THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL PRECONDITIONS OF NEUROTHEOLOGY: PECULIARITIES OF BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR OF RELIGIOUS PERSON

Abstract

The article analyzes the philosophical and religious concepts, such as religion, "religiousness", from the standpoints of neurotheology and psychophysiology. Religious consciousness is its essential feature; therefore a person can be directly defined as a being, which has a conscious inner connection with God. So a person is connected with religion, but determining the level, depth of this relationship is not an easy matter. Therefore, one should not look for the only, well-established answer about the nature of religion, because to find a definition which would be fitted to all beliefs is very difficult. And consequently, to give a universal definition of religion or religiousness, that would reveal its nature, diverse functionality and historical variability is impossible, although all religions (especially the dominant ones) have much in common. The main thing without what any religion could exist is the recognition (faith) of a peculiar superhuman reality (supernatural), about which, as was mentioned by the well-known British philosopher and cultural scientist K.G. Dawson, a person knows something and all own life is guided by this. Given this, many researchers explain the religion, its nature and origin, proceeding primarily from the idea of God as "fundamental truth", "absolute subject" of religion. They state that religion has arisen and exists only because there is God and there is a person, who is able to accept it under certain conditions. O. Men’, one of the prominent Orthodox theologians, grounding the supernatural essence of religion, emphasized that religion is the human answer to the manifestation of God's essence in a person. In our theoretical research we sought to demonstrate the scientific psychophysiological approach to understanding this phenomenon. Such modern scholars as D. Swaab, R. Furman, A. Newberg, M. Persinger and many others, using the latest methods of psychophysiological research in their works, state that this is the peculiarity of a human brain certain structures’ activity, its functional determinant.