Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth - Hardcover

Andrew Newberg; Mark Robert Waldman

  • 4.02 out of 5 stars
    332 ratings by Goodreads
 
9780743274975: Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0743274970 ISBN 13: 9780743274975
Publisher: Free Press, 2006

Synopsis

Draws on neurobiological and societal research to present a scientific analysis of how the brain perceives and transforms reality into a wide range of personal, moral, creative, and spiritual beliefs.

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About the Authors

Andrew Newberg, MD, is an associate professor of Radiology and Psychiatry and an adjunct assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and also director of the Center for Spirituality and the Mind. He is co-author of Why God Won't Go Away and The Mystical Mind. He lives in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Mark Robert Waldmanis an associate fellow at the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania. A therapist and the author of nine books, he founded the academic journal Transpersonal Review. He lives in Agoura, California.

Reviews

When Newberg, a professor of radiology, psychiatry, and religious studies, ponders the nature of reality, it makes fascinating, mind-bending reading. What is reality, he asks, but a combination of the subjective vividness of an experience (strengthened by the continuity and duration of that experience) and the consensus of others that it is so? Expanding on a thread picked up before in Why God Won't Go Away (2001), he and Waldman examine the Liar's Paradox, assert the likes of "Truth cannot be entirely known, for no matter how much evidence you collect, your knowledge will always be incomplete," and maintain that individual reality is exclusively guided by a combination of sensory perceptions (which are prey to any number of distorting influences) and beliefs. Heady stuff, but with extensive research and credible scientific resources to support it, enough to make a person rethink concepts of truth, reality, and belief. So rich a book that it begs to be read in small bites over a long time. Donna Chavez
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Publisher
Free Press
Publication date
2006
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0743274970
ISBN 13 
9780743274975
Binding
Hardcover
Edition number
1
Number of pages
321
Rating
  • 4.02 out of 5 stars
    332 ratings by Goodreads