re: #213 Sharmuta

There is a really interesting part of that audio where she discusses an atheist friend (who was raised Jewish) who became a Buddhist after he’d had brain surgery. After talking to the author about her research, he asked his neurosurgeon if he could look at his latest brain scans, and sure enough, there was increased activity in the lobe scientists have been linking to spirituality.

I listened to the broadcast. I think that the man in question had had brain surgery which had the unfortunate side effect of leading to temporal lobe epilepsy (this was recounted in the broadcast). The whole thing was certainly interesting, but it did leave me wondering whether the conclusion might be that one day religion and religious experience would be reducible to a description of various mental states.