Contemporary Neuroscience and Religious Experience: Can Neurotheological Theses Falsify the Mental State ‘Belief in God’?

Abstract: Nowadays a new branch of neurology called neurotheology, which tries to understand the neural foundations of religious experiences and behavior, emerged. In popular science literature as well as media it is commonly argued that the studies done in neurotheology have diminished the rationality of the belief in God. In this article we will try to evaluate these studies mentioned in popular literature from the perspective of rationality to the belief in God. First, I classify the results of neurotheology in three different theses and then we point that there are two kinds of belief to God: Inferential and non-inferential beliefs in God. Then I argue that contrary to the popular claims, neurotheological results by their nature can be used to criticize just the non-inferential beliefs in God. In the rest of the article I present to strategies to criticize non-inferentials beliefs and I evaluate the possibility of forming defeater to the non-inferential belief in God based on the three neurological theses following the two outlined strategies