Religious thinking has been a part of the human experience from the beginning
The question then becomes, why? Studies of children have shown that we are born with this instinct for what's called substance dualism
the idea that the body and the mind, or soul, are separate
If religious experience is a universal phenomenon, if it can be traced about all time, then there must be some adaptive advantage
Otherwise, it wouldn't exist. The problem is that the countless different answers that have been given for why religion fail primarily because they're functionalist answers
What religion does, not why religion exists. we are a point and we are a wave we are magnificently distinct and unique and diverse
and we are part of one field of life one sacred consciousness so it turns out that every single
one of us are all born with the neuro docking station for awakened awareness together with my
colleagues we looked at people who recovered from depression through an awakening we could see that
people who suffered the most really derived profound support and even renewal when connecting
to their higher power to God the universe whatever their word might be They were more likely to perceive and reflect in a profoundly spiritual way And this tendency to see life on spiritual bedrock
was mirrored by a thickening of the cortex, offering some evidence that sustained spiritual life
is neuroprotective against depression. And in addition, when we looked at the awakened brain
what we saw is that universally we are drawn into an experience in which we are loved and held, guided, and never alone
If you think about the past three, four hundred years of human history, especially the history of the Western world
we've had this explosion, some call it the age of certainty, the explosion of scientific rationalism
But we've had this explosion of knowledge about how the world actually works
Weight, height, gravitational pull, electromagnetic force. And yet the same questions are still gnawing at the soul
What's it mean? What are we doing here? This idea somehow that faith and science are in opposition
I've always found to be complete insanity. Both are searching for the truth
There is something in the way that our brains work more than just the sum of our material parts. Is it possible that you have been on a quest
that you already are walking a spiritual path