FaithWorld

How God (or more precisely, meditation) changes your brain

Tom Heneghan

Aug 17, 2009 16:28 EDT

Some book titles are too good to pass up. “How God Changes Your Brain” is neuroscientist Andrew Newberg‘s fourth book on “neurotheology,” the study of the relationship between faith and the brain. All are pitched at a popular audience, with snappy titles like “Born to Believe” or “Why God Won’t Go Away.” Anyone reading the latest one, though, might wonder if the title shouldn’t be “How God Meditation Changes Your Brain.” As he explains in an interview with Reuters here, the benefits that Buddhist monks and contemplative Catholic nuns derive from meditation and intense prayer are also available to atheists and agnostics. The key lies in the method these high performing believers use, not in the belief itself. But that would have made for a more awkward title.

That’s not to say Newberg doesn’t have some interesting points to make in this book. His brain scans of meditating monks and praying nuns show that the frontal lobe — the area that directs the mind’s focus — is especially active while the amygdala — the area linked to fear reactions — is calmed when they go through their spiritual experiences. His studies show these brain regions can be exercised and strengthened, like building up a muscle through training. And his treatment of a mechanic with a faltering memory showed that a traditional Indian meditation method, even when stripped of its spiritual trappings, could bring about these changes in two months.

The book goes on to ascribe a list of positive results from meditation and offer advice on caring for the brain. Newberg’s “number one best way to exercise your brain” is faith. As he puts it, “faith is equivalent with hope, optimism and the belief that a positive future awaits us. Faith can also be defined as the ability to trust our beliefs, even when we have no proof that such beliefs are accurate or true.” Critics, especially clerics, would probably protest that this is not really theology, but psychology. If we’re talking about God, where’s the religion?

That brings up another interesting aspect. While he is clearly favourable to faith and spirituality, Newberg remains a scientist eager to study the religious feelings he calls “among the most powerful and complex experiences people have.” He studiously avoids promoting any one faith or closing the door to atheists who might be reading the text. The tone is upbeat, the approach inclusive and the conclusion optimistic. There’s a touch of Eastern mysticism, too, with sections on how widely practiced meditation could foster compassion and understanding among people and peoples. Thanks to this open-minded approach towards both religion and science, Newberg teaches radiology, psychology and religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania and speaks frequently to church groups or in religious media.

Newberg gave me a few SPECT brain scan images that illustrate the changes he finds in his subjects’ brains. The image above left shows the brain of a Buddhist monk before and during meditation. The increased yellow in the lower right of the right-hand image shows reduced activity in the parietal lobe, the brain area responsible for orientation in space and time. Below right, the image shows a nun before and during prayer, with increased activity in the frontal lobe, the area for concentration and analytical thinking, and in areas linked to language.

Newberg, a cheerful and optimistic man who was brought up in a Reform Jewish family and says he is still exploring his own beliefs, told me his next book will be an academic work on neurotheology. He stresses that the field is in its infancy and its brain scanning methods are still “incredibly crude. We really don’t know which neurons are firing in that little three-millimeter space” captured in fMRI scans. “If we can ultimately say something epistemologically interesting, then that’s great,” he told me. “But it’s going to take me a long time before I get to saying something like that.”

UPDATE: After some failed attempts at editing this, here is a video clip of Newberg explaining his views during our interview:

Shock cover-up charges about slain French monks in Algeria

Tom Heneghan

Jul 6, 2009 16:58 EDT

The 1996 murder of seven French Catholic monks in Algeria, called the Martyrs of Atlas because of the Atlas mountains where their monastery was located, was not the work of Islamist militants as officially stated at the time, according to testimony by a retired French general to an inquiry into the killings.

In fact, he told a closed-door inquiry in Paris, Algerian troops in a helicopter inadvertently gunned down the Trappists when they strafed an isolated camp they believed belonged to the radical Armed Islamic Group (GIA) that was battling the Algerian state at the time. When they landed to inspect the scene, the troops found the bullet-ridden bodies of the monks who had been kidnapped two months beforehand. Algeria then concocted the story that the Islamists had slit the monks’ throats to hide their fatal blunder.

The inquiry also heard from a Trappist who went to Algeria to identify the bodies. He said he had to insist on having the sealed coffins opened so he could identify the bodies. When his wish was finally granted, he found the coffins contained only the men’s heads and was urged by the French embassy not to divulge this. He told the inquiry he suspected the bodies were disposed of to hide the evidence they had been gunned down.

Here is our news story on this.

The monks have been honoured as Christian victims of Islamist militancy. They were clearly victims of the bloody war between the GIA and the state. The GIA has a sordid part in this story, as they apparently abducted the monks after the Trappists had been kidnapped by Algerian agents in a complicated plot. But if these testimonies are correct, the monks did not die at the hands of Islamists who slit their throats, as the official Algerian explanation has it.

These testimonies added weight to persistent but less well sourced reports about the role of the Algerian authorities in the killings. They also raise potentially explosive questions about the purported role of France in helping to hide the truth. If secret French defence documents are made public, as the families of the victims demand, some very embarrassing facts may come to light.

The murders shocked France at the time and has weighed on French-Algerian relations ever since. A Catholic-Muslim delegation from Lyon, led by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin and Imam Azzedine Gaci, visited the monastery in February 2007 to promote interfaith understanding.

from India Insight:

Is caste behind the killing in Vienna and riots in Punjab?

Matthias Williams

May 26, 2009 11:23 EDT

Why did the murder of a preacher in a Sikh temple in Vienna spark riots in the faraway Indian state of Punjab, in which thousands took to the streets to torch cars, trains and battle security forces?

The root cause may lie in India's caste system that Sikhism officially rejects, but that still grips swathes of India's billion-plus people, including in Sikh-dominated Punjab state in northwestern India.

"Via Vienna, Sikh caste war returns, sets Punjab aflame" ran the headline of the Hindustan Times.

The preacher, Guru Sant Rama Nand, 57, was killed in a gurdwara in the Austrian capital in an attack by six men armed with knives and a gun.

He was from the Dera Sach Khand, a religious sect separate from mainstream Sikhism that has a large support base of Indian Dalits, or "untouchables", and other lower castes.

The leader of Dera Sach Khand, Guru Sant Niranjan Das, 68, was wounded in the attack.

The thousands who went on the rampage in Punjab on Monday were mainly Dalits. Authorities have imposed a curfew in parts of the state, in which three protesters died on Monday in clashes with security forces.

from India Insight:

Will Mayawati’s Brahmin card work this time?

Krittivas Mukherjee

Apr 21, 2009 03:56 EDT

Much has been written about Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati's inventive politics that saw her forging an unlikely alliance between Dalits and Brahmins -- from the two ends of the Hindu caste spectrum -- to win an election in Uttar Pradesh in 2007.

She did this with a promise to widen the appeal of her party beyond her traditional Dalit voters and bring Brahmins and other upper castes into her programme of all-round development.

As proof, she gave tickets to scores of Brahmins in 2007 and appointed a Brahmin (Satish Misra) as her chief adviser and strategist.

The move paid rich dividends, securing an absolute majority for her party in a state that last saw single-party rule almost two decades ago.

It also bolstered the chances of her party in the general election. She began being spoken of as a potential prime minister.

But two years have since passed, and there is speculation that all may not be well with Mayawati's social engineering.

A report says the alliance between Dalits and Brahmins could be fraying at the edges.

from India Insight:

Lalu Prasad’s roller: courting the Muslim vote in Bihar

Matthias Williams

Apr 17, 2009 08:18 EDT

Muslims are seen as a crucial vote bank in several possible swing states in India's general election and many politicians are making the right noises to court the community.

In the state of Bihar, which I recently visited, its chief minister Nitish Kumar told me his campaign focused on caste-blind development but also communal harmony:

"Now everybody is happy. There is complete communal harmony," he said as we sat at night on the veranda at his residence.

If what he says is true, then communal harmony could be a vote winner for Kumar, whose party still has far fewer seats in the national parliament than that of his main rival in the state, the federal Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Prasad was chief minister for years, backed mainly by the Yadav caste and the Muslim vote. Could that Muslim vote now be slipping away from him?

Hussain Ansari, a Muslim rickshaw driver whom I met, ironically, outside Prasad's campaign office, told me he will vote for Kumar: "The situation is changing. Lots of development is taking place."

It remains to be seen to what extent Biharis believe Kumar has changed Bihar under his tenure as they go the polls.

from India Insight:

How thin a line between Church and State?

Rina Chandran

Mar 27, 2009 00:01 EDT

Catholic churchgoers in Kerala will soon receive, in addition to the communion, an appeal to not vote for atheists.

The Kerala Catholic Bishops Council has issued a pastoral letter to be read out in Catholic churches from Sunday, urging parishioners to vote for those who uphold secularism and fight terrorism, according to a report in the Indian Express paper.

The church is also keen that people vote for politicians who will fight against euthanasia and abortion, a direct response to the Left-ruled state's law reforms commission, which favours legalising euthanasia and floating a public trust to run church properties.

The communists have long been at loggerheads with the Catholic church on matters related to religion and education, including how church-run educational institutions -- mostly profitable -- should be run.

Kerala's Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, an association of Catholic bishops, went one step further, reportedly calling the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party the "lesser evil" to the state's Marxists.

Critics of the church say it has no business meddling in affairs of the state -- or telling people whom they should vote for -- and that the issue is really about money and diverting attention from its own troubles.

Supporters of the church -- and the outspoken cardinal -- say Christians in India are under attack and it is only fair that the church look out for itself and its people.

from India Insight:

U.N. report says real risk of Indian religious strife

Alistair Scrutton

Feb 11, 2009 01:14 EST

It did not get great publicity but a recent U.N. report on religious freedom in India offers a stinging image of a country suffering from communal divisions and mob-inspired religious persecution.

 It argues there is a very real risk of a repeat of a tragedy like the Gujarat riots of 2002, when more than 2,000 people, mainly Muslims,were killed by Hindu mobs.

The U.S. Special Rapporteur of religion or belief Asma Jahangir, a well-respected Pakistani human rights activist, travelled to India last March to prepare the report. It catalogues violence and discrimination faced by India's religious minorities, whether Muslim or Christian or Sikh.

"Organised groups claiming roots in religious ideologies have unleashed all pervasive fear of mob violence in many parts of the country." the report, released on Jan. 26, says.

 "There is at present a real risk that similar communal violence might happen again unless political exploitation of communal distinctions is effectively prevented,"

Germans fall out of love with their pope

When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected the head of the Roman Catholicism in 2005, the best-selling daily Bild caught the national mood with a frontpage headline crowing Wir sind Papst! (We’re Pope!). Now, Germans are falling out of love with their pope for readmitting to the Church an excommunicated bishop who denies the Holocaust. For the vast majority of Germans, denying the Holocaust is beyond the pale. Shunning anyone who does deny the Holocaust is considered a civic virtue. So seeing the world’s most prominent German rehabilitate a Holocaust denier is quite distressing for a upstanding, post-war German democrat. How could he do it?

The Vatican and Catholic bishops around the world have been defending the pope, saying the lifting of the excommunications for the controversial Bishop Richard Williamson and three other bishops was an internal Church issue unrelated to his political views. They say repeatedly that this is not a rehabilitation, but simply a readmission to allow discussions on rehabilitation to start. After botching the initial announcement, the Vatican has had a tough time trying to convince public opinion in other countries. In Germany, where many understandably think Holocaust deniers deserve no sympathy whatsoever, this task is proving to be doubly difficult.

From Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Foreign Minister to leading Catholic thinkers, Jewish groups and editorial writers in top-selling newspapers — they’re all criticising the pope’s controversial decision to welcome Williamson back. Here is our news story from Berlin wrapping up the reaction. In Rome, another German, Cardinal Walter Kasper, bluntly told Vatican Radio: “There wasn’t enough talking with each other in the Vatican and there are no longer checks to see where problems could arise.”

While Kasper takes a jab at Ratzinger now and then, it’s rare to see such a wide variety of opinion lining up in Rome and in other countries against a pontiff. It is almost unthinkable that a head of government should break with protocol and openly criticise a pope. But when a German pope ignores one of the deepest German taboos, getting a reaction like this is — as they say here in Germany — “as certain as hearing ‘Amen’ in church.”

There have been so many comments that we couldn’t fit them all into our news stories. Here are some of the comments from Germany:

• Merkel says says it’s all about “the pope and the Vatican making very clear that there can be no (Holocaust) denial and that there must be positive relations with Judaism.”
• Genscher writes: “Poles can be proud of Pope John Paul II. At the last papal election, we said “We are the pope!” But please — not like this.”
• Politicians from the Greens, the Left, the Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and even the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) criticise the pope’s decision. The CDU/CSU expert on church affairs, Ingrid Fischbach, said she was appalled and added: “This has disappointed me, a believing Catholic, very personally.”
• German newspapers have also joined in, including the top-selling popular daily Bild, whose editorial entitled “Infallible?” said “It is morally the last straw, the most despicable thing possible, when one relativises the racist murdering of and deadly envious fury against the Jews… The pope must correct his mistake, take back the decision and apologise.”
• The respected theologian Hans Maier said the handling of the affair was “an unforgivable failure, a political blunder … Why didn’t they get a broad consensus on these issues in advance? Such an important and decisive question must be discussed in a broader group of people.”
• Papal biographer Peter Seewald, author of two long interview book with Ratzinger entitled Salt of the Earth and God and the World, said the pope was badly advised: “This shows clearly that they’re not very professional behind the walls of the Vatican. There’s even some naïvité. This crisis could easily have been avoided with more precision. We have to get used to the idea that Benedict’s papacy will not be calm and quiet.”

The German service of Vatican Radio, which describes itself as “the voice of the pope and the world Church” (see logo below), gave in today’s news summary another explanation of the pope’s view by Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi and a postive comment by Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone (“For me, the issue is over”). It followed that by 10 — count ‘em, 10 – critical comments from top German clergy condemning Williamson’s Holocaust denial and demanding full support for the Second Vatican Council and no concessions to the ultra-traditionalists. The radio quoted Mainz Cardinal Karl Lehmann, Cologne Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Munich Archbishop Reinhard Marx, Bamberg Archbishop Ludwig Schick, Hamburg Auxiliary Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke, Münster Bishop Felix Genn, Magdeburg Bischof Gerhard Feige, Limburg Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, Osnabrück Bishop Franz-Josef Bode and Paderborn Archbishop Hans-Josef Becker. They naturally don’t attack Benedict openly, but it’s hard to remember when the pope’s own radio station carried this many verbal nudges and winks and stage whispers from fellow Church leaders aimed in his direction.

Policy adrift over Rohingya, Myanmar’s Muslim boat people

Bill Tarrant

Feb 3, 2009 12:12 EST

The Rohingyas, a Muslim minority fleeing oppression and hardship in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar, have been called one of the most persecuted people on earth. But they have seldom hit the headlines — until recently, that is. More than 500 Rohingyas are feared to have drowned since early December after being towed out to sea by the Thai military and abandoned in rickety boats. The army has admitted cutting them loose, but said they had food and water and denied sabotaging the engines of the boats.

The Rohingyas are becoming a headache for Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia where they have washed up. Indonesian authorities this week rescued 198 Rohingya boat people off the coast of Aceh, after three weeks at sea. Buddhist Thailand and mostly Muslim Indonesia call them economic migrants looking for work at a time when countries in the region, like everywhere else, are in an economic downturn. But human rights groups such as Amnesty International are calling on governments in the region to provide assistance to the Rohingyas and let the UNHCR  have access to them.

Myanmar’s generals have a shabby enough record with their Buddhist majority. The brutal suppression of monk-led protests that killed at least 31 people in September 2007 and the continued detention of opposition icon and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi bear witness to that. But their treatment of ethnic minorities, including the Muslim Rohingyas and the Christian Chin people in the mountainous Northwest — where insurgents have been fighting for autonomy — have been especially brutal. They are not oppressed because of their faith alone, but their faith and ethnicity make them targets. The military government does not recognise them as one of the country’s 130-odd ethnic minorities. They are forbidden from marrying or traveling without permission and have no legal right to own land.

Most Rohingyas come from Rakhine State, also known as Arakan State, in northwest Myanmar, abutting the border with Bangladesh.  Their roots go back at least to 1821, when Britain annexed the region as a province of British India and brought in large numbers of Bengali-speaking Muslim labourers. When Burma won independence from Britain in 1948, the Bengali-speaking Muslim population near the border exceeded that of the Buddhists, leading to secessionist tensions. This translated into harassment following the 1962 coup that has led to nearly five decades of military rule by the ethnic Burman majority. Thousands fled to Bangladesh to escape a 1978 military census of the Rohingyas called “Operation Dragon.”

Refugees typically leave Rakhaine state for Bangladesh first before taking off in their flimsy fishing boats to find a new life elsewhere in Southeast Asia. On a recent Reuters visit to a Bangladeshi refugee camp, our correspondent Nizam Ahmed heard harrowing tales of being rape, torture and slave labour. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says 200,000 Rohingyas now live a perilous, stateless existence in Bangladesh. As a result, thousands have fled to try to start new lives, chancing their luck in rickety wooden boats they hope will get them to Malaysia, home to 14,300 official Rohingya refugees and maybe half as many again unregistered ones.

To Myanmar’s generals, the Rohingyas are a suspect lot who support local insurgencies that threaten the unity of the country. To Myanmar’s neighbours, they are fresh wave of boat people in Asia’s endless migrations impelled by destitution. To human rights and religious groups, they are persecuted minorities. As for the desperate and stateless Rohingyas who sail off in flimsy boats hoping to wash up on a friendly shore, they just need somewhere to call home.

from India Insight:

Nothing holy in India’s temple tradition

I wonder whether news of Indian priests doing a purification ritual after a minister belonging to a lower caste visited a temple comes as a surprise in a country where religion plays a big role in politics?

Sadhus or Hindu holy men chant hymns as they carry a photograph of the Hindu god Shiva in Jammu in this July 1, 2004 file photo. REUTERS/Amit Gupta

While officials in Orissa said they will question the priests for throwing away holy offerings and washing the floors after the minister's visit to the temple this week, the incident has left the controversial minister angry.

Pramila Mallick, the Orissa state minister for women and child welfare, said her political rivals must have been behind it because she had been to the temple a few times without any fuss.

Mallick is said to be partial to lower caste voters who have been instrumental in her winning elections, while ignoring upper-caste people who administer temples.

Upper-caste Hindus may have tried to get even with her this time around, she said.