Word: sloane
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...Sloan: But why? To understand how the brain works so we can develop interventions to treat depression and to treat memory loss. And that's absolutely appropriate. Are there interventions that will come from [imaging religious experiences...
...Sloan: Fair enough, but there's a seductive appeal about neuroscience explanations, that there must be something significant here because you can see it in the brain scan. We're infatuated with neuroscience because of the very beautiful images that we can see, but the real question is, What do those images tell us that's of any value, whether it's basic science or applied...
Getting back to brain structure--Dr. Sloan, would you see the varying degrees of spirituality in people as being rooted in something as simple as brain architecture...
...Sloan: Well, all our experience in some way derives from the brain--everything we experience, from meditation to eating cheese. So in some way, it's rooted in the brain. The concern I have is that science operates in a reductionist way, and if you try to understand a spiritual experience or a religious experience from the science perspective, ultimately you are going to reduce it to the coursing of neurochemicals in the brain. And while that may be satisfying to a scientist, it's anathema to a theologian, which illustrates the limits of science. There are some questions...
Handzo: The secret is, we say as little as possible. There's nothing you can say. I mean, that alludes to this whole theological question of why does this happen--and we simply do not know. I agree with Dr. Sloan: I don't think that I want to know why God does it that way. Maybe God has nothing to do with it. I'm not sure any of those things are things I want to know, being a person of faith...