Sacred or Neural? : The Potential of Neuroscience to Explain Religious Experience

Are religious spiritual experiences merely the product of the human nervous system? The author investigates the potential of contemporary neuroscience to explain religious experiences.

It starts with the definition: what is a religious experience? What is the short circuit of synaptic connections in our brain? Where does the border go? Which experiences are considered "divine" and which are considered purely neuronal? In the footsteps of Michael Persinger, Andrew Newberg and Eugene dAquilis, the author explores the question of whether and to what extent neuroscientists can explain religious experiences at all. It defines the term "religious experience" and defines various criteria for assessing scientific research, especially for assessing the quality of strongly reductionist studies. Runehov comes to the conclusion that the perspectives should not only be thought of, but can complement each other fruitfully. This harbors great potential for interdisciplinary research and dialogue, which should not refer to "sacred or neural" but "sacred and neural".