamine levels can make a believer out of an atheist?
According to the research, “if both the frontal cortex and the emotional centers of the brain remain inactive when a person contemplated God, God will hold little meaning or value.” This is what preliminary brain studies of atheists seem to reveal.
“In order to have a positive perception or experience of God, you need to have just the ‘right’ balance of frontal and limbic activity.” This would indicate why each person’s experience of God is unique and may very well be brain based.
What I love about this research is that so many of the things people tell us have been born out in the studies. For instance, Newberg writes, (p. 44) “…we discovered that you could take God out of the ritual and still influence the brain.” So, I would conclude based on this information that Jews who profess to being agnostics or atheists do still benefit from service attendance, ritual observances like candlelighting and Havdalah, congregational singing and Torah reading, just as many Jews and non-Jews have described to me over the years. Did I need the research to confirm this? No. Is it nice to have? Absolutely.
So what does God do to your brain? Newberg begins his chapter on this subject with the statement, “The moment we encounter God, or the idea of God, our brain begins to change.”(p.41) This starts in childhood.
Storytelling, and rituals, visits to sacred places, music in foreign languages, candles, bowing for prayers, the sights, sounds, smells and taste of holidays and heritage, activate new parts of a child’s brain, which on an MRI shows it lighting up like “a fireworks display.” Scientists can now identify the neural reality of God in the different parts of the human brain.
Different parts of our brains do have different God responses. For instance, your frontal lobe is the newest part of the human brain and the one where “a logical concept of a rational, deliberate, and loving God resides.” The limbic system, which is the oldest part of the human brain, is the place that “creates an emotionally meaningful experience of God.” (p. 49)
Brain scans of nuns who spent their lives in meditative religious prayer and contemplation also revealed a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe of the brain, which is associated with a loss of the sense of self, and an increased desire to do for others. (p.51) “Contemplative practices strengthen a specific neurological circuit that generates peacefulness, social awareness, and compassion for others.” (p. 7) And “meditating on any form of love, including God’s love, appears to strengthen the same neurological circuits that allow us to feel compassion toward others.” (p. 53)
Those who have “angry gods” encouraging hostility toward non-believers have the potential to do the opposite to the brain. They have a lack of compassion and often suffer from PTSD and aggressive behavior, which is not good for brain health, as you can well imagine. The fanatic religious terrorist is literally damaging his brain, and isn’t doing anything positive for ours either. According to Newberg, fear-based religions can be hazardous to one’s health, and he isn’t just referring to suicide bombers. Worship of violent video games has a similar brain damaging result.
If you ask the researchers whether God is a feeling or an idea, the answer would be both. But, while 90% of all Americans profess to a belief in God, only 1% of all respondents in one of the studies felt that they had had a direct, personal encounter with God. (p.75) I deduced from more than one study, that there are mystics who have these encounters and the rest of us seem to have them “once removed.”
From a Jewish perspective, we are not the visionary prophets, nor are we Abraham or Moses who have close encounters with God. But, through Torah, we are able to vicariously have those experiences, as if they were ours. We do not see the bush burning unconsumed in the here and now, but in many ways, we want to, and our brains enable us to experience revelation, as if we were there. Didn’t I see you at Sinai?
You can open up the Encyclopedia Judaica on God and find that we have had a progression of Jewish views of God, rather than one singular view for the past 5776 years. Religion and spirituality change with time and our human brains have evolved in our understanding and sophistication.
As we pray our High Holy day liturgy written in a different time, much of it in the Middle Ages, we may feel a disconnect with the God of our prayerbook. Interestingly, whether we refer to God as “Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father Our King,” or “Our Parent Our Ruler” will have more to do with our social sensibilities and need for political correctness, than any connection to the way our brain accesses God through the music, the majesty of being in unity with others, the fact that the liturgy is in Hebrew which most people don’t understand, and the length of time we contemplate and meditate. We access spirituality in so many modalities beyond words. Cantors know that intuitively, but sometimes rabbis and prayerbook authors forget that.
I was also reminded by Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book Who Needs God (p. 45) that:
“True religion goes beyond making sense. It does not offend reason, it transcends reason. People do not start to see the world differently because someone has written a book giving them good reasons for doing so. They do it because they feel they have been touched by the presence of God –incarnated sometimes in words, sometimes in stories, sometimes in memories triggered by a written passage. “
I don’t have to validate the spiritual and physical power of the Mi Shebeirach for a patient in need of more than an IV or a pill, or the fact that praying for and living the values of compassion and mitzvah is scientifically healthier for your body and brain than giving your brain over to anger, aggression, addiction, or selfish actions.
As we search for meaning in life, the brain thrives on those values that bring us closer to our fellow human beings and those values that promote harmony, healing, and peaceful co-existence. Values that encourage us to create communities and congregations are healthier for us than isolation. Practices that enable us to purge anger and fear from our lives and our communities enhance longevity and personal health. Hope is so much better for your brain than fear. It is a no brainer, pardon the pun, that love is better for your brain than hate.
As Jews, we sing Hatikvah, because hope is how we overcome despair. And we say V’ahavta, because the Torah teaches us to love God and one another. We each find our faith and spiritual fulfillment in so many ways. Today, it may be fasting or praying, the Torah, the power of gathering in community, or studying and sharing sacred stories, saying Yizkor for a loved one who has died, or staying to the end of Yom Kippur to hear the shofar blown.
Each of our brains is a complex entity engaged in making connections, and encouraging us to seek meaning as well as answers. Science still doesn’t have all the answers or cures to all the complexities of our often incomprehensible, modern world. Until such time as it does, if that is even possible, the human brain will continue to seek meaning spiritually, and as a result our brains will make God very real neurologically.
So our Torah portion this Yom Kippur morning gathered all of us here: “You stand here all of you, before the Lord your God…” (Dt. 29:9) We were reminded that God’s Torah and its values are “Not in the heavens or beyond the sea.” Deuteronomy is clear: “No, it is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart,” and now you all know, that most of all, God is in your brain.
*Phillip Brooks and Helen Keller by the Rev. Barbara C. Crafton in a sermon delivered on January 23, 1992, which appeared in Outlook in March 1992
**Rabbi Harold Kushner, Who Needs God?,
***Newberg sources in order of importance:
Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman in their book, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist?, Random House/Ballentine, 2009 (page numbers come from this book)
Andrew Newberg, M.D., Great Courses: The Spiritual Brain: Science and Religious Experience, 2012
Andrew Newberg, M.D., Principles of Neurotheology, Ashgate, 2010
Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Eugene D’Aquli, M.D., Ph.D. and Vince Rause, Why God Won’t Go Away, Ballantine Books/Random House, 2001