Customer Reviews

God's Brain

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I hate to write reviews for books I haven't finished, but I felt I had to for this one - if for nothing else, than as a warning to others.

The book sounds promising enough. I like to think of it as Dawkins' Dilemma. In other words, for those of us who are firm believers in evolution, what do we make of the possibility that our brains may have evolved for belief? I'll bet there's tons of fascinating research out there that support that assertion.

Unfortunately, we don't get that here. What we get instead is stream-of-consciousness musings that go all over the place. The writers' style is particularly frustrating - wordy, repetitive, vague, abstract, trying so hard to be clever. As a former writing teacher, I'm reminded of my students who didn't have much to say or had no clue what they wanted to say, but bravely dove in anyway.

Here's an example:

"Descriptive numbers are capacious enough - they go on forever, after all, from here to infinity - to accommodate the range and reach of religion, and they can seem evenhanded and fair. However, individual religions may seem odd and even bizarre to some or many outsiders, and their benefits and activities are hardly consistent from place to place and time to time. But their overwhelming numbers and rich ubiquity underline the normality in practice. We're dealing with a phenomenon as diffuse as oxygen and seemingly as imperative."

And all to introduce that there are about 4,200 religions in the world.

Try The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures instead.

The authors explain in a clear and entertaining way how the human brain is wired for religion. We may have always known that religion can bring comfort but Tiger and McGuire give a scientific basis to the brain's "safety valve." Religion is in the news almost daily and this book helps understand peoples' attachment and motivation for seeking explanations in a high being. The brain is wired that way. Food for thought even for an atheist.

"What if it is discovered that the source and essence of [religious] identity results not from theological commitment and texts but form operations of the brain? that religion is a product of neurophysiological engagement?" This from an op ed piece in the Wall Street Journal 27 March 2010 by Lionel Tiger, which intrigued me so much I ordered the book. After all, what more confirmation of the doctrine of predestination than a demonstration that the creator and preserver of mankind, who designed the DNA double helix of each of us, hard wired us to believe or to not believe in His existence? How intriguing. We have read population studies of Alzheimers where brain autopsies resulted in valuable information. How promising to have such a study on the correlation of religious belief to physiology on the macro or micro level -- maybe a blip or lack thereof on our DNA printout.

No such luck. Tiger and McGuire have put together a piece of fluff constructed by what looks like the result of daydreaming and googling. You or I could have done a better job as juniors in a college psychology or sociology course, given the financial incentive. Tiger and McGuire start out with a simplistic question: "[W]hat factual phenomenon except perhaps slips of ancient holy paper underlies and animates one of the most influential and durable of human endeavors? We've an answer. Shivers in the moist tissue of the brain confect cathedrals." (11) But do they identify the shivers? Or even look into the physiological causes of the shivers? Nah!

"Our proposal is that all religions differ but all share two destinies: they are the product of the human brain. They endure because of the product -- religion -- on brain function." (11) "Religion pleases the brain's sweet tooth." (129) So they feed the reader profound science such as, "positive, complimentary, and affirming messages not only are peasurable, but they also have salutary and stress-reducing affects on the brain. They brainsoothe." (132) This last technical term is always in italics, because its discovery is an important scientific breakthrough. They say, "We have responded to the worlds of religion and belief in a useful and equable manner. . . .Our obedience has been to the law of parsimony." (215) Not at all! Lenin was parsimonious when he said, "Religion is the opiate of the people." T & McG have generated page after page of anecdotes and googology, but have said nothing of consequence. I wasted not only the cost of the book, but a couple of hours' time in reading through it, looking in vain for information on a correlation between brain biochemistry or physiology and religious belief.

This book bites the big one. It's nothing more than a rambling scread.

If you really want to understand the science of neuroreligious studies, I would offer the following insights and book recommendations:

THE INSIGHTS

Neuroreligious studies essentially divides religion into two discernable areas:

1) A study of what gives rise to the doxologies of religion. In this regard, all religions are verbatim similar when they discuss the moral stuff that one should do...i.e. doing unto others as you would have done unto you, teaching the children well, giving generously etc.

2) The morphology of myths of origin. In this regard, though religions may seem different in terms of their myths of beginning in reality, their founding characters all share a human like concern for imparting stragetically important information that matters to humans.

THE BOOKS

1) For the evolution of religious doxology I would recommend:

ONENESS by Jeffrey Moses because it shows the verbatim similarity of religions in laying out essential moral rules (i.e. do unto others).

ORIGINS OF VIRTUE by Matt Ridley. Ridley is a genetistic par excellente. His book tells why humans value cooperation and virtue as a matter of genetic imperative.

THE PRISONER'S DILEMNA by William Poundstone. Poundstone simply discusses game theory which posits that cooperation is actually a selfish virtue in that it most economically enhances the prospects of success.

EVOLUTION OF COOPERATION by Robert Axelrod. Axelrod did a computer simulation which showed the power of the golden rule even in an environment occupied only by computer programs. It buttresses the points made by Ridley and Poundstone and raises the question of just where "religious" doxology really comes from in the first place.

2) For books relating to the morphology of origins of beginning, I would recommend:

RELIGION EXPLAINED by Pascal Boyer. Boyer's book shows how all religous figures share the important qualities of human like thinking and a concern for imparting strategies for acquiring human like strategical information.

XENOPHANES OF COLOPHON. Twenty five centuries ago, Xenophanes, poet and philosopher wrote: "If horses and oxen had Gods, they would have horse and ox Gods."

Indeed.

If you're really interested in this stuff, please focus your reading on books that won't waste your time like God's Brain and instead focus on ones like the ones I just listed.

Tiger & McGuire have written an engaging and thought-provoking book that helps to explain why we have religion. To a rational person, the details of immaculate conception, anachronistic food rules and pearly gates seem fantastical. Yet this book shows clearly and convincingly how such beliefs help people cope with the stresses and strains of ordinary life. The concept of "brainsoothing" is a compelling one, and is supported by evidence that the rituals, social interactions and beliefs of modern religions actually affect the brain in positive ways. I like the fact that this is not a science vs. religion book, but one that uses science to understand the value of religion in people's lives. I also like the idea of a "brainsoothe" score to help make us aware of differences in how we respond to daily frustrations, with lots of ideas in the book on how to improve our score.

Wow! The authors tell us that the world presently has some 4,200 distinct faith groups and few agree with one another. And Tiger and McGuire show us that we are looking for God in all the wrong places. We should look inward, not outward to find God. This is a stream-of-consciousness book of some 214 pages that is really difficult to read. I recommend THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE by Karen Armstrong.The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness

I was hoping for some interesting insights from this book, but what I found instead were mostly senseless ramblings interspersed with random and annoying attempts at cuteness. I'm so glad I borrowed it from the library instead of buying it. This book was written in a very odd style with far too many conjunctions, and desperately needed a competent editor. I would read and re-read entire passages, only to scratch my head and think, "Well, that sounded pretty (or intelligent, or important), but what did it say?" It reminded me of how I feel when someone who has had a little too much to drink monopolizes the conversation and goes on and on about something, yet makes no sense.

Take the very last paragraph, for example. "If God is a creation of the brain, then God's brain is our brain. There is then no lower authority to be found than the operations and impact of our brains and the process of brainsoothing. We named the brain as the source of infinity. This is surely appropriate since it was our commitment to that brain that caused ambitious humans to call ourselves sapiens. And, by and large, that we are, give or take... " Huh?

I am left with the distinct impression that the authors were in the habit of splitting a few bottles of wine (or worse) before sitting down to write. Perhaps I should have done the same when I sat down to read.

When books of just over 200 pages, little bitter than paperback dimensions, have list prices of $25, publishers and booksellers have no reason to throw hissy fits. Look in the mirror.

Especially when, while this book is charitable to the psychological value of religious belief, and not village-idiot style atheism, it does little to explain how any psychological value of today originated from any psychological value in the past.

In short, there's LOTS of better, more rigorous, more in-depth writing, even in less than book length, on the intersection of ev psych, psychology of religion, cognitive science and sociology of religion.

This isn't so weak as to be a one-star, but it's not that good; above all, it's lacking in intellectual stimulation, and could have a greater degree of critical thinking, too.

Oh, I also don't like dual blurbs from the same person on one book cover. That makes me think it's a weak book from the start.

I heard Buckminster Fuller talk shortly before he died. When he said that our greatest danger was from religion, at the same time President Reagan was declaring the Soviet Union an "evil empire," I didn't understand what Dr. Fuller was saying. Now, it is sadly obvious. Religion haunts of future. We must find new ways to look at religion if we are going to find ways to reverse the conflict and polarization that is upon us and solve our future.

God's Brain opened my mind to thoughts I never had before about religion. This begins the process of thinking newly. I value highly book which makes me think newly as God's Brain does. One cannot solve a problem or create anything until you can conceive of it. Our imaginations allow us to conceive of things that never existed and then make them happened. It had never occurred to me that relgiions would be the natural product of imagination. This is rich food for thought.

There are times when I read the book and said to myself, "That's obvious. I know that." However, when I look back, I realize that while I did know that before, I did not realize I knew it.

The more I think of God's Brain, the more I am impressed with it.

Naturally a difficult book to read but well worth the effort for those who seek reasons for the strange habits of the mind. A truly interesting examination of the brain's proclivity to seek answers, clearly demonstrating that religion provides a comfort zone when there are no answers readily avilable.