I try to diversify the books that I read and the Spiritual Brain is one said book that dives into neuroscience, philosophy, and religion. It is clearly an academic exercise in the beginning systematically attacking the common arguments or assumptions in the world. The authors ultimately believe that there is a spiritual aspect that cannot be explained by our conventional materialism viewpoint that rules academic circles.
I found the most intriguing aspect of the book to be the arguments against materialism and how it often contradicts itself in our actions and thoughts. I learned that logic as we see it currently is actually not very logical when applied to different aspects of our lives.
Spirituality and religion are topics that are important and emotional to people. It goes down to understanding people’s purpose, core beliefs, and fundamental values that shape their worldview. The spiritual brain is an academic’s viewpoint on how neuroscience actually supports spirituality.
It is a refreshing read for those that feel that science and religion are conflicting at opposite ends of the spectrum. Beauregard & O’Leary provide arguments attacking this logic and then briefly at the end summarizing his own viewpoints on spirituality. The key takeaway is that Neuroscience and studies that have been done do support spirituality scientifically while it is not clear the larger purpose behind the universe and our own existence, biology, and neuroscience can show that there is something indeed that can be identified as spiritual.
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