Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth PDF
Preview Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth
A A N , MD LSO BY NDREW EWBERG Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief (with Eugene D’Aquili, MD, PhD, and Vince Rause) The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience (with Eugene D’Aquili, MD, PhD) A M R W LSO BY ARK OBERT ALDMAN The Art of Staying Together The Spirit of Writing: Classic and Contemporary Essays Celebrating the Writing Life Dreamscaping (with Stanley Krippner, PhD) Love Games: How to Deepen Communication, Resolve Conflict, and Discover Who Your Partner Really Is Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, vols. 1–4 (Shadow, Seeker, Lover, and Healer) FREE PRESS A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Copyright © 2006 by Andrew Newberg, MD, and Mark Robert Waldman All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. FREE PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Newberg, Andrew B. Why we believe what we believe: Uncovering our biological need for meaning, spirituality, and truth/Andrew Newberg, Mark Robert Waldman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Psychology, Religious. 2. Brain—Religious aspects. I. Waldman, Mark Robert. II. Title. BL53.N49 2006 153.4—dc22 2006048274 ISBN: 0-7432-9372-X Visit us on the World Wide Web: http://www.SimonSays.com To Gene d’Aquili and Jeremy Tarcher for their vision, friendship, and relentless search for the truth. And to our wives, Stephanie and Susan, who stand by us night and day. Contents PART I HOW THE BRAIN MAKES OUR REALITY 1 The Power of Belief 2 A Mountain of Misperceptions: Searching for Beliefs in a Haystack of Neurons 3 Reality, Illusions, and the Aunt Who Cried Wolf: The Construction of Perceptual Beliefs 4 Santa Claus, Lucky Numbers, and the Magician in Our Brain: The Biology of Conceptual Beliefs PART II CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT AND MORALITY 5 Parents, Peas, and “Putty Tats”: The Development of Childhood Beliefs 6 Ordinary Criminals Like You and Me: The Gap between Behavior and Moral Beliefs PART III SPIRITUAL BELIEFS AND THE BRAIN 7 Nuns, Buddhists, and the Reality of Spiritual Beliefs 8 Speaking in Tongues 9 The Atheist Who Prayed to God 10 Becoming a Better Believer Epilogue: Life, the Universe, and Our “Ultimate” Beliefs Endnotes Acknowledgments About the Authors Part I
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