The God Part of the Brain
I was recently sent a copy of
The God Part of the Brain by Matthew Alper for review. It is not a book I would normally read or recommend. Matthew Alper is an Atheist and attempts to answer the question many atheists ask: “If God does not exist then why do so many people believe in Him?” The book attempts to answer not just that question but also a number of related questions, for instance ‘what is the spiritual experience?’ and ‘why is America so religious?’
Matthew Alper is undoubtedly a very intelligent person, and has done his research. The book delves into psychology, philosophy, theology and neuroscience. Early on in the book he describes the scientific method as the best we have for understanding the world and claims that science and religion are contradictory.
Today we know better than to believe that rain is produced by the whims of the gods. Today, we know that rain is caused by a series of physical causes and effects. In this way science has emasculated the old gods.
This is a common viewpoint: that with science we don’t need to believe in God and what is more, that a belief in God is counterproductive. In the past most scientists would have described themselves as religious and would have said that they were simply understanding God’s creation. However, if it were possible to show that we could understand everything with science than it could be argued that a belief in God is redundant. This book attempts to show this.
I have said before
(More on Assumptions) that science is based on belief in the same way as religion is. Matthew Alper states, very roughly, the scientific method and justifies it simply because it works. Science is a tool: it works well in some instances, such as understanding how the sun works or the path of the planets; it is less suitable in other situations, such as psychology and for understanding consciousness and philosophy it is worse than useless.
In the bulk of the book he examines why the belief in God and spirituality came about. He argues that evolution gave the brain these functions as survival mechanisms.
To reiterate, if we apply the principle that all cross-cultural behaviors represent the effects of inherited impulses, it would suggest that human beings are genetically predisposed or hardwired to believe in the concepts of a spiritual reality, a God or gods, a soul, and an afterlife; to pray and to worship these unseen forces; to ritualistically dispose of or bury the dead with expectations of an afterlife; to conduct religiously/spiritually oriented birth, initiation, marriage, and death rites; as well as to undergo “mystical” experiences.
Of course there is some truth in what he argues. Many of the directives in the Bible or the Koran are simply good advice and his argument that prayer helps healing by relaxing the body has an element of truth.
According to this book, human beings evolved a religious belief to cope with the knowledge of death
Imagine the burden such a condition must have placed on our newly emergent ego mechanisms, exactly the type of undue strain that would render any physiological function susceptible to breakdown. If our egos were to continue under such conditions, some cognitive mechanism had to be selected in us that could relieve us of at least some of this excess strain. Had nature not provided us with such a device, it’s possible that our species might have suffered a cognitive meltdown that might have rendered us extinct
These ‘Just so’ stories are not scientific theories. They are hypotheses that would need scientific proof to back them up. Matthew Alper provides no such proof. It is ironic (but sadly very common) that despite his strong defence of the scientific method he does not do it.
The book, however, is not really designed to provide real evidence. It is designed to answer the question posed at the beginning of this article: “If God does not exist then why do so many people believe in Him?” It is written to comfort Atheists when they need solace. In the same way as Christians may turn to the Bible or the works of Saint Augustine when confronted with the difficult questions of life, such as "why do bad things happen to good people?" this book will resolve such issues when confronted by the apparent merits of meditation or prayer.
I’m sure that many Atheists will take great comfort from this book. It is, however, not science.
