The "God" Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God

Matthew Alper

The "God" Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God, by Matthew Alper, is a book which is faithful to its title. Alper makes the case that "our species is unique… humans possess what we could call 'spiritual' needs. No less than our bodies crave food, we long to understand our purpose in the universe, our reason for being." He also points out that "every human culture has perceived reality as consisting of two distinct substances or realms: the physical and the spiritual."

Taking the above two premises as his starting point, and then examining both cultural and individual spirituality from the point of view of materialistic science (starting with the assumption that matter produces consciousness and the human brain is a product of Darwinian evolution) Alper does a great job of marshalling his evidence that man's concepts and experiences of "God" come very specific areas of and the neurophysiology of the brain. His basic point is: "all that we perceive as "real" is nothing more than electrical signals as they interpreted by our brain." His somewhat controversial conclusion is that the human being is "hard-wired" to believe in a spirit world and God.

Alper is brilliant. The book is very well written, easy to follow, and very easy to understand. I highly recommend it to anyone who thinks this is a topic of interest. Personally I fault the book because Alper dismisses offhandedly all evidence of matter being a function of consciousness. Clearly I think anyone who reads this book ought to get a balanced opinion by reading one of my all-time favorite books, The Holographic Universe, by Michael Talbot.

I really enjoyed the book and got a lot out of it. Some of the data about mystic experiences and drug-induced states is really fascinating. This book really can stimulate the intellect and it provides ample food for thought. I would really urge anyone with an interest in spirituality and biology or neurophysiology to read this book.