INTERFACING RELIGION AND THE NEUROSCIENCES: A REVIEW OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EXPLORATION AND REFLECTION

. Exploration and reflection on the interfacing of religion and the neurosciences in the last twenty‐five years provide a unique point of convergence on the relationship between science and religion. A focus on two streams of consciousness characterized the first phase in the 1970s. Scholarship sugg...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Zygon 1996-12, Vol.31 (4), p.545-572
Main Author: Ashbrook, James B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
bimodal consciousness
cognitive neuroscience
General points
History
History of science and technology
History of science in relation to other disciplinary fields
lateralization
Neurology
Religion
Science
whole-brain functioning
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Summary:. Exploration and reflection on the interfacing of religion and the neurosciences in the last twenty‐five years provide a unique point of convergence on the relationship between science and religion. A focus on two streams of consciousness characterized the first phase in the 1970s. Scholarship suggested correlates between the styles of analytical steps and synthetic leaps of imagination and the belief patterns of proclamation and manifestation. The use of lateralized consciousness was critiqued as covering too much as well as not attending to evolutionary developments and philosophical and theological foundations. A shift to whole brain functioning with more differentiated investigations came during the second phase in the 1980s. Empirical studies corroborated the earlier analytical speculations in neurotheology and advanced the heuristic value or using the whole brain as a metaphor for understanding religion. By the third phase of the 1990s, meaning‐making and integrating consciousness emerged as shaping the agenda between religion and cognitive neuroscience. The emerging methodology combines analogical continuities among levels of complexity and metaphorical leaps of inferential patterning.
ISSN:0591-2385
1467-9744
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9744.1996.tb00950.x