Invisible Forces and Powerful Beliefs, Safari

Can Science and Religion Work Together, After All?

 

It’s time for science and religion to stop shouting at each other and start talking with each other. This book leads the way. It is the result of an extraordinary ongoing conversation among a group of highly respected scientists, physicians, philosophers, and theologians. Together, they share profound insights into the deepest questions humans ask and explore the invisible forces and powerful beliefs that shape our lives. Their insights reflect both humanity’s latest science and its most enduring wisdom. Their answers and questions will challenge you—and reward you with a richer understanding of who we are, what we share, and what it means.

 

What do we really know about human nature?

How do we see what we see, know what we know, feel what we feel?

How do people come to believe in God?

Where does empathy come from?

What can evolutionary psychology and neuroscience teach us about ethics?

What are the health benefits of faith?

Where do you end, and others begin?

What do marriage, family, and friendship mean?

How can people repair the broken connections that keep them lonely?

 

Who are we? What connects us to each other and to the universe? What makes human beings believe in their marriages, friends, families, societies, God?

 

Men and women have long sought to answer questions like these through religion. For centuries, they have been joined by scientists bringing increasingly powerful new methods and worldviews. Whether scientist or theologian, physician or philosopher, they share a quest: to understand the invisible forces and powerful beliefs that shape human life.

 

Today, these explorers have much to learn from each other. In the Chicago Social Brain Network, an interdisciplinary group of scholars have come together to exchange ideas across the boundaries that have divided science, religion, and philosophy for far too long.

 

This book invites you into their conversation and journey. Join them as they explore human nature and human connections: Discover what can be learned from evolutionary analyses and Plato, MRIs and the Gospel of Matthew.

• The social brain and the human journey
  Is humanity marching towards cooperation and social resilience?
• Why and how we connect
  Our invisible relationships with each other--and our search for trust and meaning
• "You and I” as one: mind and body, individual and society
  Human language, neuronal substrates, synchrony, and social coordination
• Belief, connection, and learning
  How human beings construct their private experiences of God

Preface     xi

1          Invisible forces operating on human bodies    1

2          The social nature of humankind    17

3          Science, religion, and a revived religious humanism    35

4          Health by connection: from social brains to resilient bodies    49

5          Psychosomatic relations: from superstition to mortality    61

6          The suspension of individual consciousness and the dissolution of self and other boundaries    73

7          Action at a distance: the invisible force of language    83

8          Hidden forces in understanding others: mirror neurons and neurobiological underpinnings    95

9          Empathy and interpersonal sensitivity    109

10        Seeing invisible minds    121

11        Anthropomorphism: human connection to a universal society    133

12        How does God become real?    145

13        Theological perspectives on God as an invisible force    157

14        Visible efforts to change invisible connections    171

15        Social brain, spiritual medicine?    185

16        Epilogue    197

About the authors    207

Index    209