Today, Norm Goldman Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com is honored to have as our guest, David E. Comings, MD, author of Did Man Create God? David is a renowned physician, human geneticist, and neuroscientist, past president of the American Society of Human Genetics and for 37 years head of the Department of Medical Genetics at the City of Hope National Medical Center.
Good day David and thanks for participating in our interview.
Norm:
How did you decide you were ready to write Did Man Create God?
David:
In 2002 I retired from the City of Hope Medical Center where I was head of the Department of Medical Genetics. I began catching up on my reading including John Horgan's book Kicking the Sacred Cow. John took on a number of sacred scientific assumptions including evolution. He adopted the Intelligent Design line that evolution was seriously flawed. One of his complaints was that beneficial mutations and mutations in general were so rare that evolution based on mutation and selection could not occur.
Being a human and molecular geneticist I knew this was wrong. Certain regions of DNA have mutation rates millions of times greater than what he was claiming. This led me to read more about Intelligent Design. I began to write rebuttal chapters. Once I got into the subject of the science of things related to religion I just kept going to cover many other areas including the biology and neurology of the human spiritual brain.
Norm:
Please briefly tell our readers what Did Man Create God is all about?
David:
I am a non-theist. I prefer that term to atheist because unlike some militant atheists I do not proselytize and do not try to convert others. However, I do feel that many people do not have the scientific background to answer many of their doubting questions. This book could best be described as providing the reader with the scientific knowledge they need to answer some of the Big Questions such as: Where did we come from?
Can evolution take place without a supernatural force to help it over the hard parts, as Intelligent Design claims? How did life on earth get started? How did man evolve? Does the Big Bang and the precision of nature prove God exists? Can our rational brain and our spiritual brain live in peace? What is the location in the brain of rational thought? Of spirituality? Is spirituality a genetic trait? Did it have a selective advantage in the evolution of man?
Where is consciousness located? When we die does the soul also die, thus eliminating the concept of life after death, heaven and hell? How does the powerful placebo effect work? Does it explain why petitionary prayer where a person prays for themselves often works? Why does God allow evil to occur? Did psychedelic plants play a role in the origin of many of man's religions? And many other fascinating questions including – as opposed to the usual assumption that God Created Man, do we have it backward – Did Man Create God?
Norm:
Please explain some of your research techniques and how you found sources for your book?
David:
Over my research career, I have written over 470 peer reviewed scientific articles and four books. I enjoy writing about scientific matters in a fashion the lay reader can understand. Thus, when I wrote this book each chapter was written the same way as everything else I have written – researching the literature for relevant studies, objectively describing those studies and providing references to the literature in case the reader wants to explore the items in more detail. I spent many hours in the stacks of the UCLA medical library.
Norm:
What do you want your book to do? Provoke thinking? Stir up debate? As a follow up, is there a message in your book that you want your readers to grasp and whom do you believe will benefit from your book?
David:
Above all I hope the book will allow people to objectively examine some of the beliefs they have held all their life. If they change their views – fine. If they don't that is also fine. At least they would have the objective science to allow them to make an informed decision.
I believe that religion is such an important part of so many people's lives that the book is relevant to everyone who is intellectually curious. Some have said that the best way to strengthen your faith is to challenge it and still believe. The book would also be of great interest to those who are not religious. I have been pleasantly surprised that some of my most religious friends, Catholic, Jewish and Protestant, are the ones who have expressed the greatest interest in the book.
Many recent books, such as those by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens have been militantly anti-religious. Having come to understand the biology of spirituality and the important role it played in the evolution of man, I have written a book that is skeptical but friendly to most religions. My greatest criticisms are for those religions that believe their God is the only God, their sacred book is the only sacred book, their scared book is the infallible direct word of God, and that those who do not believe as they do will at best be forever dammed, at worst killed. These are the religious beliefs that are responsible for religious wars, prejudice and terrorism. If man created God then all religions are created equal and wars, prejudice and terrorism have no validity.
Norm:
What was the most difficult part of writing your book?
David:
I found that writing the book was the easy part. Promoting the book is the hard part. Unless one is a famous person, which I am not, promotion is critical. I thank you for your help with this.
Norm:
What was one of the most surprising things you learned in writing your book?
David:
Surveys have suggested that over 90% of people in the world believe in God. Scientists are by definition skeptics. They need to have proof before they believe. My scientific background led me to be a non-theist, unconvinced that any supernatural forces exist.
One of the reasons I wrote the book was to try to understand why, for a highly rational species like man, most believe in God and many believe the Bible and Koran were written by God rather than by man. Why this seeming disconnect – highly rational is some ways, irrational in others? I felt that the answer lay in understanding spirituality.
While spirituality is usually defined in religious terms it does not have to be. Many people are spiritual but not religious. I define spirituality as a feeling of being connected with something greater than one’s self. It can be a connection with nature, one's community, family, spouse or friends, or if you believe, in God. Many experiences promote a sense of spirituality. Even playing golf on a beautiful course and a beautiful day with close friends can be a spiritual experience.
Man's early survival in a hostile world of nature, depended upon being part of an interacting social group. I believe that a sense of being connected with something greater than oneself, i.e. spirituality, significantly facilitated man's social development, had great survival value, and provided a selective advantage in the evolution man. A recent article in National Geographic examined the question of why Neanderthals became extinct while Homo sapiens did not. A critical factor was that modern humans belonged to larger social groups than Neanderthals, thus providing greater buffering against a hostile environment.
From this perspective I sought to determine what part of the brain is responsible for feelings of spiritually. Based on studies of the direct stimulation of the brain during surgery, case reports of temporal lobe epilepsy, near-death experiences, and the effect of psychedelic drugs it was clear that spirituality emanated mostly from the temporal lobes, the part of the brain behind the ears. An epiphany occurred when I read of the work of Rich Strassman. He studied the effect of a very short acting psychedelic drug on intelligent, sophisticated subjects. Although the drug has an effect for only five minutes, every subject swore that they had left the room and come into contact with a non-human being. When Strassman pointed out they never left the room, they all said, "But this really happened." This indicated to me that when the temporal lobes are stimulated from within, the brain is incapable of distinguishing between real and non-real events. This has the elements of understanding why spiritual events can seem so totally real, so totally believable, and can be life changing. It helps to explain why man can be both a rational and spiritual being. Thus, the subtitle of the book, Is Your Spiritual Brain at Peace with Your Thinking Brain?
Norm:
How has your education informed your writing?
David:
My scientific background and clinical work with children with ADHD and Tourette syndrome led me to understand that many behaviours have a biological and genetic basis and are not always just learned behavior. This background was beneficial in writing this book. It turned out that spiritually was just such a trait. It was biological, strongly genetic and unlike religion per se, unrelated to learned behavior.
Norm:
Do you hear from your readers? What kinds of things are they saying about your book? Have you received any nasty remarks? As a follow up, what has been your overall experience as a published author?
David:
I have been very pleasantly surprised that so far all the reviews have been very positive with no nasty remarks. These are on the website. I think there are millions of people who want answers to the big questions but all their life they have only heard one side, the side presented by their religious up bringing. I have simply provided alternative answers in a non-proselytizing fashion that allows the interested reader to make up their own mind.
Norm:
Are you working on any books/projects that you would like to share with us? (We would love to hear all about them!)
David:
I have been writing a series of articles to help with the promotion of the book. These are on the web site. So far, no new books.
Norm:
How can our readers find out more about you and your book, Did Man Create God?
David:
I would refer them to the website www.didmancreategod.com.
Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors.
|
