Customer Reviews

Brain & Belief: An Exploration of the Human Soul

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This book confronts one of life's most personal and fascinating paradoxes. Science shows us that the brain is a heap of very fancy chemistry. Yet through consciousness and feelings we experience something more.

The book starts with an exhaustive inventory of traditional and religious thought on the subject over thousands of years. You may want to skim this section.

McGraw then summarizes in 150 pages what modern science has discovered about the workings of the brain.

The third section shows how and why we naturally cling to spiritual beliefs and offers a conclusion.

A great read for anyone interested in science vs. religion or the mind-brain conundrum.

Brain and Belief is a book for anyone who's ever considered the dislocation between Western religion and science (from either the perspective of faith or atheism). Anyone wishing to learn more about the role and function of religion in Western society would also find this book fascinating.

The book is divided into three sections: (1) history & discussion of western belief systems; (2) overview of the brain; (3) a resolution and synthesis of the two. If you are well-versed in Western religious thought and neuroscience, section III contains the bulk of the book's insights, and many passages here are truly brilliant.

Brain and Belief also rewards the reader with a beautiful literary style peppered with carefully chosen metaphors and witticisms. I laughed aloud at a passage comparing a biblical description of Heaven to "...Christmas Caroling in a suntan booth forever and ever..." It was one of many.

My biggest complaint, ironically enough, is the 2 page Conclusion chapter at the end. It fails to summarize the book well and doesn't do justice at all to the more brilliant passages of Section III. I read the conclusion first and wasn't sure I wanted to spend my time on the rest of the book, but I'm very, very glad I did.

Highly recommended! Beautifully written, it's insights are bold and original, spawning from the author's rich professional and personal journey.

Like most people, I have long believed in my own immortality because I couldn't bear to face the alternative. Then I read McGraw's Brain & Belief. This book presents a clear challenge: dare to confront why we posit the existence of an immortal human soul. Does this stem from cold, honest logic or mere wishful thinking? It is difficult to imagine how any open minded reader can remain unaffected by the power of Mr. McGraw's challenge.

Ultimately, Brain & Belief is not simply an argument against the soul but a manifesto in support of humanism. The subtext is clear enough - just as we can do quite well without the soul, we can do equally well without God. McGraw never says this explicitly, but does he have to? If we are all discrete beings whose lives begin and end with the pumping of blood inside a limited space, and whose actions are completely the product of random, evolutionary forces, where does that leave the existence of a deity? McGraw is clearly unfazed by death in all manifestations - be it our death or that of our God. Whether his readers will come to embrace the virtues of mortality remains a question, but at the very least, they should never again look at the grim reaper with anywhere near as much horror. And that is the ultimate irony of the book - it makes something as terrible as death seem both more important and more liberating. Truly, this fascinating voyage is well worth the ride.

This book on brain and (religious) belief attempts to use brain science to refute traditional theistic beliefs in life after death and the soul. Its merits include the tremendous breadth of matter covered and an excellent writing style coupled to a fine sense of humor. Unfortunately there are also serious problems, of which the deepest are the failure to consider what others have written on the relationship between brain and belief, and the false assumption that all theists must be substance dualists and ignorant of neurobiology.

The first quarter of the book addresses the origins of Western dualism, which McGraw claims (controversially) to have arisen from the influence of Orphic shamanism on Socrates, "the last shaman of European culture" (p69). Hence, via Socrates' pupil Plato, dualism dominated Greek thought and ultimately Christianity. McGraw states correctly that Judaism and early Christianity were not dualistic, and even writes "the most remarkable fact about Christianity and dualism is that Christianity isn't really dualistic" (p86), but nevertheless seems to assume that all Christians have been substance dualists since the time of Pope Benedict XII (14th century), carrying unknowingly the intellectual baggage of shamanism. In the rest of the book, he attempts to free us from this unfortunate burden by revealing the mysteries of brain science. He seems unaware that most modern writers on the relationship between brain and belief, whether Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or atheist, are NOT substance dualists; and the minority that are (or were), such as neurobiology Nobel prizewinner Sir John Eccles (a liberal Christian) and theological philosopher Richard Swinburne (Eastern Orthodox) have sophisticated arguments for their position that McGraw seems not to know.

The second part of the book provides an introduction to brain science. Apart from a lively section on psychoactive drugs I found it disappointing. As a professional neurobiologist I am perhaps a bit demanding, but frankly most of the facts presented could be found in an elementary neuroscience textbook from about 1970. Most of the recent evidence relevant to dualism/monism is ignored. There is no electrophysiology, nothing on modern brain imaging or brain stimulation in humans. There are also several errors; for example McGraw implies that enkephalins and endorphins are the same thing (p199); they are not. More seriously, he seems to think that the "soul" (he means an immaterial Cartesian soul) can be swept away by the simple facts that drugs and brain damage change our experience and behavior, and that drugs can promote mystical experiences. This does not work logically. Substance dualists postulate a bidirectional influence between soul and brain, so the psychological effects of drugs or brain injuries might in principle be accounted for by substance dualists. I am personally opposed to substance dualism and believe that brain science will one day disprove it, but this will require a more sophisticated presentation than McGraw's.

The third and final section says virtually nothing about the brain, but mainly draws on a wide range of thinkers including Freud to expose psychological mechanisms (self-deception, projection etc.) that supposedly underlie theistic belief. It seemed to me irrelevant to the title subject of "Brain and Belief".

All in all, then, the book fails to provide a satisfactory discussion of the relationship between brain and religious belief. The author refers to Freud, Nietzsche and Schleiermacher but makes no attempt to relate to the modern debate. About 20 books and numerous articles in journals have been written on this subject in the last decades, by philosophers, neurobiologists, psychologists and theologians of varying persuasions. McGraw ignores them all.

This book is excellent, it sheds light where others dare not go when it comes to religion and philosophy. The book examines the history of religions, the brain and synthesis of the two together. It demystifies that which many religions have kept in shrouds of secrecy and provides you with an unbiased logical perspective and understanding of philosophy and religion.

As you reflect back on this book you will get a whole new appreciation about all life on this planet.

I recommend you read it for yourself and make your own conclusions.

I've always found various religious ideas to be really interesting. This author focuses on the human soul and does a good job of trying to describe where it came from (both historically and psychologically) and then tries to use different fields of study to investigate what our modern sciences can tell us about these ancient ideas. Highly recommended to anyone who has pondered life after death.

I actually ended up liking McGraw's book once I got past a couple early obstacles.

I'd bought his book a couple years ago but it'd been in my unread pile ever since. I was somewhat put-off by its front cover, ignoring the old adage "Don't judge a book by its cover." I didn't care for the cover's drawing nor find an explanation of it in the book. Then recently McGraw emailed me, having read my review of Dan Spiro's "The Creed Room" which he'd published. That led him to Spiro's review of my book "Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics." After a few exchanges, we agreed to read each other's book.

But I was again put-off when on his page 9, McGraw wrote "So long as we live in aging and frail bodies we will fear death and seek comfort in the face of it." Yet I'm well past my allotted "threescore years and ten" and don't feel such fear; after all, death's part of life. And altho' my body is aging, I hope to eke out another score years from it. What's a guy who's half my age know about aging?! Maybe we old-folks who must live with our aging bodies learn to adjust to our slow decline and inevitable deaths. But waving that objection aside, as I'd agreed, I read on.

It was finally with McGraw's Chapter 6 on the Greek philosophers that I begin to appreciate his book's value: it seems to be addressed to those who're perplexed about their purported soul and its afterlife. Part I of his book covers McGraw's understanding of how shamans and philosophers came to believe in humans' immortal souls. Part II surveys the various psychotropic agents that can affect one's mind, thus calling into doubt beliefs that attribute one's mind to a soul. Part III attempts to provide guides for living one's life without belief in an immortal soul. While I agree with his reassuring suggestions, I think they don't go far enuf in providing non-theological meaning and purpose to one's life, as I propose in my book. Still, I recommend McGraw's book for anyone who's wrestling with the concepts of a soul and afterlife, which were instilled in most of our youthful gullible brains. It takes time to `rewire' one's brain and McGraw's book should be helpful in working thru that struggle.

There are other benefits that recommend McGraw's book in addition to its debunking of the soul and afterlife. It's a very readable treasury of information on a comprehensive array of subjects dealing with the mind, information that's not readily found elsewhere.

Back to the cover art: Alex Grey is listed as the artist, so I Googled his website which shows many similar paintings under `Progress of the Soul' but the one on the cover isn't among them! Having now read McGraw's book, I presume that the glowing transparent figure represents the soul of the skeletal figure, taking from it its `book of life' (`CV' for `curriculum vitae'?). I can't say that I'm warming up to it but I do like some of Grey's other work that I found in my search.

McGraw is a breath of fresh air at a time when theology continues to attempt to escape the world of (brain) matter and postulate Being with little regard for the phenomenal world of which we are a part. While it is understood that our knowledge of the brain's functions is limited, McGraw's book brings us a few steps closer to understanding the presence of awareness in the cosmos and simultaneously opens us up to questions about our beliefs that we may not have thought to ask. Brain & Belief is a hearty dose of demystification.

This book synthesizes two completely different fields - philosophy and cognitive psychology - to extract some intriguing insights into the origin and definition of the soul.
Few modern writers try to tackle such fundamental philosophical and religious territory and fewer still actually contribute new ideas to the dialogue. McGraw does - with wit and style to boot.

Having always been a reader of philosophy and psychology, I found this book an excellent conjunction of the two. The first section on the history of the soul awoke me to some of the history behind this important idea. The second and third parts which serve to induct the reader into present ideas surrounding the soul and the consequences of accepting or rejecting the basic idea of the immortal soul always kept me challenged--though I very much enjoyed the writing throughout. Highly recommended for people with a philosophical interests.