Unpacking science-based explanations for the religious experience is a fairly large subject, which we have been tackling on other threads. A lot of this took place under
unpacking psychology and psychiatry, where we showed under Freud and William James the religious experience was dismissed as nothing more than
Religious delusion (Psychosis).
Neurology is now trying to explain away the religious experience as nothing more than brain chemistry, or electro-chemical activity.
Also, the physical science have been trying to explain away the religious experience as electromagnetic phenomena.
The fundamental problem with these erroneous explanations is:
There is; however, a serious problem with the brain chemistry = spiritual experience hypothesis. For instance, it completely negates the possibility that there is a non-physical component to the universe. If there is no non-physical component to the universe, then there is no spiritual experience. It is just brain chemistry.
If it is brain chemistry, then all we need to do to better ourselves is take a pill. Well, Tim Leary and Richard Alpert, and a whole lot of hippies took mountains of drugs and it never changed them. Whereas, one who learns to meditate deeply, can have more profound altered states of consciousness that any drug ever produced, and these religious experiences are truly transformative.
The electro-magnetic hypothesis is flawed because, it is not brain function, nor is it electromagnetic, or otherwise people who travel out of body could not move backwards and forwards in time, and move from one point to the next in space faster than the speed of light. There are other implications of the electromagnetic hypothesis which fail the test; such as: if the soul were electromagnetic, then we could encase someone dying in a lead coffin, and they would not be able to leave their dead body, which is absurd.
