I think what he's trying to say is that hard materialism, namely the idea that human consciousness and psyche is nothing more than the firing of neurons and chemistry, has taken a beating in neuroscientific and philosophy of mind circles, and by extension, Hitchens-style atheism, which is predicated on hard materialism, has taken a beating, too. That having been said, traditional religion hasn't had its position improved by these discussions, however, thus the comments about orthodox belief, which in this context means traditional Christianity, I suppose.

If you want to read an interesting take on this sort of discussion, I suggest reading "The Mysterious Flame" by Colin McGinn. He's a British philosopher and a leader in this field, and his position on issues of human consciousness (commonly called New Mysterianism), while not exactly favorable to mainstream religious thought, also isn't favorable to hardcore materialist atheism. I think that's what Brooks is driving at. You might want to call your old colleague John Derbyshire up for some additional info.

Neural Buddhism is kind of an odd way of describing the concept. Maybe another term might be useful for Western audiences, like, um, Unitarian Universalism?

Posted by: Mark in Houston | May 13, 2008 11:04 PM

When engineers, pharmacists, and biofeedback technicians can reliably evoke Transcendent experiences, the masses are going to start wondering if the Hierarchical Priesthoods have been keeping the good stuff for themselves all these years.

Posted by: John E. | May 13, 2008 11:10 PM

I"ve heard of this before, I think it's called Unitarianism. God as the "Emamental Hum". ...."That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation."

"Ye can be as Gods!" I don't think a such a watered down "religon" is going to have much to offer. After all, a spiritual idea that asks little, gives little. Just one more attempt to try to feel spiritual, without it costing you anything. Poor Buddhists. The boomer era "intellectuals" have really mangled Buddhism in their attempt to justify any new ideology that puffed their sails. Dare they actually PRACTICE it.

Posted by: brierrabbit3030 | May 13, 2008 11:23 PM

When engineers, pharmacists, and biofeedback technicians can reliably evoke Transcendent experiences, the masses are going to start wondering if the Hierarchical Priesthoods have been keeping the good stuff for themselves all these years.

It has already been done. A magnetic field is fired up over the temporal lobes and the result for the subject is exactly the same as mystical experience have been described.

Posted by: Charles Cosimano | May 14, 2008 1:02 AM

It has already been done. A magnetic field is fired up over the temporal lobes and the result for the subject is exactly the same as mystical experience have been described.

Actually, various drugs also cause experiences that resemble those described in mysticism. But classical mysticism rejects these as inauthentic- they don't go along with the concrete changes in personality and insights, aka 'fruits', of the real thing.

In fact, classical mysticism considers inward change the primary process and these unique experiences secondary and indicators- not the other way around.

And for our anonymous commenter, classical mysticism proper rejects any and all magical phenomena. Some of the effects of its persuasive power are probably construed as 'miracles'- and maybe rightly so.

Posted by: Jillian | May 14, 2008 5:37 AM

Not (yet) heal amputees, but the other things - yes.

Posted by: | May 14, 2008 9:31 AM

David Brooks said:

"The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits."

I pretty much agree with this statement that particular religions are cultural artifacts, though I might prefer to call them educated guesses about the nature of God. However, I am trying to reconcile this belief with my understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

As far as Buddhism is concerned, a speaker from a Buddhist meditation center recently came and spoke at my church. She was very interesting, but I didn't feel that she was promoting a religion, more a way of being "mindful" that was, in a way, similar to what psychotherapy does or what monks in a monastery do.

My impression was that it would be possible to practice this technique without identifying oneself as a Buddhist.

Posted by: Alicia | May 14, 2008 10:00 AM

Derek Copold is right. Brooks is also using a form of the genetic fallacy whereby you dismiss something by showing its origins are somewhow bad or different from what they are thought to be.

Just because the origins of religious experience can be traced to states in the brain does not imply that religious experience is an illusion or can be eliminated by reducing the experience to states in the brain.

I had originally agreed that, since eople of a scientific world view will eventually accept that there is a feeling of sacredness, but reject that that feeling of sacredness is captured (either adequately or necessarily) by Christianity, Judaism, this presented a real challenge for defenders of traditional religion.

Actually, it doesn't present any special challenge to defenders of traditional religion other than what was already there--why believe this religion rather than that one, etc.

Posted by: Shantonu Basu | May 14, 2008 11:13 AM

Tad, I that that thought in mind for my first post. What are the differences supposed to be, if not entirely subjective?

Some neopagans, myself amongst them, use the term shamanic to allude to transcendence; we experience and view it as a transitory state, not a goal.

It's impossible to generalize, though I know many have a similar POV: the state's value is in it's instructive potential, in providing points of comparison from which life's lessons can be learned. It is not held to any specific symbology.

While I call my practice shamanic, I am not a Shaman. That term is valid (only, IMO) for those who fill that role within a cultural context. I find it reasonable to view anyone calling themselves "Shaman" as snake oil sellers until proven otherwise.

Posted by: Franklin Evans | May 14, 2008 12:20 PM

If faith in God reliably cured blindness and cancer, I think the churches would be much more jam-packed than they currently seem to be. I say this as one who belonged to a group that prayed for healings with great frequency, intensity, and duration. I'm sorry to say that most of the people we prayed for did not get better. I'm not saying that spontaneous, unexplained healings never occur, but if there is a prayer method that works with a high rate of efficiency, no one seems to have found it yet.

Posted by: sigaliris | May 14, 2008 3:24 PM

Just so we agree that miracle healing have been of the nature of disease/illnesses that can either go into spontaneous remission or have a psychosomatic effect, but no tangible amputee healoigs (yet), despite the alleged account of Jesus healing a chopped off ear.

Generally God is said to work with providence: that is, by using ordinary processes for his purposes. Overt miracles generally only occur at key point in the history of God's interaction with humanity. In the entire 3000 or so years of Jewish history described in the Bible, there's only a couple dozen miracles. Even in the supposedly miracle-saturated scripture there's simply no suggestion that they occur with any frequency. So we wouldn't expect to see overtly impossible healings except in extremely rare situations if at all.

Anyway, the larger "neural Buddhism" is quite a topic and warrants a whole book (or several) in response. I've got a modest effort up at my blog from a physics perspective, but it's only a tiny slice of what the topic deserves.

I thought he was alluding to the possibility that mental states of Buddhists who have advanced in meditation techniques might be able to be copied by stimulation of various parts of the brain in different ways, like drugs or electrical pulses, etc.

Posted by: Joules | May 15, 2008 1:34 PM

Rod, Greetings from Holy Cross in Linthicum.

I think that indeed his impression is that neuroscience is going to destroy our notion of the 'self' as distinct, which he is equating with Buddhism.

However, don't the Orthodox hold that man is a 'microcosmos', so you could find as many parts as you wanted to the self which are analogous to things in the world and you still would not have demolished the self even an inch?

Interestingly, I would think it would be impossible to feel anything unless the Brain / neural system is reacting. So if I feel ecstasy, there must be something going on in my neural system for me to be feeling it. So scientists should be able to discover 'state maps' for religious experiences.

As for why we don't see a great deal of faith healing, it's all got to do with faith. Besides: I'm under the impression that most miracles happen invisibly, unless there is some need for it to be visible. Churches don't churn out miracles for that very reason! God does not do miracles so that we can have an easy life, but they are done to call us into communion with him. If we can take anything from the history of Israel on this subject it is that despite the great miracles that were seen, there was still a lack of faith.

I would not like to be in those churches that 'churned out miracles' - as soon as it stopped working, everyone would be gone. They would be there for the wrong reason; the Church does not simply heal the body, but it heals the whole man.

Posted by: RiverC | May 15, 2008 3:48 PM