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May 14, 2001 - Art Bell

02:01:52

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Matthew Alper - The God Part of The Brain

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35:35

matthew alper

01:12:54

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art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, all right.
		Matthew Alper is a man who wrote a book called The God Part of the Brain.
		Matthew Alper's contention is that our brains, through an evolutionary process, because of the biggest fear we all have, that of death, have fashioned in our own brains the need to worship, the need to believe in an afterlife and worship.
		And of course, as you might imagine, this rubs against the grain of many, many of you out there.
		However, from my point of view, there is no greater question on earth right now than that of the existence of God, of the existence of an afterlife.
		What greater question might one ask or strive to get answered during this life?
		What greater question can you imagine than that?
		Even the presence of aliens or other life forms on other planets does not rise, in my opinion, to the question of whether there is an afterlife, whether there is a God.
		That's what we're talking about right now.
		And why is Matthew Alper back?
		Well, let me tell you.
		If you go pick up a copy of the May 7th edition of Newsweek, you'll probably fall over.
		On the cover of Newsweek is a picture of a person looking up toward the light, and the headline in Newsweek is, God and the Brain, How We're Wired for Spirituality.
		I went, oh my, that's an ALPER kind of headline, isn't it?
		That's an ALPER kind of headline.
		How we're wired for spirituality.
		Wired.
		The brain.
		And then there's this.
		Scientists find biological reality behind religious experience.
		And this, let me see, is from Australia.
		So frequently I have to go out of the country, unfortunately, to find these kind of stories.
		But it reads, in a quiet laboratory, Andrew Newberg takes photographs of what believers call the presence of God.
		The young neurologist invites Buddhists and Franciscan nuns to meditate and pray in a secluded room.
		Then, at the peak of their devotions, he injects a tracer that travels to the brain and reveals its activity at the moment of transcendence.
		A pattern has emerged from the professor's experiments.
		There is, he says, a small region near the back of the brain that constantly calculates a person's spatial orientation, the sense of where one's body ends and the world begins, during intense prayer or meditation, and for unknown reasons, this region becomes a quiet oasis of inactivity.
		The professor says it creates a blurring of the self-other relationship.
		A assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose work appears in psychiatry research says if they go far enough, they have a complete dissolving of the self, a sense of union, a sense of infinite spacelessness.
		Professor Newberg and other scientists are finding that people's diverse devotional traditions have a powerful biological, underlying biological reality.
		During intense meditation and prayer, the brain and body experience signature changes, as yet poorly understood, that could yield new insights into the religious experience.
		An example is a National Institutes of Health-sponsored clinical trial at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore that will study the effects of group prayer sessions among black women with breast cancer, the first such study.
		Already, scientists say the Young Field has provided evidence that these meditative states, which rely on shutting down the senses and repeating words, phrases, or movements, are a natural part of the brain, that humans are, in some sense, inherently spiritual beings.
		Prayer is the modern brain's means by which we can connect to more powerful ancestral states of consciousness.
		It's from Harvard.
		With meditative states, people tend to turn off what Professor Jacobs called the internal chatter of the higher conscious brain.
		During meditation, researchers have observed increases in the activity of the theta brainwave, a type known to inhibit other brain or other activity in the brain.
		Following a preliminary analysis of recent data, Professor Jacobs said he had observed inhibitory theta activity coming from the same area of the brain that contains the becalmed oasis during prayer.
		Eventually, researchers hope to identify a common biological core in the world's many varieties of worship.
		That appeared in the Boston Globe.
		So, we've got this story from the Boston Globe, and we've got the cover of Newsweek magazine virtually saying everything Matthew Alper has been saying.
		And in that search for God, in that search for eternity, and for what may lie beyond or what may not, it is only reasonable, in my mind, anyway, that we examine all possible options.
		And by the way, tomorrow night, talking about whiplash, tomorrow night, we're going to have Bob Larson here.
		He's an ordained minister who does exorcisms.
		Talk about whiplash.
		Whiplash indeed.
		But tonight we're going to examine this because, why?
		Because it is one absolute possibility.
		And a lot of the material that is going to be discussed with Matthew tonight is going to disturb some of you.
		I know that.
		If you feel it will disturb you too much to hear what this man has to say, then you may discard it by turning off the radio now.
		Otherwise, the man who wrote The God Part of the Brain that was way ahead of his time, witnessed Newsweek, witnessed the Boston Globe article, will now speak with us.
		Matthew, welcome.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's been a while, have you?
		Yeah, it's been a while.
		You're in New York somewhere, aren't you?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Brooklyn.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Brooklyn.
		That's right.
		I'm curious, Matthew, you know, after writing the book you wrote and catching all the hell that you've caught, what was it like seeing the cover of Newsweek, seeing Newsweek come out with this.
		You must have flipped.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, the only reason I flipped was because I gave the author of that article, Sharon Begley, the science editor of Newsweek, my book three or four years ago, actually.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		And she simply asked me my credentials, and when I said I didn't have a Ph.D., but that I had a groundbreaking idea and that she should investigate it, she told me, you know, thanks, but I can't help you.
		Now, four years later, she puts out an article, God and the Brain, pretty close to the title of my book, The God Part of the Brain, in which the headline on my press release that I gave her was, Are We Wired for Spirituality?
		Her headline on the cover of Newsweek, How We're Wired for Spirituality.
		So if anything, it was more disconcerting.
		But it was also, you know, it was also rewarding in that it kind of gave me credibility.
		For the first time, gave me worldwide credence, you know, for my ideas that have been being attacked or ignored for the last five years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it absolutely does.
		And then also, you just heard me read this Boston Globe article.
		Same rough idea, right?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, it's all over now.
		It's on MSNBC.
		It's on Discovery.
		They did a whole discovery of God in the brain.
		It was on a couple of weeks ago, the Discovery Channel.
		They're calling it neurotheology, and it's now the pioneer hot science.
		And as far as I'm concerned, it's still incomplete, and it's still five years behind.
		And stuff that people are going to be hearing tonight, because I've been investigating this for longer than they have, is going to be more advanced than what's out there and will be for maybe another five or ten years, which is why I'd also like to kind of give a push for my book's new fifth edition,
		which has 30 new pages, two new chapters, and is full of so much more neurophysiological evidence supporting my ideas that's come out in the last two years because of the invention of these functional MRIs that can now peek into every aspect of brain activity.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So this is the fifth edition, huh?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not bad, not bad, Matthew.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'd like to keep on Top of this science, I'd like to keep ahead of people like Newsweek.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		So, if you want to read what's going to be the cover of Newsweek five years from now, I suggest you go out and buy my fifth edition.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, we'll plug that plenty tonight, but it's available.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's what, in bookstores, Amazon.com, all the usual suspects.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Or go to my website, Godpart.com, and you can order it signed directly there.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		But yeah, Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, Barnes and Noble Books, etc.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, Matthew, I personally hope you're wrong.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		I hope I'm wrong, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, sure.
		I mean, you know, what's wrong with an afterlife?
		What's wrong with immortality?
		You know, the notion that I have a good 20, 30 years ahead of me, and then that's it, then infinite darkness, which I won't even be aware of, you know, isn't the most comforting notion, you know, to be joined with one's loved ones for eternity.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's not completely discomforting either.
		I'll tell you what's discomforting is the prospect of hell.
		Now, that's discomforting.
		I would rather face infinite sleep.
		They say sleep is a little slice of death, right?
		When you just have no conscious thoughts.
		I would rather face that than I would the hot coals and whatever else is in store for one in the traditional classic hell.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, if this is our only time to experience reality, including experience pain, then this is basically the closest to hell we're going to get.
		So, again, it's going to be that infinite rest ahead.
		So, I don't think you have too much to worry about.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I know you don't think so.
		For those that have not heard it, we're also close to the bottom of the hour to get into this, but I gave sort of a brief overview of what I think you've said, and it was too brief.
		And I'm going to have to ask you, you know, there's a lot of new listeners for one thing now.
		We've got a lot of new affiliates, and so we need to go over the basics.
		But what I said was an evolutionary process, the fear of death, and so that our brain has concocted this area of the brain that protects us from that fear by virtually mandating that we worship, mandating that we have belief in an afterlife.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, I would basically just add that what I'm suggesting is with the advent of man, with human cognition, came the advent of self-conscious awareness, of self-reflection.
		And with self-reflection, we became aware of our own mortalities, as you said, of death.
		And the anxiety produced by that one particular awareness was so overwhelming that nature had to select in order to protect our intelligence, which made us the most powerful creature on earth, in order to sustain our own intelligence, which had backfired on us, nature had to select a mechanism in the brain which would allow us to survive the anxiety adduced by awareness of death.
		So it produced an inherent awareness, a belief that there's something greater than out there, which makes us believe that even though the physical body is one day going to die, that there's a spiritual reality, and in that spiritual reality we will live forever,
		which has revealed that reflex, that impulse has revealed itself in every world culture, no matter how isolated, no matter how insulated from any other culture, every people has believed in some form of an afterlife and has had some kind of ritual behavior by which we dispose of our deceased, usual by burial, with a ritual that anticipates sending that person's spirit or soul onto the next realm, into the spiritual world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, the Egyptians had the pyramids.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And the pyramids are said by most people to be exactly what you just described, as a method of sending that person's soul into the great hereafter.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Well, the Egyptians, they buried people with the Book of the Dead, which were basically the rules of how to go past from this world to the next world.
		And they had a whole pantheon of gods, you know, the God of the underworld, the God of heaven.
		You know, if the scales tipped toward good, if you were a better person than bad, then you went to heaven, or otherwise you were condemned to the world of Osiris, the netherworld.
		And every culture, every people has had a mythology with a belief in some kind of afterworld.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Matthew, hold it right there, and we'll pick up on the other side of the bottom-of-the-hour break.
		I'm Art Bell.
		Dare you listen?
		This is Coast to Coast.
		A.M. To Matthew Alper.
		Matthew, you believe that religious religion I can't say that.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Religiosity.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Versus spirituality.
		That these are two distinct and separate impulses.
		That's interesting.
		How do you delineate between the two?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, one of the things I've noticed as this debate grows is a lot of people are saying that they're religious but not very spiritual, spiritual but not very religious.
		How can people say that there's some mechanism in the brain when it's all of these different things?
		Some people are saying, you know, I don't believe in religion.
		I just believe in a God.
		And I was also getting, I was finding I was getting emails from people who were saying, you know, you're attacking all spirituality, saying it's a bad thing.
		And, you know, and I started to investigate a little.
		And as I looked into it, I began to realize that there are actually two distinct impulses here.
		That the instinct for spirituality, to have a spiritual experience, which is one mechanism that's oriented in the brain, is a much more sensual experience.
		It's that experience we have when we meditate or pray, when we have that sense of cosmic consciousness, that oneness with the universe, that experience that you were describing that the monks had in that Newberg article.
		That loss of sense of self.
		Then at the same time, we have a religious impulse.
		And there are actually distinct Regions in the brain.
		So, for instance, the spiritual experience, when people pray and meditate and they put them in a functional MRI, they find that there's a decreased blood flow to the frontal and parietal lobes.
		The parietal lobe, for instance, controls things like time and space consciousness.
		So, you lose a sense of all time and space.
		You feel a oneness.
		You're like out there with the universe.
		It also, then the frontal lobe controls sense of self.
		Actually, an interesting article in the Associated Press that came out just last week, they've now located where sense of self is located.
		And there's Dr. Dennis Miller, or I'm sorry, Bruce Miller, not Dennis Miller, the comic, Bruce Miller, who's discovered from University of California, San Francisco, found that there's a part of the right frontal lobe where sense of self is located.
		And people who've suffered, for instance, damage to this part of the brain, they have an instant change in their religious or political beliefs, everything from preferences and food and clothing.
		All of their most essential components of selfhood and self-awareness are automatically changed, are altered by damage to this part of the brain.
		There's also a disease called Pick's disease, which is a degeneration of this part of the brain.
		The same thing occurs.
		All of a sudden, people whose favorite color is blue only want to wear yellow.
		They never like Mexican food.
		All of a sudden, they hate Chinese, their old favorite, and they like Mexican.
		People who are hyper-religious no longer go to church.
		They don't even care.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, so this is separate and distinct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This sense of self is separate and distinct from what you call the God part of the brain.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, when I say the God part of the brain, it's really not one part.
		There's a network of so many parts of the brain that all work together that give us this adherent sense that there's something greater out there.
		And it affects moral consciousness, even something like what would seem obscure, like musical or mathematical consciousness.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but is there not a specific part of the brain identified by MRI?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's activated when people are specifically praying or in a religious experience.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, when they have a spiritual experience, again, there's less activity in the frontal and parietal lobe.
		Those parts become suppressed, giving us a loss of sense of self and a feeling of timelessness and spacelessness.
		Then in the temporal lobe, where it seems that religiosity is contained, where like religious icons and language are stored, where it's stimulated, people have like, you know, it triggers their beliefs in their religions, in their church doctrines, right?
		That the two are two separate impulses.
		And, you know, again, this right now, they're trying to distinguish the two.
		People are saying, how can you say this?
		Because religiosity is unlike spirituality, which is one of the articles in Newsweek.
		And I think that the scientific community has yet to really detail the distinctions between these two, which is why, again, it's very possible that someone can be extremely religious.
		You can attend church.
		You can pray five times a day, but not really have a spiritual experience.
		Then there are people who are into more Eastern religious belief systems, which centers on the more sensual aspect of the experience.
		They pray, it's more meditative.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So they can have a spiritual experience, a connection with all that is, while other parts of their brain are essentially silenced, as pointed out in the article, but not necessarily have a connection to God or the Bible.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
		It doesn't have to be a connection to the Bible because the religious impulse, what that does is it compels us to adhere to some kind of church doctrine, to adhere to a set of religiously oriented social norms and mores.
		It also compels us to engage in ritualistic behaviors.
		So to give an example, for instance, if you take like Muslim prayer, they pray five times a day.
		Their religious impulse compels them to congregate in groups, to gather in a group, adhere to a certain particular church doctrine, kneel down, face a certain direction, and then what that does, that's their religious impulse compelling them to do all of these movements.
		And then what happens is that triggers the spiritual aspects of the brain, the frontal and parietal lobe, to become suppressed, which then takes away sense of self and timelessness and spacelessness, in which case they then engage in a spiritual experience, which is interpreted because we're religious creatures, those sensual experiences are then interpreted as proof that there's some kind of transcendental reality.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Or, for example, the new wave religion in Japan right now is Nishurin Shoshu Soka Gakkai, and they will chant Namyo Horengekyo for hours on end.
		Namyo Horengekyo, Namyo Horengeo.
		Hours on end.
		Same effect?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, actually, a separate team of Japanese researchers have shown that repetitive rhythms, which are utilized in religious aspects in terms of chant, dance, prayer, meditational mantras, stimulates the brain's hypothalamus, which induces a state of either arousal or serenity.
		It can do one or the other.
		So if you think of like the whirling dervishes who just like spin themselves into this aroused, you know, religious, ecstatic experience, or at the same time, it can create that sense of serenity.
		So again, all of these different behaviors that we engage in, whether it's prayer or chant or meditation, stimulate different parts of the brain which trigger, which evoke different types of experiences.
		And what they're finding, again, is that, you know, here we've got this impulse to engage in these behaviors, to congregate in groups and then pray.
		It stimulates this type of experience.
		And again, all of a sudden we're having this, we feel a loss of sense of self.
		We almost like are giving ourselves over to some higher power.
		And we interpret that sensual experience again as evidence that there is a higher power, there is another external transcendental world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		So you've come a long way in identifying and delineating a little bit of difference in spirituality and religious belief and faith.
		That's fine.
		What I don't get is, I guess still, how you make the leap from the fact that you've identified a part of the brain that is functional for all of this and suggest as a result that there is no God, that God is our invention.
		In other words, why should we not expect these areas of the brain to be active?
		After all, our brain is where we do all our higher level thinking.
		Our frontal lobe is responsible for a lot of higher level thinking.
		Why should that be a surprise?
		And why should that even suggest to us that God or the afterlife are not real simply because we've identified biological areas where there's stimulation when we think of these things?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, there are two different issues.
		There's God and there's an afterlife.
		An afterlife implies that we have a soul that we're going to live forever.
		Correct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		That Art Bell is going to, somehow in some spirit form, you're going to be flying through the cosmos thinking, hey, I'm Art Bell and I'm living forever.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Now, here we've got this neurobiological evidence suggesting that there are parts of the brain that if you're tapped in the head, if you get banged tomorrow, you know, by a falling bank vault out of a window and it hits and it knocks you in your prefrontal cortex, or I'm sorry, your right frontal lobe, Art Bell will be a completely different person a half an hour later.
		All of your tastes will change.
		So again, the fact that selfhood, that self-identity is so contingent on all of these neural mechanisms, how can we suggest that somehow there's an aspect of our essential self that could live beyond the grave when we're so dependent on these neural mechanisms that can change within our own one lifetime?
		Again, the fact that selfhood, or for instance, if you suffer damage to your hippocampus, which is where autobiographical memories are stored, you will lose all sense of your past.
		The only thing you will remember is everything that happens from after that bump in the head or that damage to that part of the brain.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Alzheimer's will do much the same thing.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
		Well, Alzheimer's, which attacks all different parts of the brain, is probably one of the things that's attacking is your hippocampus and your right frontal lobe and all these aspects of consciousness which cause you to have a deterioration of sense of self.
		So again, for the person with Alzheimer's, when they die, are they going to live forever in that sort of Alzheimer's stupor?
		Are they going to go back to before they had the Alzheimer's?
		And even then, are they going to go back a year before, 10 years before?
		I mean, all humans are a work in progress.
		Some of us go from being hardened criminals to, you know, to saints.
		Some of us go from being, you know, we want to pursue music and 10 years later we don't care about music.
		We're interested in law.
		We have a change in every kind of preference.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, many believe, Matthew, that we have something called a soul, which transcends these mental abilities that you're talking about right now, or mental.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm not sure what the right word is, but in other words, that we have a soul that transcends this, and we have not proven or disproven the existence of a soul as of yet.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		But if the soul implies identity, then how can we suggest that there's an eternal soul when identity is contingent?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But Matthew, why can't you imagine a soul that transcends any single identity?
		That a soul that may have us coming back again and again.
		Many believe in reincarnation, for example.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, again, then one would have to go up against a belief in a spiritual reality as a whole.
		And again, my only argument now, I've said this before, one cannot prove there is no God.
		One cannot prove there is no spiritual reality.
		I cannot prove that there is no such thing as a, you know, invisible green dragon sitting on my head right now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		However, you can now prove that certain areas of the brain are responsible for these feelings, these beliefs, these heights of consciousness.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This need to worship.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		So what this suggests, and it's not that it's the first proof.
		I mean, there are other proofs.
		There's the sociobiological argument, the fact that anytime there's a behavior that's universal to a species, it implies that there's a mechanism.
		So the fact that, like, all beavers build dams, did all beavers choose to build dams?
		No, they're wired that way.
		There's a survival mechanism.
		It has an adaptive value to build a dam, which suggests that, again, the fact that they all do it means that they're wired that way.
		The fact that all humans believe in some form of an afterlife, worship some particular deity, etc., that we engage in all these specific behaviors, just like all beavers build dams, all humans pray, suggesting we're wired this way, that it's the act of a reflex.
		So even though I can't prove there is no God, all I can suggest is our entire basis for knowing God and for believing in one is contingent on biological mechanisms that operate from the brain.
		And where does the brain come from?
		It's the product of natural selection.
		So again, and then it comes down to is one going to embrace evolutionary theory or is one going to embrace some kind of primitive creationism, suggesting that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that life is 6,000 years old.
		I think that we live in a time where there's enough evidence suggesting otherwise.
		We have whole sciences, genetic sciences Now, that are based on evolutionary theory.
		Genes and the transformation of genes through evolution is the basis of evolutionary theory.
		Anybody who wants to contest that we're made up of a set of genetic components at this point has taken on, you know, the entire rational world.
		So we have all this reason to believe that we're the products of evolution, therefore our brains are the product of evolution, and if there are these mechanisms in there that we're wired this way genetically, again, it's not indication that there's a God, it's just indication that nature works in a particular way, that it selects certain particular mechanisms that have an adaptive value, one of them being a belief in an afterlife, a belief in a God, in some higher being that would provide us with a sense of comfort.
		Because the minute you take away that belief in an afterlife, there we are left standing facing our inevitable death.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We're going to talk a lot about that.
		What about when you're confronted with what certainly the religious community would say is historical record?
		The Bible.
		The Bible is a pretty interesting document, to say the least.
		It's been translated from early texts that are thought to be pretty unimpeachable.
		There is an awful lot of evidence that you've got to get over to try and suggest that Jesus did not walk as a man on earth.
		Do you believe he did, or do you believe that that and the Bible and all the historical records we have of what happened on earth is just so much mythology?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Look, the Bible in itself doesn't impress me because when we say the Bible, it's so Judeo-Christian-centric.
		I mean, every culture has had a Bible, and they all refer to it as the Bible.
		And some of those cultures, before they even had exposure to Judeo-Christianity, never heard of the Bible.
		They heard of their own book.
		And before there was even Judeo-Christianity, the Jews who came up with their scriptures about 1500 BC, and then the Christians who wrote it in like the first maybe three centuries, four centuries AD, before these people even existed, you had the Greek myths, you had Hindic myths, the Hindu myths, you had Norse mythologies.
		You had all of these peoples coming up with very similar senses of that there's something else out there.
		They've created a history, a whole genealogical tree of Odin gave birth to Thor, who gave birth to Thor.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so you believe them to be basically mythology?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yes, they're all equally mythologies.
		And we basically, because we have this component in our brain which compels us to believe in miracles and to believe in these transcendental realities and a God, we project these belief systems onto our cultural environment.
		We create what are called mythologies.
		And that's the mechanism.
		So again, the Christian, Judeo-Christian Bible, what we call the Bible, contains no more import than any of the Bibles of the world.
		And they're equally manifestations of the God part of the brain.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you must obviously then believe the God part of some man's brain in the past wrote the Bible.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		He was definitely heavily influenced by that part of his brain, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Hold it right there.
		We'll be right back.
		And we'll talk a little bit about Brookings, the Brookings report.
		Stay right there.
		Matthew, have you ever heard of the Brookings report?
		No, no.
		All right, let me tell you what it is, all right?
		I deal on this program a lot with the question of extraterrestrial life and aliens and UFOs and all that kind of thing.
		Well, the U.S. government years ago had Brookings do a study.
		And the question was, if the American people, or the people of the world for that matter, but most specifically the American people, were to suddenly become aware of the presence of extraterrestrial life, what would the implications be for society, you know, for religion, for science, for every aspect of society that you could imagine?
		And so they quietly did a thorough study on the matter.
		And the conclusion they reached was that it would be so disruptive to these various social organizations that it would be better if the people were not told.
		I repeat, not told.
		And a lot of people believe that, you know, there are UFO sightings and they believe the government already knows about all this.
		And be that as it may, true or false, the fact of the matter is that study did conclude that.
		Now, there's a pretty good parallel here with the work you're doing.
		And that is, if people became aware that the probabilities are that there really isn't a God and there really isn't an afterlife, if anything, this would be more disruptive, considerably more disruptive, than finding out there's alien life.
		Institutions would crumble.
		Religions would crumble.
		Crime, many believe, would increase because people would no longer have anything to lose nor would imagine punishment for any bad deed they might do in this life.
		So I would imagine a study done along similar lines would be even more drastically saying, you better not tell them.
		What do you say to that?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, the question ultimately is, is it good to know?
		Yeah.
		And it really is the ultimate question, and it's also why the last chapter of my book is titled, What if Anything is to be gained from a scientific interpretation of human spirituality and God?
		It's sort of where I, you know, encapsulate where does all this lead us?
		Where does it leave us?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		And I had it when I wrote this, I had a weigh the pros and cons of even suggesting an idea like this.
		And the reason that I did was because that I hoped that its benefits would outweigh its disadvantages, which I still do.
		And the reason for that is because as dangerous as it might be for us to come to terms with what might be the reality of our circumstance here, more dangerous, I believe, than that is this hazardous religious impulse that we've been instilled with that has propelled us into a history of repeated religious wars,
		in which case, anytime that we go into a world recession, which cyclically is the, you know, basically that's the status of the human species as we go through a cycle of economic prosperity and then recession.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Quite correct.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		In times of prosperity, it's not a problem.
		In times of recession, it becomes a problem.
		And what happens is people band up into their tribes.
		And the most primitive primary tribe we band into are our religious tribes.
		And we go to war.
		And we kill each other in the name of our gods.
		That's what we use as a defense, as a justification for why we should survive before that group there.
		And because of this, because it's inevitable that the earth, that we will continue to go through these economic cycles.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, what you're saying right now is very profound, and I hope it's sinking in out there.
		I mean, these cycles that you talk about, economic cycles, do in fact coincide with war, or they have certainly in all of our remembered and recorded history.
		Now, maybe Greenspan can change that.
		Maybe not.
		That remains to be seen.
		But we now appear to be headed for the possibility of recession.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're always like teetering, but I mean, I don't, you know, there's no reason to believe right now that we're headed for like a deep world depression.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I hope you're right.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		I hope I'm right, too, because, you know, you never know.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		It can come at any time and almost like death.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But I mean, you certainly are correct when you say all of history has shown that indeed, when this occurs, we have a war and then we proceed to generally kill each other in the name of our God.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, that's just a truth.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		We're a potentially very volatile animal, and of course we have to be.
		We're talking about survival on the line.
		So what I'm suggesting is that not all religion is bad and that not all spirituality is bad.
		Spiritualities and or religions that promote tolerance and acceptance and compassion and all of these things, obviously there's nothing bad about that.
		A spiritual experience in itself, there's nothing wrong with it.
		It's a very sensual experience.
		It has medical benefits.
		It reduces blood pressure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Would you promote spirituality as a generic kind of spirituality over religiosity?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's just that the two need to be disentangled and we need to learn that like, you know, the excesses of the spiritual impulse, really, in its excesses, it would just be someone who has like an excess of spiritual experiences.
		They spend half their day kind of stoned on the spirit.
		And there are people who do.
		You know, you could even say that a dedicated monk, I mean, really, he's a drug addict who's spending his life dedicated to sitting on a mountaintop and having this experience all day long, which isn't a really very practical thing to do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, although he's very unlikely to go out and kill anybody based on his calm sense.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's true, and that's because, you know, Eastern religions and philosophies promote things like tolerance and nonviolence.
		Though, nevertheless, not all of them do.
		You know, even the Buddhists and, you know, the Buddhists have a history of war, too.
		They've been fighting the Hindus, you know, for all of these years.
		And, you know, even, well, there are different schools of Buddhism, but yes, often a spirituality can be devoid of all of the religious, you know, the potential threats involved in religiosity and religion.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, Japanese Buddhism, for example, since we fought the Japanese, you may recall, they attacked us at Pearl Harbor, it's a bit different than other Eastern religions in that it's more ancestor worship than it is than it is traditional Buddhism.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, again, it's not to say that all spirituality and or religion is bad, but because we've got this impulse wired into us, it does come with its potential excesses.
		There's an excess for every impulse, even the musical impulse.
		You know, you end up with a Mozart.
		But if you take a person who is hyper-religious, they are going to be exercising their power of thought and their influence and trying to make others accept and embrace this religion with often a ferocity which is destructive.
		And we call that fanaticism.
		Fanaticism is the excess of the religious impulse.
		And it's that same fanaticism when people become insecure in their lives, when you have these economic depressions.
		Or even it might not be on a world level, but just a societal level.
		So you have societies undergoing an economic depression, and then they're prone to being, I guess, influenced by the voices of the fanatics, those who would compel others, you know, to compel us to fight those others who we feel have more than ourselves.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, you believe the God part of the brain to be a product of evolution.
		Is it possible in your mind that evolution will eventually break the cycle that you just described?
		That we will, in some way, rise above this economic cycle?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Which cycle?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, the human reaction to the economic cycle.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I wouldn't be so bold as to suggest we could stop the economic cycle, but the human reaction to it, we might.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and again, and the only way to stop the human reaction to this would be to understand what it is that we're reacting to.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		And the only way to understand it is to say, okay, well, what are the origins of religiosity?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I.e.
		to grasp what you're saying.
		Exactly.
		I see.
		I don't rule it out.
		I really don't rule it out.
		And I think that you're a man far ahead of his time.
		You may be totally wrong.
		And I hope that you are, but I think your arguments are very, very, very strong and logical.
		And I think a lot of times the arguments that would be made stridently against you, and they certainly are, are not as logical.
		Frequently, they're illogical and full of emotion, and you tend not to be that way.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		And you also have to realize that I predicted these things before any of this neurophysiological evidence, and I said that it would come.
		I called my book The God Part of the Brain before there was really any neurophysiological research done suggesting that these different brain parts exist.
		I just projected that they must be there.
		And again, what I was basing the argument on initially was the sociobiological evidence, like I said, the fact that these are universally enacted experiences and behaviors, as well as the ethnobotanical argument.
		And that was based more on the fact that we have these chemicals and these plants that stimulate, that evoke these experiences.
		And as we know, these plants, they're made up of chemicals.
		So the mere fact that a chemical could alter our physiology to evoke what we call a transcendental experience for me suggested that transcendental experiences are not transcendental at all, but they're rather chemical.
		They're based in the chemistry of the brain.
		And then in the last couple of years with the advent of the functional MRI, where they can now stick people in this box and then like play them music and see which part of the brain becomes active or expose them to anything and see where that's affected in the brain, all of a sudden there's been this rush and all of this new research has come out.
		And what's coming out has all been supportive of what I hypothesized years ago before even this existed.
		And it's also why I keep updating my book and why I'm presently now in a fifth edition, just five years after originally publishing the thing, which is because, again, I want my book to be on top of this science.
		So with every new groundbreaking experiment that comes out, I rewrite the book and I fit it in.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Aside from a damaged person, Mike in Memphis, Tennessee asks a pretty interesting question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If we are, in effect, we're all hardwired in our brains, how do you explain the people who do not believe in God or an afterlife, and yet the rest of their family does?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's a very good question.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		It's why I included in my book a chapter called Why Are There Atheists?
unidentified		Right.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		To sum up, the answer to that is for every physiological trait we possess, we fall into a bell curve.
		Let's take vision.
		Most of us have average vision.
		We fall into the bulge of the bell curve.
		On the extreme, some of us are born, on one extreme, some of us are born blind, lack of vision.
		And on the other extreme, some of us are born with superior vision.
		That can be applied to every trait we possess.
		If we apply it to a cognitive trait like musical ability, again, most of us have average musical potential.
		On one extreme of that bell curve, there's a small cross-section of every population who are born tone deaf.
		They lack total musical consciousness.
		Then on the other extreme of that bell curve, there's a very small cross-section of every population that have an overdeveloped musical function, musical consciousness, such as a Mozart.
		He's born a prodigy.
		Doesn't matter how much you train the average person in music, they will never become a Mozart because they weren't born with his genetic potential.
		Now take that and apply that to spirituality, again, as a physical, a neurophysiological mechanism, a physiological trait, and we can show that, again, though the majority of our species falls into the bulge of that curve, it's why religion has persisted through all of these years, from the dawn of our species.
		At the same time, because it's a trait, because of natural selection, you know, again, the distinction in genes, we're not all alike.
		Some of us on a small cross-sections have either an excess or a lack of certain qualities.
		So again, on one extreme of the spell curve, you have people born with an overdeveloped spiritual consciousness.
		Those are our fanatics.
		Those are people who, as children, they are preaching from the pulpit.
		Pulpit, we say, you know, born with the spirit in them.
		They have an exaggerated, you know, they're hyper-religious.
		On the other extreme, there are people who lack spiritual consciousness.
		They will never contemplate.
		It's just as much as someone can be born tone deaf, they're born spiritually tone deaf.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, I was going to ask you, what happens out of curiosity when you take an avowed atheist, a lifelong atheist, and put them in the MRI machine?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		You'd probably find that they don't have a very active temporal lobe, which is where religiosity seems to be seated, where religious language and icons are stored, which is why for these people, there are people temporal lobe epileptics.
		It's a form of epilepsy.
		And people who are plagued with this particular epilepsy are often hyper-religious, and during their seizures, they have religious or spiritual experiences.
		They come out of them, suggesting that, like, they felt the presence of God.
		And these doctors were saying, why is it that with these particular epileptics, they were always coming out of this, saying that they felt the presence of God.
		As an example, they found out that Dostoevsky, who was known to have been an epileptic, was a Temporal lobe epileptic.
		And he himself, in his biography, his autobiography wrote of one of his seizures.
		He has an account of one of his seizures.
		I really touched God.
		He came into me, myself.
		Yes, God exists, I cried.
		These are the words of Dostoevsky.
		You all healthy people can't imagine the happiness which we epileptics feel during the second before our attack.
		That was the first physiological evidence that scientists had that made them, that led them to believe that maybe religiosity is somehow originating within the brain.
		Then they found that certain people, when exposed to religious words or icons, just like some people, if they're exposed to flashing lights, it will trigger their seizure.
		Temporal lobe epileptics, if you expose them to certain religious icons or language, it triggers off their experience.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, but again, let us stay away from the epileptics for a moment and let's discuss you, for example.
		If we were to get you into an MRI, we would find probably not so much temporal lobe activity.
		Yes?
		What would be your theory?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, I can't say on national radio which parts of my brain would be active, but it wouldn't be the religious one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I fully understand that.
		What I'm trying to suggest is, certainly numerically, from a percentage point of view, you are in the vast minority, not the majority.
		You're in a minority.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		I fall into that cross-section of the population at the edge of the bell curve.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So then why shouldn't we imagine or suggest that you are the abnormal one?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That it is your temporal lobe deficiency that has you preaching as you do?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's true.
		And it was my temporal lobe deficiency, perhaps, that allowed me to sort of see beyond the veil that corrupts or adulterates the experience of most people who inherently feel that there's this presence out there.
		Whereas I was able to look at it from an objective scientific standpoint and say, what's going on here?
		Why is the majority of my species praying to this thing called God?
		They all have a different name for it.
		They're all going to church for it.
		They're all going to war for it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Matthew, hold tight.
		We'll be right back.
		I'm Art Bell.
		This is Coast to Coast AM.
		Stay right where you are.
		There is more.
		People think God is love.
		And love is God.
		And I think you've got a word or two to say on this program about love, don't you?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Might as well take it all on.
unidentified		Okay.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, the reason I brought that back up to you was because, if I recall, it might have been our first show, maybe the second, where you decided to take on love.
		You said, I'm trying to suggest that all of our experiences, you know, come from the brain.
		How about love?
		Right.
		And I suggested on that show, I said, you said, how would you prove that that, too, is another, the, you know, experience generated from another neural mechanism?
		And I said, take something like a functional MRI, put people inside of it, and expose them to loved ones versus insignificant others, and then as a control group, and then see which various parts of the brain become activated.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let me guess it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Somebody did it.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Somebody did it.
		Specifically, Andrea Spartols of the University College in London last year did exactly that with photographs.
		He took people and he put them in an fMRI, a functional MRI, which would reveal under different exposure which parts of the brain are becoming activated.
		And he showed people a series of photographs, some of loved ones and others of either strangers or insignificant others.
		And what he found among all of these people were that there are certain parts of the brain which consistently lit up when exposed to the loved ones.
		The names of those parts are the anterior cingulate cortex, the putanym, the caudate nucleus.
		So here again, three parts of the brain where our experience of love is being general.
		A lot of us like to explain love as part of this, part of the transcendence, part of the transcendental experience.
		Love even in itself between two people is a transcendental thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So we might call it the love part of the brain.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		It's exactly what we could call it, the love part of the brain.
		Then there was another person, Helen Fisher, a neuropsychologist at Rutgers University, and she started looking into the neurotransmitters involved in activating these parts of the brain.
		And she found she reduced it to the actual neurotransmitters, the chemistry involved in both love and bonding behaviors.
		And actually, part of what she was working toward was suggesting that it might therefore be possible then to come up with pills, with medications for the forlorn who are trying to get over a loved one.
		And in the excesses of that behavior, it becomes a dysfunctional behavior, for instance, among people like stalkers who cannot break the bond of love.
		So there might be pills one day where people who are so attached to another in a dysfunctional manner can be eased off of those feelings.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, geez, we could have a pill for that, Matthew, then why not a God pill?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, we could.
		The only thing is I don't think that pill, it would probably just control the degree to which we could have a spiritual experience.
		But I don't know if it could necessarily, I mean, because religiosity is bound to so many different types of behavior that it would be a matter of which one.
		You could certainly suppress different parts of religious behavior.
		Again, in doing so...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You could take somebody who was very spiritual, very religious, went to church every Sunday, prayed, proselytized to his friends, and you could give him a pill, and pretty soon he'd be giving up church.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He'd be talking to his friends about going to the game on Sunday instead of going to church and so forth and so on, right?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, exactly.
		And that could be an example, for instance, where something like that could be utilized, applied in a positive way.
		People who actually suffer from religious dysfunction, like hyper-religiosity, like religious conversion, exactly.
		Those people who are normal, functioning members of society, who are now reduced to handing out pamphlets in an airport, can be cured.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They could be cured.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		They could be brought back to their original identity.
		But because the church or all churches have so much political clout, these dysfunctions are not seen as such.
		They're seen as being touched by God.
		They're seen as miracles, divine interventions.
		And for that reason, society has yet to have the courage to say, these are not divine interventions.
		This is a dysfunction.
		This person is in pain, and they need to be cured.
		We want to bring them back to themselves.
		We want to bring them back to their family so that they can have the experience of love and living a normal, functional life.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Tell me something.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If we had such pill, Matthew, do you think the church would view that pill as even more evil than RU486?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Which is RU-486?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that the abortion pill?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		That's the abortion pill, probably.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yes, that would be the ultimate Antichrist pill.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The Antichrist pill.
		That's an interesting phrase.
		Linda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has an interesting question.
		Mr. Alper often refers to nature as in nature developed this evolutionary mechanism in the brain.
		What does he think nature, in quotes, is?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Okay, a good question.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		A very good question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		And when you apply nature in that way, you have to almost put quotes around it.
		Because I'm not suggesting nature is personified like nature in itself is its own God.
		Nature is really another, it's just a word for the physical laws of the universe, really the laws of thermodynamics by which the entire physical universe abides.
		Because matter abides by certain physical laws such as gravity, etc., natural selection, organic matter, in adhering to these laws, has been taking us through a process of natural selection, trying to adapt these different creatures so that they are most efficient.
		So nature is really the process of the progress of time by which matter is going through really the passing of entropy.
		You know, organic matter reach settling into a pattern of a path of least resistance, of maximum efficiency.
		And that's what natural selection is.
		So it's a physical processes.
		So when I say nature, I'm not referring to mother nature or another personification, but rather the laws of physics simply.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, the laws of physics.
		Interesting.
		Okay, nature then is just what is.
		It's evolution.
		Right?
		I agree with that.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		And evolution is sort of the passage of time, you know, the effects of time over organic matter.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you favor the Big Bang theory?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You do.
		That's interesting.
		Would you endeavor to explain or have you tried to understand what so many have been unable to, and that is, of course, what occurred just prior or what was just prior to the Big Bang, which you say you subscribe to?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, like many physicists, I think that the most accepted theory at this point, which I adhere to, is cyclical Big Bang theory, which suggests that there was a previous, a prior universe, you know, the moment before, in its last phases of dying before it was completely compressed into a single point, which then gave birth to a new universe in a Big Bang.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that would be the constriction theory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, that there is a Big Bang, everything expands and then contracts.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Once again, in cycles, right?
		Right.
		The only problem with that is that recent science suggests to us that, in fact, there is not a contraction, and in fact, the bodies are now speeding up away from each other, and that eventually, if we could live long enough, Matthew, we'd be virtually alone.
		Are you aware of that?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, actually, I have heard that there is recent studies which suggest that it's possible that we're in an infinitely expanding universe.
		Correct.
		I'm not sure whether I believe that or not.
		Now, these are tremendous cosmological questions.
		And, of course, ultimately it comes down to, like, why is there anything?
		You know, why is there a Big Bang?
		What was before?
		How can you have before nothing?
		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's where you run into a pretty...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Because there's simply nothing in science, the study of the brain or anything else, that can explain to us how you create so much from nothing.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		My explanation for this is simply that the universe, the cosmos, operates in a manner which is perhaps beyond human comprehension.
		So whereas we're trying to find these finite solutions to problems which might be persisting in universes or dimensions which are incomprehensible to us, we're projecting our own particular perceptions, our mode of perception.
		Again, the human animal, we are prisoners of our brain.
		Our brains frame the entire manner by which we process and interpret reality.
		So we're trying to apply these human notions onto a cosmos which probably surpasses our intelligence, our capacity for intelligence.
		What comes before a Big Bang?
		Is there a Big Bang?
		Honestly, I won't even, you know, there are theories, some I believe in more than others.
		Can I say I feel that I know these things with absolute certainty?
		Not at all.
		However, do I feel that the lack of knowledge implies that there must be a God, that there must be some conscious divine creator, that we as humans must be immortal, that we must be connected to some spiritual reality.
		The fact that we can't answer, like, ultimately, where does the physical universe begin?
		Where did it all come from?
		I don't think represents evidence that there must be a God, that there must be a soul, and there must be an afterlife.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, but surely the existence of a God center in the brain, I think, scientifically now established a victory for you, a big victory for you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But it certainly does not logically preclude the existence of God.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		But ultimately, no one will ever be able to preclude the existence of God.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		One can never say, I know for certain there is no God, because if God's an invisible force, for instance, that we don't even have access to.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right, but simply because you have pointed out biological facts to us and you are correct about them, why does that suggest to you even the probability that there is no God?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Because it provides us with a physical explanation, which supersedes any transcendental explanation.
		So right now, whereas before we were like, well, we're having these trippy experiences, and we're all looking outward toward a God, and we're having these experiences where we feel like we're connected to this God.
		There must be a God.
		We had no reason to believe otherwise.
		And now we're finding that all of our knowledge, all of our knowledge that leads us to believe in these things is coming from the mechanism of the brain.
		We now have a physical explanation.
		And the fact that we have, there is no transcendental explanation.
		So far, there's no one has offered us, no one has revealed a miracle.
		And if it has been, it's been written about in ancient texts.
		But today, you know, we don't live in a world of miracles.
		We live in a world in a material universe where scientists are, you know, constantly uncovering some new agenda, some new fact, and it's all been defined in physical properties, not transcendental ones.
		None of the sciences, as much as we continue to advance, as much as we continue to expand with these new technologies, these technologies come from physical science, not spiritual science or metaphysics.
		So again, more and more, the physical sciences give themselves credibility in that their theories and presumptions seem to be correct in that they're providing us with all these technologies.
		Right now, the only knowledge we have of a spiritual reality is the fact that the human organism, that the human animal has a brain mechanism, a cognitive mechanism which makes us perceive this type of reality.
		That means to the best of our knowledge, if human beings died, if our species alone died out, or even before our species existed simply a couple hundred thousand years ago, there was no God.
		Without humans, without human cognition, the whole notion of God will never be contemplated again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		As far as we know, all other mammals do not, as far as we know, contemplate the existence of a Creator.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Based on animal behavior, there's no reason to believe at this point that no animal has given evidence for us, you know, reason for us to believe that they are spiritual creatures.
		The only other animal that was spiritual, that we do believe was religious, was Neanderthal Man, which was basically our closest descendant.
		And Neanderthal Man, for instance, buried his dead with artifacts, implying that he believed he was sending the dead somewhere else.
		So they did have certain spirits, like religious icons and iconologies or iconographs, which lead us to believe that there was another animal that walked the earth at one time that looked out there with some form of a belief system.
		Again, it's more than likely that Neanderthal man also had an incipient sense of self-conscious awareness and therefore his own mortality.
		He must have if he was burying his dead with a ritual.
		Other than that, no other animal, the only other animal that people throw out of, you know, well, what about elephants?
		And elephants have an elephant graveyard.
		It's really just that elephants, you know, isolate themselves when they're dying.
		And probably the adaptive value of that is simply that they're these tremendous animals.
		If an amoeba dies, it disintegrates in seconds.
		It doesn't have to isolate itself.
		If elephants live in a certain community and they just drop dead all the time in the midst of their communities, they're going to be 10 tons of rotting flesh spreading bacteria and killing off their animal.
		So they tend to isolate themselves and die in what we call elephant cemetery, but it's not because they're believing that they're going somewhere special.
		They don't erect edifices which are suggestive of shrines.
		They don't gather in groups and look upward at the sky and chant or pray.
		None of their behaviors indicate that they are religious creatures.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think your arguments are so compelling that in my view, the religious community should snap your book up like crazy.
		Now that may not occur, and in fact, they just may be very, very angry, which they are a lot of times when they listen to you.
		But I would think the objective out there, the thinking, would snap your book up and try and shoot Holes in the whole thing.
		And I actually would hope that that would happen.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Or maybe not shoot holes necessarily, but maybe start to adjust and adapt to science, just like the church has had to do throughout the progress of time.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me rephrase that.
		Try to shoot holes in your whole theory.
		I think that Your book is a valuable tool for anybody whose mind really is open as they claim it to be.
		Now, so I'm giving you a book plug is what I'm trying to do here.
		The God Part of the Brain, fifth edition, huh?
		Did you ever think it would go that far?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		No, I didn't, but I'm pretty certain that this is the last.
		I feel like this one is so complete.
		It now has the neurophysiological data, and my argument is airtight, and I'm probably done with this fifth edition.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You really think so?
unidentified		Mm-hmm.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		This final completed work, although works like this are rarely complete, there'll be some new discovery.
		Nevertheless, let's assume it's reasonably complete, or you think it is, is available at Amazon.com.
		You can get it, folks, by going to my website and going to amazon.com.
		It's called The God Part of the Brain.
		Is it mostly in bookstores now?
		Have you cracked that?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's in Barnes Noble.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it is.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it can be ordered through any bookstore, through a Borders, even local bookshops.
		Or, again, in New York City, I suggest people go to Coliseum Books where all the copies are signed.
		That's in Broadway and 57th Street.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Or they can order it from my website, which is Godpart.com, in which case I'll sign those books.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		I always sign those books as well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever heard the words John Lennon's Imagine?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever heard Imagine?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I have.
unidentified		You have.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		He played it last time.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's an Alper song all the way.
		Listen, hold on.
		We'll go to the phones if you're up for it, all right?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		I'm up for it.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Should be interesting to say the least, and I expect all of you out there to be polite.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		You hear me?
unidentified		You must have no heaven even if you try.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		KDWN, Las Vegas.
unidentified		No hell will go up.
		Love loves only sky.
		The sky.
		The End Imagine all the people living for today.
		Imagine there's no country.
		This is hard to do.
		Coming to kill all the time.
		I know the losing life of you.
		You made it there.
		I'm a dreamer.
		But I'll be all you want.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Obviously not.
		That was a man ahead of his time, too.
		John Lennon.
		And, you know, if you listen to the words, it really is the Matthew Alper song.
		Want to take a ride?
		Well, call our bell from west of the Rockies at 1-800-618-8255.
		East of the Rockies at 1-800-825-5033.
		The sign callers may reach Art at 1-775-727-1222.
		The wild guard line is on the Premier Radio Networks.
		You know, when Lennon wrote this, people said he was a communist.
		They thought he was thinking of communism.
		I don't think so.
		I think he was thinking about something altogether different.
		But that's just me.
		And I'm a dreamer, too.
		I'm Mark Bell.
		Matthew Alper is my guest, and he'll be right back.
		So, Matthew, do you think that Lenin was way ahead of his time, even more ahead of his time than you?
		Or do you think that Lenin was singing about a perfect communist state, as so many said back then?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		I think he was just a man seeking peace and, you know, seeking world peace.
		He had very Eastern values.
		And I think that's pretty much what he was singing about.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He was that and no religion, too, including Eastern religions.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, he probably just saw.
		I mean, he was a product of European society, not Eastern religions.
		And he was probably imagining a world where there wouldn't be these Western religions combating one another.
		I think it was really more just.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Isn't that the world you're imagining, though?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, pretty much.
		I don't know if it's possible.
		I don't know if it's possible to supersede this perceptual framework we're built into, but I guess it's a hope.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wouldn't, from your perspective then, the ultimate act of science be the deliverance of immortality from your point of view?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, it'd be an interesting one, I suppose.
		I mean, given that science is meant to advance us as a species, you know, what would be the greatest advance?
		You know, we're constantly looking for, you know, pills and medications that will prolong our lives.
		So ultimately, the greatest scientific advention would be immortality.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I thought so.
		All right.
		Good.
		Let's go to the line.
		So first time calling line, you're on the air with Matthew Alpert and R. Bell.
		Good morning.
		Where are you, dear?
unidentified		Well, I'm in California.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		And I'd like to say hi to my good friend in Canada, who I believe is listening.
		Her name's Corey.
		And I have three questions I'd like to put up front so you can answer them in any order because I am very logical-minded and I'd appreciate it.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, I only do one at a time, so pick your favorite.
unidentified		Okay.
		Gosh, I don't have one.
		And since I'm a note-oriented person, I'll just start with the beginning here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, give us your first one.
unidentified		Okay, let's assume for a minute that something in the brain explains our human need for a God.
unidentified		Why could it not be that the God who might have created us didn't put that in our brains because he wants to be recognized?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's a good question, and it's one that's been brought up in debates regarding this issue.
		And my best answer to that is simply that what kind of God would put a mechanism in our brain that would compel us to believe that he's so many different things that we should all go to war with one another, killing one another to prove that our version of him is right?
		That would either be a very foolish or sadistic God.
		So I find it hard to imagine that such a, you know, that any divine power would have implanted this thing in us in this way.
unidentified		Okay, well that's a good answer, except I would believe that since there's a potential for a God, there's also the potential for the devil and that maybe the devil implanted these other false gods.
		But my second question would be, we talked about, you know, you mentioned the elephants, which I thought was very interesting as far as the, you know, remains and so forth.
		And as far as I know, we're the only, humans are the only level of creation that have a consciousness in the sense of guilt and right and wrong and this sort of overwhelming sense that tells them in a way what to do.
		And if we are creations of evolution, when might you find the genes that prove we have evolved a conscious?
		Because if there was not a creator that gave that to us, then there must be genetic proof.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Genetic proof that there's a part of, well, if there's a part of the brain from which we acquire self-conscious awareness, it means that there's a gene responsible for creating that part of the brain.
unidentified		Which you must admit is different than all the other levels of species from the amoeba on up.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it's unique.
unidentified		It is unique.
unidentified		And so how do you evolve something as unique and untangible and unphysical as a conscious?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, see, that's the thing.
		It's not that untangible.
		And again, the sciences are now breaking through and finding that they're completely tangible.
		As a matter of fact, as you talk about things like awareness of good and evil, it's true only humans have what I refer to in my book as moral consciousness.
		There's a chapter in my book called The Guilt and Morality Function.
		These are two behaviors that are unique to the human species, just as much as music and mathematical awareness are.
		You know, every species is unique.
		There are other animals that have awarenesses, you know, or perceptions of either vision or hearing that supersede our own.
		And again, we're unique in that we have these other cognitive components, one of them being moral wiring.
unidentified		But how would you suggest that we evolve moral wiring?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, mammals are social organisms.
		So they need to adhere to certain group restrictions in order to survive.
		There are some behaviors which are destructive to the group, like excessive selfishness, and there are some behaviors that are productive to the group, like altruistic behaviors.
		At the same time, we all have to be selfish.
		We all need to survive.
		But in excess, we become a hazard to the group.
		So with other species, for instance, if an animal acts out of line in its hierarchy, for instance, or acts selfishly, the rest of the group will ostracize them.
		They possess ostracizing behaviors by which they shun or get rid of, and in some cases kill those animals which are a little too aggressive for the group.
		With humans, because we're such a more behaviorally complex organism, we need to evolve more complex means by which to differentiate behaviors which were productive to the group versus behaviors which were destructive to the group.
		And even more interesting, however, recently it's been discovered by a man, Antonio DiMacio, a neuropsychologist.
		He started his research when he looked into the case of Phineas Gage, a railroad worker.
		Maybe you're familiar with him.
		During an explosion, a steel rod was sent through his skull.
		And he spent the rest of his natural life living with this rod through his skull.
		And what they found was, though this took place in the 1800s, scientific historians have found that it changed his behavior.
		And what it did was it took a very responsible, hard-working father and turned him into a sociopath.
unidentified		Much like the John Travolta movie where he walked out one night and he saw something unique, and it turned out at the end of the story that it was a tumor of the brain that accelerated his ability to learn.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		And so then my last question.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Okay, but that's still fictional, but here in the real world, this man, Antonio DiMasio, found that the part of the brain that was affected by this rod was called the prefrontal cortex.
		He then went and started studying cases in hospitals.
		He looked for cases of children or people who had had some kind of disruption or damage to their prefrontal cortex.
		And he started finding that anybody who had any kind of injury to their prefrontal cortex basically went from normal, responsible, reliable people to becoming sociopathic.
		They engaged in stealing and cheating.
unidentified		Oh, absolutely.
		I agree with you totally.
		As a matter of fact, I have a cousin who has suffered from epilepsy.
		And I guess then my last question would be that if, for example, we may have a Creator who totally made us, then how do you know that physical science, because let's assume for a minute that it is a Creator who made us, is separate from the spiritual science?
		In other words, I know if I say certain words to my child, he will react a certain way.
		And I didn't get to create his brain or my life would be a little bit easier.
		But I do have to work within his God-given abilities and work with him that way to teach him important lessons.
		And so how could you say that a creator who is intelligent did not make us physical in a way that he knew would be equal to spiritual as far as science went, because they come hand in hand if you assume, once again, a creator made us.
		I think that the most magnificent thing on Earth.
		If the axis of the Earth, if the tilt of the Earth was any different, we can not exist.
		And so let's assume that a Creator is so intelligent that he knows the axis of the Earth, and he knows everything about the Earth.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		But if you look at the majority of planets by the trillions, the axis of their Earths, their orbits are off, or they are too far from the sun or too close for the sun.
		If someone were living on Mars right now, he'd say, what kind of God is this?
		We've got 10 minutes to live and we're all going to die.
		We're just talking about probabilities here.
		And that's not proof of a creator.
unidentified		Well, I'm talking about proof of a creator, but what I'm talking about.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		For every planet like Earth that has organic matter that has given emergence to life, again, there's trillions and to the best of our knowledge that we can't even point to one that we know for certain even has life.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		He might be the only one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, she's using the evidence of all that is and so perfect to allow everything that is right now.
		But the problem with that argument is, though, that it could be that it all is that way because that's the only way it could be to allow for us.
		And it could be evolution as opposed to creation just as easily.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		It's a very anthropomorphic view by saying, like, look, we're here, so there must be a God who wanted it to be this way.
unidentified		Well, I have one question I think that I think will fascinate you, and I love the way you think, and I love your mind, and I love the way you just probe into subjects.
		But I believe that pretty much every cell in our body is regenerated every seven years.
		Is that?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		It's not that every cell is regenerated, but every seven years, because cells are constantly going through mitosis, giving birth to new ones, old ones dying off, every seven years there is no cell that was with you seven years ago.
unidentified		Okay, now let me know.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		So you're like a whole new person physically.
unidentified		Now given that, if we were only physical, it would be impossible to commit or to find someone guilty of a crime after seven years because every cell in their body is no longer.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		You've got a new legal angle, you know, because you might be able to get Timothy McVeigh off with that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, that was very good, and I almost hate to even see that concept out there.
		She has a very good point.
		Wildcard Line, you're on here with Matthew Albert.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hello, my name is Matthew.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Matthew also.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Matthew and Matthew.
unidentified		All right.
		I agree with Matthew because almost every civilization believes in some sort of God and afterlife.
		And it is likely that humans created religion for an explanation of things.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, that's his contention.
unidentified		A lot of religions believe in some sort of heaven and hell.
		And I think this is used to scare and prevent crimes.
		And the heaven part is meant to help people who have lost friends or family.
		And also, no one really wants to die.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		So I refer to it as a coping mechanism.
		And it's yes, exactly that.
		They are to help us cope with the trials and tribulations of life.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned, you said that in excess, I guess in any excess, we become a danger to the group.
		Hence the formulation of morality, ethics, and so forth.
		If magically, as if a miracle occurred and the whole world suddenly believed as you do, Matthew, describe the kind of world that we live in.
		What do you think that world would be like?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's a big question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it sure is.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, I think there's a difference between all of a sudden and a slow shift in paradigm, which I think could be a much healthier way to go about this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I used the word miracle.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That was for you.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Right.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		If it should so happen that, you know, tomorrow everybody felt this way, it'd be like having the rug pulled out from under them suddenly and mysteriously, and they'd go into a panic, and it would be like you were talking about, you know, with the War of the Worlds scenario when Orson Welles played H.G. Wells to everybody and said, look, the aliens are here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Mad Max.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Or Mad, we'd have total disarray.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, Mad Max, that's a different scenario.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not all that different.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, if there was no afterlife consequence, if there was no consequence to misbehavior, no consequence to the big ripoff, all the rest of it, and it was sudden, then you would have the Mad Max scenario, really.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, the thing is, when we live among society, among civilization, there are repercussions to our crimes.
		And, you know, so we do not rely, though the spiritual threat, I suppose, of heaven versus hell is certainly one of the main motivators by which we try and get our members of society to behave one way versus another.
		We don't rely on that because we know it wouldn't work, and we therefore every society also has a penal function by which we punish those who break those laws.
		And for that reason, we still have society upholding law, as well as the fact that if we were going to look at it from a purely selfish perspective, even on selfish grounds, it's to our advantage to work among one another, to work toward cooperation.
		Because let's say we take it on a group level and we look at it on a national level, there's no way that the human species is going to survive in a world with all the technologies we have today, with all of the weapons of mass destruction, unless we work cooperatively.
		For any one of us to think that like, oh, we can rule the world without any repercussions.
		We can commit any evil on any other country or peoples, you know, and we'll come out on top.
		No one comes out on top.
		We are a social organism.
		United, we stand, divided, we fall.
		It's as simple as that.
		So even in the most simple, selfish way, we have to re-educate ourselves to understand that by committing wrong, by committing a selfish act, we're hurting ourselves.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But has it occurred to you that if you were to have instant success with what you believe to be true, it would be a world that you probably wouldn't want to live in?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, if I had instant success, I'd have money and fame and I wouldn't have to live in it.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		I'd buy my island and I'd live on my yacht, my mansion, and that'd be the end of it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		No, I believe that all it would mean is that the world comes to an understanding where primitive mythologies and primitive primal explanations for how we got here and why we are here would dissolve and give way to a more spiritual,
		even, you know, the kind of stuff that someone like the Dalai Lama preaches, which is really just an ethic of tolerance and cooperation and harmony through understanding, mutual understanding and accord, as opposed to like, my group's better than your group, or even just my group is accepting of your group.
		Because the minute you have groups, again, you take the chance that the next time there is that threat of recession, that it will come down to my group is better than your group.
		You know, in times of prosperity, we have 100 people in two separate groups, 100 loaves of bread, nobody's having a problem.
		If you pull that away and all of a sudden there's 10 loaves of bread on the table for 100 people, they're going to abandon to their spiritual religious tribes and they're going to justify why they should have the 10 loaves of bread and not the others.
		Again, it's a mechanism.
		It's a discriminating mechanism.
		As much as we're a social animal, we need to be bonded.
		We live in a global community.
		So tribal bonding is actually dangerous to a global community unless we embrace a global religion.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but aren't a lot of these impulses, let's take the ten loaves of bread, aren't they much more basic than frontal lobe considerations?
		In other words, our reptilian portion of the reptilian portion of our brain is what considers the ten loaves of bread.
		Is it not?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, in times of normal circumstance, we're not in recession.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		There's a balance of community, of population growth where we usually keep a pace where there's the right number of loaves for the right number of people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, hold it right there.
		We'll be right back.
		There's more.
		More of Matthew Albert, more of me.
		I'm Art Bell.
		This is Coast to Coast A.M. And here we go again, Matthew Albert.
		Welcome back.
		Matthew, this is interesting.
		Michael Enchico writes, you speak of God, and I have trouble taking it.
		My dad just died this morning.
		I'm sorry, Michael.
		And though once religious, I don't feel it now.
		That's an interesting reaction that is almost universal in great immediate loss.
		People with deep religious conviction suddenly, temporarily, sometimes permanently, lose it.
unidentified		Do you have anything to say about that?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, again, it's not to say that all of the parts of our religious mechanism, of these functions, are destructive.
		It is a coping mechanism, and nature is a master architect.
		There's a reason that it put it there.
		We do need these mechanisms, and yes, to have to confront death, just like you were saying before, what kind of world would we live in if suddenly no one believed?
		One of the key reasons that we have this inherited belief system locked into our brains is because to help us deal with not just our own death, but the death of others.
		And in order to survive the pain, the excruciating pain in that loss, we need to feel that they're still with us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I understand all that, but what I'm saying is one would imagine then that a religious person, given a tragic loss like Michael's today, would grasp their religion,
art bell ▲ ● ▼		grasp their religious nature, and hold on to that as tightly as you can imagine, but instead, so frequently, it produces the exact opposite reaction and a rejection of God and a rejection of the world.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, you know, here we have this mechanism telling us there's more, and then when confronted with the physical reality of that, you know, people are being taken away, that death is inevitable.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, we do not see their spirit rise and sit with us at the table.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		And we basically lose that person as much as we want to believe that somehow their spirit is with us regardless.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Or we see that person suffer physically.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		And we say, you know, what kind of creator could this be that has subjected us to so much torment?
		And it's true, it does death does tend to make people at times turn away from their gods, but generally it's more protective mechanism.
		And it actually makes more people than that turn toward their gods and toward their religion.
		They embrace religion in having to confront death of themselves or of others.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The exceptions are interesting, though.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Matthew Alper.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm Dave from Lubbock, Texas.
		It's delightful to hear someone that so closely parallels my own views.
		And if I may, before I get to my question, I'd like to make a comment on a question that you asked earlier, Art.
		Sure.
		It has to do with the universe and its creation.
		When one assumes, in my opinion, when one assumes that there must have been something before and that therefore there must have been a God, one is assuming That something has to come from something else.
		And if you analyze that, then it would appear that even if we assume that a God created all of this, then there must have been something pre-God that created this God, etc., etc., infinite regress.
		Anyway, on to my question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Because you're going to give us all a headache with that.
unidentified		Well, I tried to make it brief.
		The other question I had was if Matthew thought that there was some relationship in the higher primates, particularly.
		There's a seeking for a leader, a superior over the tribe.
		And I wonder what his thoughts are on the relationship of that to his other concepts.
		And I'll hang up now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, no, that's a really good question.
		He's right about that.
		There is this leadership thing, isn't there?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, most animals work on a, or mammal social groups work by a dominance hierarchy.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		And it's through that that they maintain order.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, but that's a physical, until you get to the human level, it's a physical dominance.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Right, exactly.
		And what happened was, and I go into this in great detail, I go into the evolution of moral consciousness.
		And one of the keys with humans is here we have these mammals, even pre-mammal, almost all the vertebrate species that are social organisms, live by a dominance hierarchy, a hierarchy system.
		Among humans, we don't live that way physically simply because our intelligence supersedes it.
		So all of a sudden, we live among a species where the physically weakest animal can still pick up a rock and use it as a tool and bludgeon to death the alpha male.
		So we're basically on more equal ground all of a sudden.
		The hierarchy system dissolved.
		We needed some other mechanism by which to maintain social order.
		And the way we did that was by evolving these mechanisms in the brain that make us react in certain ways towards certain behaviors.
		So now the person who picks up, whereas like among apes, if one of them picked up a rock and bashed in the skull of another, he would be respected as the alpha male and that would be the end of it.
		Among humans, we can't have that kind of behavior in a social order.
		So if the smallest person did still decide to do that, we would have to have other mechanisms by which we would judge them and then ostracize them or punish them.
		So we evolve these moral mechanisms by which we can distinguish different behaviors, some as good, some as bad.
		And in the sense, we also internalize those behaviors through feelings of guilt so that we're repelled by our own bad behavior.
		So the notion of me, as much as I might judge someone else who would pick up a rock and hurt someone with it, we're wired to be repelled by destructive behaviors.
		At the same time, we're also wired to be repelled when we think of doing them ourselves.
		So should I pick up that rock and get ready to smash it down on someone's head, there's a mechanism in my brain saying, don't do it.
		That's destructive to the group.
		You're repelled by that behavior and you drop the rock.
		So again, it's because of the dissolution of the hierarchy system that humans, it is what makes us different.
		It's our intelligence.
		It's our intelligence that has made us so unique from these other species that we had evolved all these new mechanisms by which to survive our intelligence.
unidentified		And again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, so then it seems to me, based on that, we would pick our leaders based on their excelling in areas of morality and ethical behavior and so forth and so on, right?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		it doesn't seem to be that way.
		No, it seems that we're more drawn when we look for a leader for somebody who will have us prosper.
		Like, you know, basically that person which we think will lead us best toward prosperity.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I can't argue with that one.
		All right.
		You're on the air with Matthew Albert.
		Good morning.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		I'm Dave.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		I'm calling you from North Dakota.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Great show.
		Look forward to the book.
		Two brief comments and then a question.
		The first comment is that I think if you look at this very philosophically, really religion as an institution should have no more trouble with this than it would have with knowing astronomically what the star of Bethlehem is, but I don't doubt that it will.
		My other comment is I think this kind of undertaking and understanding of human nature is so important because just the way I see it, we are in the process of kind of stepping out of what could loosely be called, for lack of a better term, a state of nature into hopefully sometime in the future a state of civilization.
		We kind of have a foot on the dock and a foot in the boat, both in the boat, both at the same time.
		Not sure we're always doing too well, but I think we need to understand this part of human nature because it so, you know, might be one of the best impulses of humanity, but we need to have a better understanding of it, I think, than we do for that to happen.
		My question having to do with the spiritual part of the brain, I have to kind of give a premise here which might be wrong, and please interrupt me if it is.
		My premise is that, assuming that this came out of natural selection and evolution at some point, that the brain physiology itself that your author is referring to presumably predated the linguistic, let's say, concept of God.
		And if that's accurate, then that became infused.
		Of course, it's been there for a long time.
		But I'm assuming that there's kind of a more basic brain physiology, endorphins, or I'm just kind of grasping a throat.
		Is it something or other that interacts with that heavy cultural overlay of Supreme Being and parental impulse and that sort of thing?
		And if so, does the author have any idea how that might work, or am I missing the board on that?
		Well, what, How the linguistic part of our brains interact with the spiritual part?
		Well, and in particular, because I'm assuming that this capacity that you've described in kind of more emotional terms how we generate the one feeling and the feeling of connectedness, and it has, as I agree with you, the obvious adaptive value to kind of at least buffer some of our knowledge about our mortality and so forth.
		But I'm assuming that that would have an adaptive function whether anybody had thought of the idea of God or not, and that that evolutionarily, chronologically predated humans thinking about God.
		Maybe that's not true, or maybe we don't know enough to say for sure.
		But if that's the case, then they're contemporary of one another.
		You know, as humans evolve, the things that distinguish us from all the other animals are basically our spiritual consciousness, moral consciousness, linguistic consciousness.
		You know, we're the only speaking animal.
		Other animals certainly communicate through sound, but not what we call language.
		You know, they don't put together a series of consonants and sounds that have symbolic meaning.
		Again, all of these things are what distinguish us as a species from all other species.
		So they must have all evolved at about the same time.
		It's not like there was like the pre-spiritual humans.
		So that's the like 50,000 years we had language and math and music and all these things, but we weren't spiritual.
		They all evolved, you know, in coordination with one another, which is why they all interact with one another.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Matthew, we are near this break point at this hour where I can either hold you over, and I'm happy to do so and allow you to talk with people for the final hour of the program, or I know you're in Brooklyn, where it's probably just before 5 o'clock in the morning.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's okay.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		I'm always good to go for the show.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're always good to go.
		All right.
		I want to remind everybody that your book is available in bookstores nationwide.
		It's available on Amazon.com where you can always get a really good buy on it.
		My God, they give good discounts.
		And there is a store in Brooklyn where you can get an autographed copy, right?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's in Manhattan if you go to Coliseum Books.
		Again, for those of you who would like to order it on the web but don't have access, you can also send a check.
		It's $15.95 with priority shipping to Matthew Alper, 123 7th Avenue, Suite 164, Brooklyn, New York, 11215.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Is this the part of the program where we give out your home number?
		I can't remember.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		No, this is not, but this was the part that we once did, and that was the last time.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Matthew Alper, who says we're all hooked on a feeling.
		We'll be right back.
		I'm Art Bell, and this is Coast to Coast AM.
unidentified		I can't stop this feeling deep inside of me.
unidentified		I can't stop this feeling deep inside of me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Once again, here is Matthew Alper.
		That's kind of a good sound for you, Matthew.
		I wonder if that's the lightning bolt?
		Yeah, it is.
		Let me read you an email, which we haven't really had tonight, surprisingly so far, but let's have it here.
		It says, if I'm wrong when my life on this earth ends, what is the downside to me?
		If you're wrong when your life, Matthew, ends on earth, what's the downside for you?
		An interesting question.
		Wait, no.
		In other words, we're talking about a person who's got faith here.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And this person is saying, if I'm wrong when my life ends on earth, what's the downside to me?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And at the same time, he's asking, if, on the other hand, Matthew, you're wrong when your life ends on earth, what's the downside for you?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's actually, that was called Pascal's dilemma, because the French philosopher, mathematician from the 18th century, Blaise Pascal, asked himself the same thing.
		He was an atheist.
		And based on his answer to that question, he said, well, what the hell then?
		I'm going to become a believer.
		And he turned around and became a Christian philosopher and a firm believer because he believed that ultimately, you know, there's more to be gained in believing.
		I'm suggesting, however, as I have throughout the show, that because religion has these, you know, destructive potentials, that believing actually is not necessarily to our benefit.
		It can be very harmful.
		And though if we're talking about simply an afterlife, look, we can adapt to, I mean, we're talking about religion as they stand today.
		If we adapt and adjust to some kind of global world religion, which preaches harmony and even perhaps some belief in a organic afterlife, it doesn't necessarily have to be as discriminating and therefore as debilitating to our species as religion is today.
		So there are different ways to approach an afterlife.
		As it stands today, the belief in an afterlife lends support to belief in various religions, which lends support to the possibility that we're going to harm one another.
		So there is a downside to that.
		As far as just the belief in the afterlife itself, well, I even believe there too, there's benefit in embracing a belief in one's mortality because A, it means that we feel more obliged to live for the here and now, to try and better ourselves now within this lifetime, as opposed to hedging our bets on some dubious hereafter.
		And for that reason, I find that, for instance, with myself in my own personal philosophy, as opposed to leaving me feeling like hopeless in a place of gloom, I embrace my life and I say, okay, I've got this many years to do everything I want to do.
		One of those things that I wanted to do was to solve the problem of God.
		So in a sense, my lack of belief has impassioned me to try and make the most that I can out of my life here and now, again, as opposed to banking on a dubious hereafter and thinking, oh, I've got all eternity to work things out and to do things and to do my best.
		And I believe that I have these just so many years to experience reality to the best of my ability, and it pushes me in that way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, one more.
		This is pretty good.
		I'm wondering how Matthew explains atheism.
		And those of us who have no belief in organized religions nor spend any time in contemplative prayer or any such activities, are we a throwback biologically?
		Are we brain damaged?
		Or are we evolved ahead of our time?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, as I said before, when I answer the question where I said in my book, there's a chapter why they're atheists.
		It's none of the above.
		It's simply that people who lack spiritual consciousness, where it doesn't play a predominant role in their conscious experience, they're just that end of the bell curve.
		It's natural because we're all, you know, because of the way that evolution works and gene theory works, there is always going to be a small cross-section of every society that's going to have either a lack of or an excess of every characteristic.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, but bearing the numbers in mind, why is it not at least reasonable to contemplate the possibility that you are, by your own definition, brain damaged?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's true.
		You know, one could, for instance, have that part of the brain removed or damaged and lose their capacity for spirituality.
		And at the same time, there are people who've been hit in the head.
		It's called an organic psychosyndrome where you're banged in the head and you become hyper-religious, where it actually stimulates that part of that brain.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's correct, that's correct, yes.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, in those cases, one could say technically either one is brain damaged, the atheist or the hyper-religious person.
		But in regard to just the way, if you're born that way and then brought up in society that way, you represent a healthy part of a cross-section by which every animal contains diversity in its species, and diversity is healthy.
		Because as environments shift and fluctuate, it means that there's more possibilities that there'll be a member of that species that will have an adaptive value to a new environment.
		So if we reach a place where it's advantageous to be atheistic, there's a part of our species that will be able to then populate the world with that adaptive value.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, back to bones.
		Welcome to the Rockies.
		You're on the air with Matthew, Alper, and Arthur.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		This is Margaret in Littleton, Colorado.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Margaret, you're going to have to yell at us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're not too strong.
unidentified		I'm sorry.
unidentified		Is this any better?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Much better.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Okay.
		Number one, as an atheist start, I really have to object to your apparent contention that without the fear of hell, we'd all turn into raging sociopaths.
		I'm not a sociopath, just because I'm an atheist.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I simply referred, ma'am, Margaret, to the Brookings report, which did a study on the impact socially of alien presence and what it would do to society.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's nothing compared to what we're talking about tonight, in my opinion.
unidentified		Okay.
		Number two, I am an atheist, but I wasn't always.
		I was very much a believer.
		And when I came to the conclusion that there was likely no God, it was something that was extremely difficult for me.
		It was extremely painful for me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How did you come to that conclusion?
unidentified		Well, it's kind of long.
unidentified		Are you sure you want to hear it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, not if it's not going to take up the rest of my program.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, give it to us in a nutshell if you can.
unidentified		Okay, number one, I was a Seventh-day Adventist.
		I very much believed in creationism for starters.
		I found out just how much of our DNA we share with chimps.
		And I discovered I could no longer not believe in evolution.
		It was just so obvious.
		We share something like 90% of our DNA with chimps.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's better than that, actually.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		It's like 99.2.
unidentified		I keep hearing someplace between 98 and 99.
unidentified		I'm not sure, but it's enough.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's a lot, yeah.
unidentified		Whatever it is.
		And, you know, when I started reconsidering renaming portions of the Bible as myth, I decided that chances were the whole thing was myth.
		I also consider myself to be an agnostic.
		I know I can't prove there's no God.
		I just find it very doubtful.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you're one or the other.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But it's hard to be both.
unidentified		In point of fact, it's not.
		I'm an atheist because I don't think there is a God.
		I'm an agnostic because I recognize there's a chance I'm wrong.
		I'm just being honest about it.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		I don't think I'm wrong.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Then I think you're an agnostic by definition.
unidentified		And I think I'm an atheist by definition and an agnostic by definition.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		I call myself an agnostic with atheist leanings.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There you are.
unidentified		I would call myself an atheist with agnostic leanings.
unidentified		Either way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let's stop here and agree.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Either way, the loss of faith was extremely painful to me.
		And it wasn't until I discovered how to meditate that I found something that was anything like as fulfilling as faith used to be.
		So it's not that I don't have the God center in my brain or whatever it is.
		It's that I have to be honest with myself no matter what.
		So there's more than one kind of atheist.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I suppose so.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's very interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		and really you sort of agreed with her, didn't you?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Slight difference in words, but yeah, well, I mean I agree also with her initial point that I think one of the problems with religion is that it presumes that if you don't hold on to their faith or at least faith at least, some faith, then you must be lacking in morals and that the religious always have this claim to moral superiority, which I think is unwarranted.
		Again, it comes down to actually two different mechanisms.
		Some people have different levels of moral consciousness.
		Some people have different degrees of religious consciousness.
		There are some people which are highly religious, but completely amoral.
		I mean, we know of this.
		There are also people who are highly religious and extremely moralistic.
		The same with atheists.
		There are atheists who are moral.
		They're very giving people.
		They're humanistic.
		They call themselves secular humanists.
		And sure, there are atheists who are very selfish-minded and, you know, are also not wired in a very strong way toward morality either.
		So it's just a matter of balance.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, if we would actually do a survey, Matthew, and come up with percentages, what do you think the percentage of the self-centered atheists would turn out to be versus the others?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's a good question.
		I don't know.
		I know that a lot of the atheists I know, because we're compelled toward these belief systems, often atheism is the result of sort of, I guess, the emergence of scientific learning and through rational thinking.
		And we've thought, you know, a lot of atheists are just people who, because of their reason, maybe when they were younger they believed, but now there's enough scientific evidence for them to feel that, you know, there is no God and there is no spiritual reality, and that's okay with them.
		But they're also very thoughtful people.
		At the same manner by which they contemplate the universe rationally, they also contemplate morals rationally.
		And they're humanistic.
		You know, they believe in a mutual harmony, a cooperation among individuals, and that's part of their atheism.
		Then again, they're the people who just like, they don't believe in religion, they don't believe in God, they don't believe in anything other than themselves, and they're just takers.
		So again, I couldn't really even begin to predict statistically, but I do not think that there's any higher, there's any reason to believe that the religious-minded are more moral than the non-religious.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The numbers would be interesting, though, wouldn't they?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		First time caller align, you're on the air with Matthew Alper.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Is that me?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's you.
unidentified		Oh, good morning, gentlemen.
		I'm glad I got you.
		I've got a burning question here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Okay, when you stimulate the brain to induce various responses, like pain, pleasure, motive functions, that doesn't automatically eliminate other sources of these responses, like the non-brain stimulated responses.
		You can still feel pleasure, pain, other ways.
		I could lift your arm up, for instance, and it would move.
		And I would really like to ask Matthew, how does finding the God part of the brain eliminate the existence of God, the non-brain existence of God?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, like I said, but it doesn't eliminate it.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		It just suggests that.
unidentified		It doesn't eliminate it?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, nothing can eliminate it.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		You know, again, I'm not saying that I know with 100% certainty.
unidentified		Thank you for saying that, Matthew?
unidentified		Thank you for saying that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you said that before you got on the line, man.
unidentified		Yeah.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, you know, for me, it would be just as presumptuous for me to say that as it is for most religious people who claim that they know with certainty that there is one.
		Again, there's my agnosticism, again, with atheistic leanings.
		Nevertheless, if I think what you're getting at is you're talking about, for instance, like the experience of pain, it's usually coming from some external stimuli, correct?
unidentified		It can, but it can also come if you stimulate a part of the brain that's responsible for that or pleasure stimulating.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Exactly, so it can go either way.
		It can be stimulated, and the same thing is true for the spiritual function.
		Nevertheless, like for instance, when I see an apple in front of me, you know, visually, it's data being picked up by my visual cortex and then being translated in the brain.
		Does that then mean that the apple doesn't exist just because my interpretation of it, my perception of it is brought to me by my organ, the brain?
		Not at all.
		And what's interesting about the God part of the brain, what makes it unique from those other parts, is most of our brain is geared toward picking up external stimuli by translating the world around us so that we can survive within the world.
		But unlike those other parts of the brain, the God part of the brain is self-sufficient.
		It doesn't rely on external stimuli.
unidentified		But how do you know that?
unidentified		Matthew, how do you know that?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Because the reason we're believing in God is not because there are these, you know, God's sitting in a throne in front of us saying, here I am, everybody.
		Now that you see me, that part of your brain is being stimulated.
		We're believing in these things without any external stimuli.
		The belief system is coming from within.
unidentified		But, Matthew, how do you think that?
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		Because unless you can show me a miracle, unless you can handle on national television, you know, there's no reason for me to believe that we're believing in miracles because we're seeing them.
		We're believing in them because we're projecting our inherent perception of reality onto the world around us.
		And we're coming up with people who walk on water.
		And in other religions, people who can shoot firebolts from their fingertips, etc.
		Do we see this in everyday life?
		Do we ever see this?
		Have we ever seen it?
unidentified		No.
matthew alper ▲ ● ▼		We've heard about it in ancient texts, but that doesn't prove that they're real.
		These miracles are projections of this inherent perception that we have, but our perception is not based on the miracles.
		Again, how many of us believe that someone can walk on water?
		A good percent of the human population.
		How much of us have seen someone walk on water?
		No one.
unidentified		So again.
unidentified		Can I ask you, can I interject here just for a second?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go ahead.

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