Is God All in Your Head?

Belief, Biology and the Human Brain: Is God All in Your Head? An Evening with Dr. Michael Persinger and Dr. Robert Buckman.
Presented by the Toronto Secular Alliance.

I paid 8-bucks to attend this lecture last Friday evening at the University of Toronto -- and now I wished I hadn't. First off, Buckman was great as bookends to Persinger -- I just wished it was all Buckman. The guy has wit. Persinger on the other hand was a complete bore. The man seemed to believe credibility comes from using big words to sound smart, complete with boring graphs and charts that most in the audience wouldn't have understood. He wanted to impress upon the audience that his research into using geomagnetism to make the brain feel an illusionary presence, was the evidence needed to debunk all religious belief and the existence of god. Fine. I don't doubt that the human brain could be manipulated into experiencing an illusion. But did he really have to bore us in the process? At times I felt that Persinger was pressing the audience with his evidence to buy our belief in his work. I didn't need the selling. I believe. Just like I believe that the brain can be manipulated into experiencing illusions with some really good ganja. The leap to his conclusion however, is one that requires faith.

How can you debunk the existence of god by saying that with subtle manipulations of the brain, the illusion of a presence can be generated? Can the artificial presence and god not both exist? Can they both not be true? What if Persinger's lab has done what organized religion never could -- made first contact with the gods? What if god really is in our heads -- literally? We don't know the answer to any of these questions, and Persinger's science doesn't lead to conclude answers, even though he may want you to go there. The simple fact is that science and belief aren't on the same spectrum.

Where Buckman went, which made a whole lot more sense, was in attempting to explain the human need for, and the brain's capacity for, belief. Buckman put it quite simply. The world is a scary place, and belief helps us cope. The questions science is trying to answer are: 1) Why do we believe? and, 2) How do we believe? There is nothing wrong with having beliefs. What we do with our beliefs however, does matter. Beliefs could lead either to collaboration or aggression. The vocal audience I fear, wasn't there to hear that message. They seemed more interested in the debunking of religion.

I suppose I shouldn't have expected any less -- but expected more. The event was organized by the Toronto Secular Alliance -- a student organization made up of atheists, skeptics and freethinkers. This was my first encounter with those that label themselves as skeptics and freethinkers. If those in the vocal part of the audience were representative of atheists, skeptics and freethinkers, we're in a bit of trouble -- as we've just got another group who's more than willing to tell people who don't share their thinking, that they are wrong.

I'm not a firm believer in anything. On the good days, I think I'm too intelligent for god. I don't believe in the gods that organized religion sell. On the same token, I don't know what's out there either. I'm certain however, that the universe is a whole lot stranger than what our limited imagination can concoct -- and if we're labeling what created the universe as god, we're probably in for a surprise when we get to the answer. Faith is important to people. Faith brought us together, just as it tears us apart. It's part of the human condition. I don't choose to tell one person what they should or shouldn't believe -- unlike those in the audience. I will however stand up against organized religion, and the power of the few over the many. Just like I feel the need to stand up against the simple-minded atheists, skeptics and freethinkers in the audience -- because like Persinger, they didn't seem interested in just understanding the human need for faith or the mechanics of it -- they wanted to destroy it. If the human brain has the capacity to have faith -- whether that faith is held in some higher power or the human species -- there was probably a biological need for it -- and Buckman provided hypothesis for that need.

In these trying times, we need to be able to cope. As extremes battle for dominance, the last thing we need is the emergence of another extreme. The best thing for the world is the dominance of the moderates. Unfortunately, the moderates are usually the last ones to go for dominance -- it's not a character trait.

(Extreme moderation anyone?)