An Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions




In 2008 I received a letter from Prof. Nina Azari, inviting me to collaborate on a project that she had just devised. I do not know her and I have no idea why she chose me as one of the many persons that she invited to join her project.

 At that time Dr. Azari was working at the Department of Psychology of the University of Hawaii at Hilo. She is now a part of the science faculty of Ridgeview Classical Schools in Fort Collins, Colorado.

 She is a specialist in cognitive neuroscience and psychology of religion. She uses psychological methods and medical imaging technology to study things like religious experiences, consciousness, belief and perception in her volunteer subjects. In one of her best known studies she used positron emission tomography (PET-Scan) to measure brain activity in six fundamentalist Christians and six non-religious controls. 

 Each subject had go through six different situations: 1 - stay resting for a few minutes; 2- read the first verse of the 23rd psalm; 3- recite the psalm out loud; 4 - read a happy story; 5 - recite the story out loud,  and 6 - read a neutral text.

 Dr. Azari was expecting to see activity in the limbic system, for many researchers had suggested that this part of the brain is a center for religious activity. Instead of that she found increased activity in three areas of the frontal and parietal cortex that are involved in rational thought. The control group did not show activity in these parts of their brains when reading or reciting the psalm. And, surprisingly, the only thing that triggered limbic activity in either group was reading the happy story.

 Dr. Azari’s project was to create an Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. 

 Relations between Science and Religion have always been complicated, and even today some religious people look at Science as a sort of menace to their beliefs. There is no question on my mind, however, that the quest for scientific knowledge is a gift of God; it is something that human beings just have to pursue. And this project proves that this is the way that most philosophers, theologists and scientists think.

 Eventually the project became too big and Dr. Azari had to have some help. She received it from Dr. Anne L. C. Runehov, Professor of Systematic Theology at the Copenhagen University in Denmark, and Dr. Lluis Oviedo, of the Pontificia Universita Antonianum in Rome. And eventually she decided to resign from the project, which was continued by Drs. Runehov and Oviedo.

 The Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions has now been published and is an amazing work, with four volumes, 19 section editors and more than 400 collaborators. I am proud to have written the entry on Neurotology that, like all of the entries in the book, is a mixture of science and philosophy. 

 I loved the Encyclopedia’s dedication:

 To all who love the God with a 1000 names and respect science.

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