Runlikethewind
Monk in Training
A little background,
The Catholic Church teaches that the body and the soul are not two separate entities that are somehow joined in this life, but that the body and soul come together to form a single new nature. I have heard it called an ensouled body or an embodied soul, something along those lines. This is in opposition to mind/body dualism (in a Cartesian sense).
So anyway this lead me to thinking about faith. I recently found out that certain studies in neuro science have found a possible link between certain kinds of brain activity and a presupposition to religious experience in particular a phenomena called Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Some links for further research.
(video session 4 V.S. Ramachandran)http://beyondbelief2006.org/Watch/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15653706/site/newsweek/
So this all got me to thinking about the nature of faith. Some people will look at this and say "see religion is all in your brain, just a result of abnormal brain activity" others might say "this just proves God wired our brain for faith". Given what the Catholic Church teaches about the single nature of body and soul I began to think that faith must have some kind of physical manifestation in the brain since the body and soul are one in nature. So do you think that faith is a purely supernatural quality? Purely natural? Both? None of the above?
The Catholic Church teaches that the body and the soul are not two separate entities that are somehow joined in this life, but that the body and soul come together to form a single new nature. I have heard it called an ensouled body or an embodied soul, something along those lines. This is in opposition to mind/body dualism (in a Cartesian sense).
So anyway this lead me to thinking about faith. I recently found out that certain studies in neuro science have found a possible link between certain kinds of brain activity and a presupposition to religious experience in particular a phenomena called Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Some links for further research.
(video session 4 V.S. Ramachandran)http://beyondbelief2006.org/Watch/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15653706/site/newsweek/
So this all got me to thinking about the nature of faith. Some people will look at this and say "see religion is all in your brain, just a result of abnormal brain activity" others might say "this just proves God wired our brain for faith". Given what the Catholic Church teaches about the single nature of body and soul I began to think that faith must have some kind of physical manifestation in the brain since the body and soul are one in nature. So do you think that faith is a purely supernatural quality? Purely natural? Both? None of the above?