THE TWO PERSPECTIVES
As the comedy routine from Tim Hawkins suggests, people of faith believe in the power of prayer to change or in some way alter the physical status of individuals and their bodily functions or the outcome of events in the world. There are also those who have spiritual or religious experiences and claim that this provides evidence of the presence of a supernatural being who intervenes on behalf of the faithful. For others, this raises questions about how an appeal to a non-physical divine being or higher power could alter naturally occurring patterns and rational laws of the physical world that can be studied by science.
Is what happens in the mind through a prayerful, spiritual, or religious experience capable of affecting the body and physical world? Or are these experiences simply the result of the workings of the brain and the perspective of the individual?
Is what happens in the mind through a prayerful, spiritual, or religious experience capable of affecting the body and physical world? Or are these experiences simply the result of the workings of the brain and the perspective of the individual?
In: “The Physical Effects of Religious Experience - Interview w/Carol Albright”:
Albright states, “Neuroscience research has discovered that a certain part of the brain known as the “God part of the brain” is associated with religious experiences, especially in meditative states and during a temporal lobe epileptic attack.”
However, As Albright states, these tests can “record an aspect of religiously oriented experiences” but don’t include those everyday religious experiences of someone who is neither skilled in meditation nor afflicted with temporal lobe epilepsy. |
So do everyday religious experiences have measurable effects? Let’s look at what one set of researchers say about prayer and its effects.
Click on the link below to read an article on prayer and healing: In this article, the effect of prayer on personal health is considered as well as the effects of prayer on others who are distant or even unknown. As the article states, “The quiet meditation and incantations of praying, or the comfort of being prayed for, appears to lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones, slow the heart rate and have other potentially beneficial effects.” While this does not automatically prove that prayer heals, it does point to changes in the physical body as a result of prayer. But how prayer could work for another person, especially in a distant location, is more difficult to evaluate. Some believe that there are no scientific or rational ways to understand how this might work. This article shows how both the religious and scientific perspectives are considered.
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So if science and religion each have its own way of looking at the power of prayer and faith, what’s the big deal? Click on the next tab and we’ll listen to what causes people to take a stance for one or the other perspective.
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