JUST WHERE DOES GOD "EXIST?"

Donald E. O'Hair, Ph.D.

 

Descartes said, "Je pense, donc je suis"

I think, therefore, I am.

 

I say, "Je pense, "Dieu, donc il existe"

I think of God, therefore, he exists.

About 9 or 10 years ago some researchers here at the University of California San Diego discovered a location in the right side of the brain which became the "God spot." They found that some epileptics that a high electrical activity in the right front and partial in this area of the brain when they had religious experiences. These experiences had to do with visions and messages from God. They found the same area of the brain was high in electrical activity with some nuns and mediators who had similar religious experiences. It may be that some of the great religious leaders and thinkers have had similar neural activity.

One speculation is that our brain through its evolution has constructed a place, which sends messages to the other parts of the brain, about loving each other so the human race does not destroy itself. These messages have to do with a God who loves us all and wants us to love each other. It's part of the evolutionary process of survival!

In addition, persons who have had "near death" experiences say that when they "return" the two most important facets to their life is to love one another and to learn as much as they can.  It seems that these same areas are neurological activated in the right parietal lobe when there is a decrease in oxygen in that area, such as comes before death.

Is religion the brain's way of keeping us from annihilation each other? If we look at history, it appears that religion is the cause of our attempt to annihilate each other, for example, through religious wars, religious terrorism, and the Inquisition. I am always impressed that when anyone claims that they know the "will of God," it just happens to be the same way they feel or believe! Therefore, one is lead to believe that God is our brain's creation to justify and project our own thoughts on to a cosmic screen. Of course, no one would want to admit that. I think of God, therefore he exists.

Is there, therefore, such a thing as 'heresy?'  If the brain has this build-in survival mechanism in the parietal lobe to preserve humankind, then it appears that anything contra to that is anathema. For a religious person to say, "God condemns you because you adhere to the wrong doctrine" appears totally opposite to the reason for the brain's parietal lobe activity.

If we look at great religious teachers such as Gautama Buddha or the prophets of Israel or Jesus, they may very well have had a dominant parietal lobe. If we take the best, authenticated sayings/words of Jesus, for instance, (the red texts, perhaps, from the work of the Jesus Seminar) we come out with a Jesus who talked about getting along with ones neighbor, even the dreaded Samaritans. Some have gone so far as to suggest that Jesus was a "liberal." He cared about other people. He was not a conservative in the strictest sense of that word.

I find it better to stand with such religious figures as opposed to the systems which grew out of them. Sometimes these personages opposed basic instincts but I need something outside of myself, or maybe basically inside my parietal lobe, to move me to a more salubrious stance. My good friend and psychologists from my campus ministry days, Duke Bischof, used to say that the superego is the "lubricant of society." I think he was talking about the "God Spot." That evolutionary God-spot translate to be "do onto others as you would have them do unto you." This is the basic tenet of all the world's great religious teachings.  Let's bring on more lubricant for the "Living of these days."

 

©2006 Donald E. O'Hair, M.Div., M.A., Ph.D.