Did God invent humanity? Or did we invent God? Pioneering scientists are trekking across new frontiers of neuroscience that may at last provide an answer to this ancient mystery. Neuroscientists are recreating out of body experiences in virtual reality laboratories to uncover what happens to the brain during profoundly spiritual journeys.
Yet, most of us do not need to leave our bodies to sense the divine. Psychologists are working to figure out why we sense a hidden supernatural plane in the world around us. Their work suggests that belief in the spiritual takes hold a young age, never leaves us, and is essential to how our highly developed brains see the world.
This supernatural sense might be something more than just a byproduct of an intelligent mind, because a groundbreaking experiment with chimpanzees suggests that belief in God is unique to humans.
But what causes some to see the hand of God in humanity and the world around us, where others see randomness and chance? One psychologist believes she knows why, because her work is showing that our emotional states physically change how we see patterns of events in the world.
Our experience of God may be exclusively confined to our brains. But since our brains are where we experience reality, does imagining God make God real? One neuroscientist is trying to find the answer by peering into the human mind, and seeing what God really looks like!
