What follows is an excerpt from a television program aired on October 7th, 2009 by German television station ZDF. It takes a skeptical viewpoint in trying to debunk God and Faith. They also address an interesting scientific experiment which tries to research what happens in the brain during deep meditation in which the state of oneness is experienced by the believer. The program brings this up in an attempt to give a natural explanation of a deep devotional experience. The problem is however that the program misses the deep mystery of consciousness, especially the duality of a brain wave field created by the matter of our neurons and how in this experiment synchronized wave patterns produce a perception of being at one with the underlying reality of our universe, which in turn is also based on a matter/wave duality.

When our brain wants us to focus on certain parts of our visual perception, neurons in the prefrontal cortex fire in unison and send signals to the visual cortex to do the same in order to become synchronized, directing our focus of attention. Source

During meditation we do not focus our sensory perception, still our brain waves become nearly completely synchronized by which the boundaries between inside and outside dissolve.

Science and religion has a hard time understanding the paradox of Jesus the God-Man, uniting two perfect natures in one person, fully divine and fully human, one in essence.

The skeptical view:

Abenteur Forschung
Brain Research Brain and God

Is faith measurable?
Every year millions of believers go on a pilgrimage to Lourdes in the hope of a cure, and all united in the belief in the power of a miracle. In 1858 in the grotto Massabielle the Virgin Mary appeared several times to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous. A vision, a fantasy, a perceptual illusion? Researchers are on the trail of the phenomenon. They want to find out exactly what happens when such a phenomenon occurs, and how faith can actually be created. Visions or apparitions are a particularly intense form of spiritual experience. Faith is apparently widespread in many different cultures as a universal principle. Does Faith have a material basis?Researchers are now looking in the brain for measurable traces of faith and religiosity. Experiments suggest that certain areas are more active in the brain during religious experiences than others.

What happens during a vision?
 Is the brain of a believer distinct from that of non-believers, and how does our brain work, while we believe? During an observation brain researcher observe nuns during prayer in MRI. The aim is to find out what events occur in the brain during intense spiritual meditation, prayer, and if that leaves specific traces, so to speak, religiosity has a “place in the brain.” The comparison is striking: The brain of a person in prayer is different from a non-worshipers. The result: The activity of the brain during prayer varies by region. Fast passive is the center, with which we orientate ourselves in space and perceive. It is surprising that this region is supplied much less with blood during the prayer than, say, in resting subjects who do not pray. Some researchers see in this shut down of orientation the reason why prayer is often perceived as closeness to God.

The art of meditation
The Interest of science for Buddhist monks. In Buddhism meditation has for 2000 years placed meditation at its center. Many experienced monks train their brains in their lives often more than 10,000 hours. They describe their feelings as “one with the environment”, the borders to the outside world seem resolved.

That makes researchers interested. As neurophysiologists measure the brain waves of a monk in meditation, they are surprised: The brain waves vibrate remarkably uniform at a certain frequency. Die researchers draw the following conclusions from it: stimuli from our sense organs lead to nerve cells which continue to corresponding brain centers, there arises the perception of our surroundings. During the meditation changes the pattern. The derived excitation now shows nearly synchronized waves. A condition which probably completely changes the perception.
This provides the explanation for the brain researcher of what the monks during meditation experience: that the boundary between interior and exterior dissolves. This creates the feeling of being in complete harmony with the environment.

A matter of faith
Some scholars see in these results also a clue for the explanation of religious phenomena. As potential triggers they suspect specific excitation patterns in the brain. Some even go so far that they think they can selectively induce such visions. A converted helm is the ultimate tool for their experiment: It generates a weak magnetic field, and aims to stimulate such a small target area of the brain. The subjects should describe directly, which results in internal images. Some indeed report religious phenomena, others see mysterious luminous phenomena in the sky, UFOs or even extraterrestrial visitors. Again the images are determined by the individual cultural background. For example only those who have a strong religious commitment report corresponding appearances.

Source: ZDF Abenteur Forchung

PRAYER FOR ONENESS (John 17:11, 20-23)

“As history was rushing toward its focal point in his redemptive death, the persistent concern Christ expressed in his prayer was for the oneness of his followers … the same kind of oneness that prevailed between Father and Son within the Trinity.” (Bilezikian 35-36) ” … that they may be one as we are one.” (v. 11) “Jesus was asking for the restoration among humans of the oneness that had originally been entrusted to them in creation, a oneness made in the image of the oneness within the Trinity.” (Bilezikian 36)

Jesus said, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.” (John 17, 20)

Reality Check.
“In our day, whenever the church is ineffective and its witness remains unproductive, the first questions that must be raised are whether the church functions as authentic community and whether it lives out the reality of its oneness. In a community-starved world, the most potent means of witness to the truth of the gospel is the magnetic power of the oneness that was committed by Christ to his new community at the center of history.” (37)

Bilezikian, Gilbert. Community 101: Reclaiming the Local Church as Community of Oneness. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997.

Crucifying our ego-centric self. 

“Sin is what fills the spiritual vacuum created by the loss of right relationship to God” (Tracy 33)

“Inward sin is not something we do, as A.W. Tozer taught, it is something you are. You grieve, for the at the deepest level you want to be like Christ. But there is a part of you that treasures lust, or harbors a lurking self-idolatry, or nourishes the ‘the drum major instinct’, or thirsts for praise, or protects a touchy ego, or affirms a cultural prejudice, or shelters unworthy motives, or rebels against continual obedience to God. Tozer called these ‘the hyphenated sins of the human soul.” He named some self-righteousness, self-pity, …. self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love.
The Spirit of the Lord is so gentle, yet so firm. Faithfully He confronts you with these un-Christlike affections. At first you may dismiss His gentle revelations or try to ignore, mislabel, or sidestep them. But He keeps bringing you back to the mirror of the Divine Light, where you can admit that you need to have your very inmost heart cleansed of sin. You are ready to join Charles Wesley in:

Show me as my heart can bear,
The depth of inbred sin;
All the unbelief declare,
The pride that lurks within.
Take me, whom Thyself hast bought,
Bring into captivity,
ev’ry high, aspiring thought,
That would not stoop to Thee. (Tracy 79)

“But between you the believer on the way to sanctification, and that blessed stat of ‘all loves excelling’ looms the cross, the hurdle of self-surrender. Along the road of growth in grace the Holy Spirit keeps inviting you to surrender the one thing you can’t give up. The one thing - or the things - to which you have given ’god value’.” “Such consecration is not easy. The bible calls it being crucified with Christ.” (Tracy 81)  ”But if you make your consecration complete, self-surrender can become the prelude to sanctification.” (Tracy 82) Do not think that loving submission to God in consecration does away with your personhood. Far from it, loving submission is the way to find your true personhood, your true self.” (Tracy 89)

Steps: “There is a sinful self to be crucified with Christ.”, “There is a human [or natural self] to be disciplined in Christ.” and “There is a true self to be actualised in Christ.” “The end God has in mind is the actualisation of the divine self. The goal of the New Age movement and of consumer psychology is self-actualisation, The goal of the gospel is Christ-actualisation - Christ lives in me.” (Tracy 89)

The reconciliation of our right relationship with God, to allow him to fill that spiritual vacuum, the place that is rightfully His.

Romans 8, 10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

Sources quoted:

Tracy, Wes. et al. Reflecting God. Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2000.

“To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart,
and there to stand before the face of the Lord,
ever-present, all seeing, within you.”
- Theophan the Recluse

Quoted in Foster, Richard J. Meditative Prayer. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1983.

We awaken not only to a realization of the immensity and majesty of God “out there” as King and Ruler of the universe (which He is) but also a more intimate and more wonderful perception of Him as directly and personally present n our own being. Yet this is not a pantheistic merger or confusion of our being with His. On the contrary, there is a distinct conflict in the realization that though in some sense He is more truly ourselves then we are, yet we are not identical with Him, and though He loves us better than we can love ourselves we are opposed to Him, and in opposing Him we oppose our own deepest selves. If we are involved only in our surface existence, in externals, and in the trivial concerns of our ego, we are untrue to Him and to ourselves. To reach a true awareness of Him as well as ourselves, we have to renounce our selfish and limited self and enter into a whole new kind of existence, discovering an inner center of motivation and love which makes us see ourselves and everything else in an entirely new light.

Thomas Merton. Contemplation in a World of Action. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971, pp. 160-61.  

“Teacher”, the pupil said, “when I venture on the path of the spiritual journey what will happen to my life’s house?”

The teachter paused to scoop water from the brook and after a pause looked at the pupil and said “Our house will be shaken to its very foundations upon what it is build, it will come tumbling down around us. When we move on the contours of our old house are fading and instead we experience the promise of a house and a whole city without walls. The struggle is that our eye cannot perceive the air that separates the inside for the outside, but that is just the illusion we cling on to.

To unearth the vision that lies beyond our grasp and reunite the light of the eye to its true source that shines brighter as a thousand suns and still is kinder than the sun in the sky.”

From a work in progress based on Psalm 119, 54
- working title “Songs from the wilderness””, H. Blum

“What is the temple you are going to build me? Child of man! Do not I fill heaven and earth? And did not I establish its foundations? Did not Salomon inform you that his temple build of stones, cut out by human hands, could not contain me!”

“Is not Life an expression of itself and do not I form the the gift of Life within you? So what could you possibly give me, that is not mine?”

The student fell to his knees.

Thundering ”What is the desire of your heart? To have more of what belongs to me? ……. Or to be found worthy of the gift?”

The student ran to his teacher and cried out I am unworthy!

The teacher answered “Are we not all beggars and thieves? Still we can be found Kings and Priests. Remember that God through his Prophets predicted that Mount Sion would be plowed over and the temple made of stone destroyed. Plowing might be descructive to the old roots still it prepares the ground to receive the seed for the harvest.”

From a work in progress based on Psalm 119, 54
- working title “Songs from the wilderness””, H. Blum 

Hymn XVI: Happy the Souls That First Believed

Happy the souls that first believed,
To Jesus and each other cleaved,
Joined by the unction from above
In mystic fellowship of love.

Meek, simple followers of the Lamb,
They lived, and spake, and thought the same;
They joyfully conspired to raise
Their ceaseless sacrifice of praise.

With grace abundantly endued,
A pure, believing multitude,
They all were of one heart and soul,
And only love inspired the whole.

O what an age of golden days!
O what a choice, peculiar race!
Washed in the Lamb’s all-cleansing blood,
Anointed kings and priests to God!

Ye different sects, who all declare,
“Lo, here is Christ!” or, “Christ is here!”
Your stronger proofs divinely give,
And show me where the Christians live.

The gates of hell cannot prevail;
The church on earth can never fail;
Ah, join me to thy secret ones!
Ah, gather alt thy living stones!

Scattered o’er all the earth they lie,
Tilt thou collect them with thine eye,
Draw by the music of thy name,
And charm into a beauteous frame.

For this the pleading Spirit groans,
And cries in alt thy banished ones;
Greatest of gifts, thy love impart,
And make us of one mind and heart.

Join every soul that looks to thee
In bonds of perfect charity;
Now, Lord, the glorious fullness give,
And All in All for ever live!

Wesley, John Rev. M.A. “A Collection of Hymns, for the Use of the People called Methodists.”
London: Wesleyan-Methodist Book-Room, 1889.

“I believe that all human beings, whatever their backgrounds, whatever generation they belong to, are all created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, in each of us there is a spark of the divine.”

Larry Parsons - youth work and the spark of the divine.

Larry talks of ‘fanning the flame’ and then protecting it. He talks about “inspiring leadership within the peer group as essential to rejuvenating the community”. He talks about “helping young people who are perhaps unemployed, apathetic and drifting, to dream dreams, to discover that spark within them and to rise up from the ground, and in their turn inspire others, and to show them that they have the power to make life worth living”.  

Source

Confronted with the grief of a student over the distress that has befallen him, the student asked him “why teacher, doesn’t the love of God protect us from harm?”

The teacher looked in the distance and answered “As his word teaches everything in life returns to us, so that should direct our ways. In life everything that befalls us is an opportunity to learn and I needed still a lot to learn about the essence of life as in His love He gave me many opportunities to learn. Sometimes a lesson is painful and only that pain can occupy our mind. If we widen our view the necessity to learn presents itself.
We are never alone in our times of distress. The field of trouble is also a door of hope as long as we allow His light to penetrate our darkness.”

From a work in progress based on Psalm 119, 54
- working title “Songs from the wilderness”", H. Blum