At its most basic level, "conceiving God" is a cognitive brainstorm. Neurologists have often noted that when people contemplate the divine, the parts of the brain associated with self-reflection and social interaction—the medial prefrontal cortex—light up. In a very literal sense, our brainstorms about God are often mirror images of our own values, fears, and social structures. We project a "Super-Self" onto the canvas of the universe to make sense of the chaos. The "Perversions" of the Divine Image
The phrase "Conceiving God: Perversions and Brainstorms" suggests a provocative look at how the human mind constructs, distorts, and reimagines the divine. To explore this, we have to look at the intersection of psychology, neurobiology, and theology. The Architect in the Gray Matter Conceiving God: Perversions and Brainstorms; A ...
Ultimately, "Conceiving God" is a cycle of building a mental model (the brainstorm) and then realizing its limitations (the perversion). It is a process of "un-knowing"—breaking the old images to find something deeper beneath the brainstorm. At its most basic level, "conceiving God" is
The ultimate tension lies in the fact that to "conceive" of something infinite using a finite brain is, by definition, a failed brainstorm. Every concept we create is a "perversion" because it is a reduction. As the philosopher Xenophanes famously noted, if horses had hands and could draw, they would draw their gods looking like horses. We project a "Super-Self" onto the canvas of
This views the divine as a celestial vending machine. Through "Prosperity Gospel" or rigid legalism, the brainstorm becomes a contract: "If I do X, God must provide Y."