Reddit reviews How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist

My own two cents on Religiulous.

For those who don't know, the movie consists of Maher traveling around the world talking and interviewing various religious or non-religious people. About midway through the movie, Bill Mather interviews one Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist who has written some books on the neuroscience of spirituality, prayer, meditation, ect.

The claim the movie was making in this section was that religious belief is akin to a delusion or an insanity and the interview with the Newberg seemed to suggest that he agreed with Mather.

I've read that guy's most recent book How God Changes Your Brain and Newberg denies that religion is harmful or a delusion in the first chapter. To quote page six:

>Recently there have been a spate of antireligious books (The God Delusion, the End of Faith, God is not Great) that argue that religion is personally and societally dangerous. But the research outlined throughout this book strongly suggest otherwise. Nor do we believe that these authors represent the views of the vast majority of scientists or atheists.

He then goes on say that, while he is not personally religious, he encourages spiritual and religious development in others as long as it doesn't harm that person's life or the lives of others.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Changes-Your-Brain-Neuroscientist/dp/0345503422#reader_0345503422

To me, this is proof incarnate that Mather's movie is just a polemic work. He clearly doctored interviews with the experts he interviewed so they would seem like they agree with him. I wouldn't trust it.

Take up meditation. Meditation is proven to change gene expression (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0002576) and certain techniques improve memory functioning up to 10% by relieving stress and encouraging the brain to rebuild neurons. Read How God Changes Your Brain (http://www.amazon.com/How-Changes-Your-Brain-Neuroscientist/dp/0345503422/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374868273&sr=8-1&keywords=how+god+changes+your+brain) for more information. Also an extremely informative book.

Taking supplements ALA/ALC has been proven to heal and stop oxidative stress in the brain, especially in the elderly where their body's natural production of Alpha Lipoic Acid has slowed. After taking these supplements for 30 days, there were noted improvements in mood and memory function, even in following months when supplementation ended. These two supplements, in my opinion, are critical to take when rolling too. Doesn't hurt to try them out, ALA even helps oxidative stress everywhere in the body, not just the brain.

I think you were down voted unfairly at this one - I recently read a non-christian popular-neuroscience book by a researching medical scientist. He said exactly what you said about the brain tuning out.

The brain scans demonstrated, exactly as you stated, that the practitioner enters an ecstatic trance. Similar to that of some sort of shamen. None of this proves/disproves God's existence obviously, but without a doubt something mystical is going on in the mind of the practitioner.

In my mind its obviously learned but that doesn't stop it from being a spiritual gift - it just shows people need to take things with a bit of maturity.

>Scott Atran's work

I don't know it, but an evolutionary theory of religion is possible. Religion is possible to understand like a complex behavior helping successfull reproduction in various ways. We can interpret it like religion is related to some abillities of brain developed in the process of evolution. There is for example the book How God Changes Your Brain suggesting there are some "prepared" structures in our brain for "religion" (my simplification, the book is intersting, but the useful content can be shortened in a short article). You can see on history of Islam that a religion can serve as a very powerfull system supporting reproduction and expansion.