The Neural Buddhists

David Brooks has a piece in the New York Times about a kind of emerging scientific spirituality. Basically, it's a theology grounded in a materialistic (but not necessarily deterministic) view of the human person. Basically, some are writing about how "spirituality" is a universal and desirable human attribute and that religions are mere patina over that.

In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.

In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day. (source)

I agree that this seems to me to pose a substantially greater challenge to orthodox belief than the tired atheism of the likes of Richard Dawkins. In response, I think we need to beef up our doctrines around revelation. How and why has the Truth been revealed to us and how do we understand competing truth claims?

-t