Andrew B. Newberg

Andrew Newberg (born 1966 in Philadelphia ) is an American neuroscientist and scholar of religion. He is a pioneer in the field of neuro- theology.

Life

Newberg finished his medical studies in 1993 at the University of Pennsylvania from. In the following years he worked at the University Hospital of Pennsylvania and obtained the specialist title of Internal Medicine (1997), Nuclear Medicine (1998) and Nuclear Cardiology ( 1998).

Today Newberg professor of radiology at the Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Director of the Institute for Neuro- PET research and lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a co-founder of the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of meditation at the same university. Newberg made ​​studies with imaging techniques have dementia, epilepsy and other neurological and psychiatric disorders. He also investigated the neurophysiological processes involved in acupuncture and other alternative therapies. However, his research focus to date is the brain physiology of spirituality and the neurological activity during religious or mystical experiences.

In 1999 he published his first book, The Mystical Mind. He wrote it along with Dr. Eugene D' Aquili (1940-1998), neurobiologist and for 20 years a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. The book is about the neurological examination of religious experience. From the findings of six years of research in the field of so-called Neurotheology the book Why God Will not Go Away was (in the German version: The imaginary god). This work he co-authored with Dr. Eugene D' Aquili. D' Aquili, however, died in 1998, before the completion of the book in 2001.

  • The Mystical Mind, Augsburg Fortress Publishers 1999, ISBN 978-0-8006-3163-5
  • The thought of God, Piper 2003, ISBN 978-3-492-24138-0; engl. Why God Will not Go Away
  • Why We Believe What We Believe, Free Press, 2006, hardcover, ISBN 978-0-7432-7497-5; in paperback: Born to Believe, Free Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7432-7498-2
  • How God Changes Your Brain, Ballantine Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-345-50341-1

Criticism

Critics Newberg, such as Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, complain about the narrow experimental basis of his findings and that he was too embarrassed by the idea to locate the mystical feelings in just one area of ​​the brain. From non- religious side, such as Scott Atran criticism is that Newberg religion ultimately does not reduce to a mere brain function, which was acquired by evolutionary advantages.

Medical imaging Integrated Authority File
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