Note: While this review was solicited by the publisher, the views expressed here are entirely my own without inducement, incentive or reward in accordance with my book review policy.

Short review

In The “God” Part of the Brain, Matthew Alper argues boldly and persuasively for a naturalistic explanation of religious behaviour and spirituality, based on a fear of our own mortality that is an inevitable conclusion of self-awareness in creatures like ourselves.

Long review

Is religion and god-belief purely a matter of physiology? That is the provocative question that Matthew Alper attempts to answer in the latest edition of his engaging title The “God” Part of the Brain.

This clearly written book is divided neatly into two sub-books: Book I records Alper’s own quest and his journey of discovery into the nature of “god”; Book II contains the bulk of his arguments for a completely physiological explanation of religiosity, spirituality and god-belief.

In Book I, we find ourselves as an observer to Alper’s early life as he questions the nature of his own beliefs, presumptions and existence, his “soul”, his investigation into the nature of god and religious thought, and his experimentation with hallucinogens. On talking about drug use (both prescribed and illicit), Alper comes to the conclusion that what is considered a “soul” is merely a manifestation of his consciousness, a physical attribute.

The fact that my conscious self—my allegedly immortal soul—was susceptible to the effects of chemical (physical) substances convinced me that human consciousness must be a physical entity governed by strictly physical processes. If this was true, then in order to gain a deeper understanding of of the nature of consciousness—what I previously believed might constitute a soul—I would need to conduct an investigation into the nature of the physical sciences.

Thus begins Alper’s autodidactic enquiry into the base sciences of physics, chemistry and biology in an attempt to explain how the universe, and we, came to be. This leads him, through philosophy and psychology, to the foundation of the main focus of his argument, Book II, where he tackles what he calls ‘biotheology’.

In Book II, Alper discusses his ideas of biotheology, and posits the hypothesis that religiosity, spirituality and god-belief can be explained as completely naturalistic biological phenomena, and an inevitable consequence of self-awareness such as humanity manifests.

Was it therefore possible that humans may actually inherit their cross-cultural inclinations to perceive a spiritual reality? Were our cross-cultural beliefs in such universal concepts as a god, a soul, and an afterlife the consequence of a genetically inherited instinct, a reflex? Furthermore, if we possess such an instinct, mustn’t it emerge from some specific physiological site in us, what we could perhaps call a “spiritual” or “God” part of our brain?

Alper posits a number of modes of human behaviour or “functions” that we, as a species, universally exhibit, derived from genetically inherited traits and the evolved nature of our neurophysiology.

In turn he examines the complementary and interrelated functions of spirituality, pain, anxiety, ego, transcendence, guilt and morality, weaving them into a self-supporting personality matrix, and adeptly blending them with studies of biology, history, religious practices and psychological behaviour to create a compelling picture of the evolution of religious thought in humankind. Alper is quite insistent about a separation of the concepts of spirituality and religiosity, although he clearly understands that there is an overlap between the two.

In explaining such ideas, Alper often refers to a number of cross-cultural experiences that appear to have a basis in genetics, rather than any kind of cultural upbringing, and applies this to the functions he describes:

Just as all cultures experience sadness, all cultures undergo spiritual experiences. Furthermore, just as the experiences of sadness is described in similar terms by every culture, the same is true of spiritual experiences. That all cultures have described sadness in such a similar way indicates that this sentiment is not learned but an inherited part of our human natures. By the same logic, this should hold true of spiritual experiences.

Alper’s conclusions are not only bold and incisive, but attractively open-ended, allowing for further investigations into biotheology to inform and reform his ideas. He delves into the topics of morality and humanity’s ‘purpose’, and remarks, as others have, that such concepts are easily explained even without religion or a belief in gods. He also goes on to suggest that humanity should be able to recognise our naturalistic propensity for spirituality and religiosity, and that this should equip us to discover our own sense of purpose and further better ourselves.

The last chapter of the book suggests a number of simple (in a methodological sense) scientific experiments that could be performed to gain additional evidence to support his hypothesis, which I found to be a nice touch for a popular science book.

This relatively concise book is written as prose, and is split into small and easily digestible chapters, some only two or three pages long, each dealing with an individual point of his argument. Alper’s style is very friendly and not at all unwelcoming, although I don’t expect those who are deeply and emotionally invested in their religious outlook to care much for his arguments. The prose itself is is very readable with minimal technical or scientific jargon, although it does leave me with the impression that Alper has gone out of his way to simplify his language as much as possible for the widest possible readership. However, he does this without appearing overtly patronising.

Throughout the book, Alper repeatedly employs the motif of asking himself questions to explain his thinking and, I presume, to engage the reader on their own quest into the subject matter. This was one of the things I liked about this book; it allowed me to take a break from reading and gave me scope to think about my own opinions and assumptions.

There are surprisingly few footnotes, references or details of the scientific studies he mentions that one might expect from a hypothesis into such an emotive subject matter, which may leave the enquiring reader little to follow with. Perhaps this is intentional, so that the non-scientifically trained reader can continue this story at their own pace without being distracted by an overload of jargon-laden technical information.

I found this book an enjoyable read and the arguments for Alper’s hypothesis are certainly plausible and credible although not, as yet, entirely convincing. I would like to see more investigation into this hypothesis, and would be most interested in the results of such studies.

I would certainly recommend The “God” Part of the Brain as a worthy popular science read to those who are interested in investigating theories concerning spiritual thought and god-beliefs, whether one is a believer or not.

Other recent reviews of this book can be read at:

• Daylight Atheism
• atheism.about.com
• Deep Thoughts
• Atheist in a mini van
• Friendly Atheist

This entry was posted Sunday, April 15th, 2007 at 7:12 pm and is filed under . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.