Faith and science

Is faith an electrical anomaly? The latest attempt to find a "God spot" in the brain using an MRI scanner on Carmelite nuns is reported in an article in Scientific American . This discusses how researchers are unearthing the roots of religious feeling in the neural commotion that accompanies the spiritual epiphanies of nuns, Buddhists and other people of faith. The article ends by saying:

"no matter what neural correlates scientists may find, the results cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. Although atheists might argue that finding spirituality in the brain implies that religion is nothing more than divine delusion, the nuns were thrilled by their brain scans for precisely the opposite reason: they seemed to provide confirmation of God’s interactions with them. After all, finding a cerebral source for spiritual experiences could serve equally well to identify the medium through which God reaches out to humanity. Thus, the nuns’ forays into the tubular brain scanner did not undermine their faith. On the contrary, the science gave them an even greater reason to believe."

For a very stimulating talk, that further discusses the issue of faith and science listen to Science & Spirituality - is Dawkins right? (or read the transcript) from Rev Dr Alison Morgan of Holy Trinity, Leicester. She concludes:

"Science is fascinating and wonderful. It’s brought us astonishing advances in knowledge. But it doesn’t help us make sense of what we know. Maybe we should give the last word to Professor Stephen Hawking, who probably understands the universe better than anyone. This is what he says: “Although science may solve the problem of how the universe began, it cannot answer the question ‘why does the universe bother to exist?’. I don’t know the answer to that.’"

But as a Christians I think that we do have some answers. My experience is that we find those answers in a dimension of existence of which Richard Dawkins as yet has no experience. We find them in the context of a relationship with God."