Explanation of religious experience in cognitive neuroscience; Analysis of models, approaches and challenges

..............., ................; Poormohammadi, Naimeh; Sayyid-Mazhari, Monireh

Explanation of religious experience in cognitive neuroscience; Analysis of models, approaches and challenges

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

................ ............... ¹

Naimeh poormohammadi ²

Monireh Sayyid-Mazhari ³

¹ Ph.D. student of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran

² Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Religions and Denominations, Qom, Iran (Responsible Author)

³ Associate Professor, Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran,

Abstract

Extended abstract
Introduction
Today, a group of philosophers and neuroscientists, with scientific ideas and based on research on the brains of those who have religious experiences, have come to believe that in general, religious experiences and the human mind are material phenomena, and that the transcendentalism of religious experiences is more than a pervasive illusion among not human Two secondary conclusions can be reached from this idea. First: These are based on the assumption that religious thought and experience are manifested through neurocognitive factors, and this is a hypothesis accepted throughout the cognitive sciences that if an aspect of human existence is to be investigated in a scientific way, it should be expressed in brain images or laboratory tests related to how information is organized and processed in the brain. Secondly: Since religious experience is manifested through neurological and cognitive factors, such an experience is limited to the limits and structures of the three neuro-cognitive disciplines of a person. Based on these two, they claim that they have been able to identify all kinds of religious experiences by relying on brain imaging, synchrotrons and neural correlates, and even based on the findings of neuroscience and the knowledge of the role of certain areas of the brain in individual religious actions and experiences, these experiences create it in a laboratory. These theories are divided into two categories. The first category considers religious experience as the result of inefficient brain activity, and the idea of the second category is that religious experience is the result of the natural output of the brain's neural structure. The premise of this research is that neuroscientific approaches to religion and religious experiences suffer from methodological errors and face limitations and challenges in explaining religious experience, and that religious experience is correlated with the function of one or more specific brain regions and is not a single explanation and experience. On the other hand, the possibility of creating it artificially is also methodologically flawed, and therefore pure physicalism cannot provide a perfect and accurate interpretation of religious belief. Because these explanations are selective which cannot explain everything about a phenomenon like religious experience from the explanations in a field of science.

Methodology
In this article, by using library study and sampling from first-hand sources and with a descriptive-analytical method, a critical approach has been tried to first examine and analyze the various models of religious experience in cognitive neuroscience, and then the limitations and challenges that this scientific approach to religion with They are facing attention.

Findings
The cognitive neuroscience of religion an attempt to analyze religious experience and belief as a combination of beliefs, and to relate each component to a specific cognitive domain, and on this basis, to analyze religion based on its components. Methodologically, adopting this method is not bad, but in the real life of religion, all the components come together and interact with each other to create a biological experience. In such studies, the gestalt that the real life of religion and religious experience - which is more than a verbal list of cognitive components - is ignored. On the other hand, the neuroscience of religious experience cannot claim to answer all kinds of ontological questions, what should be paid attention to in these studies is the connection of neural structures with the mental states of religious experience, rather than considering them as the same thing. Therefore, claims such as: finding God's place in the brain, God's gene, or creating a religious experience in the laboratory, are claims beyond the neuroscience studies of religious experience. The findings of this research show that the neuroscientific approach to religious experience is accompanied by four major limitations and challenges, which are: the challenge of conceptual diversity and complexity, the challenge of the privacy of the mental matter, the cognitive challenge, and the ontological challenge.

Discussion and Conclusion
The authors believe that, regarding the explanations related to the why of the religious experience that the cognitive sciences of religion provide, we should: (1) be alert to the overt or hidden claims of the completeness of the explanation - which in fact logically lacks it - and (2) We should find out what the cognitive science of religion tells us about religious experience, and be careful of what it cannot necessarily understand or include in its descriptions, and (3) we should understand the hidden and implicit feelings and cognitions that are the origin of the interpretations of cognitive science scholars and what which forms the background of their arguments and makes them mandatory to consider. In conclusion, it should be said that this field of study is new and still has a long and difficult path ahead.

Keywords

cognitive science of religion

cognitive neuroscience of religion

religious experience

neuroscience of religious experience

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