Religion and Psychiatry in the Age of Neuroscience.

The conversation among religion, psychiatry, and neuroscience has changed how religion is understood and how that understanding affects its relationship with psychiatry. This review covers the history and phenomenology of religious experience, neuroscientific explanations of religious experience, the benefits of religious beliefs and practices, and the evolutionary basis of those benefits. It also examines how neuroscience and evolutionary theory account for the claim that religious experience connects to a transcendent reality. The authors conclude with a summary and unresolved questions.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In recent decades, an evolving conversation among religion, psychiatry, and neuroscience has been taking place, transforming how we conceptualize religion and how that conceptualization affects its relation to psychiatry. In this article, we review several dimensions of the dialogue, beginning with its history and the phenomenology of religious experience. We then turn to neuroscientific studies to see how they explain religious experience, and we follow that with two related areas: the benefits of religious beliefs and practices, and the evolutionary foundation of those benefits. A final section addresses neuroscientific and evolutionary accounts of the transcendent, that is, what these fields make of the claim that religious experience connects to a transcendent reality. We conclude with a brief summary, along with the unresolved questions we have encountered.