Lecture of finding material correlates to spiritual states continued

"Where do our beliefs come from, and why do we hold on to some of them even if there is evidence to the contrary? Why, for example, do we continue to be fascinated by God, religion, haunted houses, UFOs, conspiracy theories, and miracle cures, even when science can dispute many of these claims? Is it because we are uneducated, or are our brains designed to interpret and seek out such possibilities in the world? Simply put: Why do we believe what we believe? "

These are the words of Andrew Newberg. I have asked similar questions in one form or another many times myself.

This is totally my kind of thing. And to answer the question whether i am a hard/soft materialist ...the answer is clearly no. I am fascinated by belief. It still astounds me how looking at the history of religious traditions, so-called enlightenment is an incredibly rare and unevenly distributed occurence. If i look at current spiritual methods, i can only see that they are in need of an incredible update. Sitting for hours meditating is a huge amount of work. From my personal perspective it is simply a matter of poor design and lack of understanding of how people/the universe works. So you can then understand why i favor further inquiry into such subjects as neurotheology.

(thanks to C4Chaos for the linkage)