Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality »

Barbara Bradley Hagerty is the award-winning religion correspondent for National Public Radio. She is the recipient of the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship in Science and Religion, and a Knight Fellowship at Yale Law School. Before joining NPR, she was a reporter at The Christian Science Monitor for eleven years.

From the award-winning NPR religion correspondent comes a fascinating investigation of how science is seeking to answer the question that has puzzled humanity for generations: Can science explain God?

The Washington Post - Christine Rosen

In another writer's hands, much of the material in this book might have become fodder for ridicule…But throughout the book, one is struck by the humility Hagerty brings to her subject—something lacking in many contemporary debates over the meaning of faith and the existence of God—and her skepticism about the science offered up as proof of spiritual experience…Hagerty's engaging book poses a provocative challenge to anyone who has ever wondered where faith comes from, and what it can do for—and to—us.

Ch. 1 Crossing the Stream 1

Ch. 2 The God Who Breaks and Enters 16

Ch. 3 The Biology of Belief 45

Ch. 4 The Triggers for God 63

Ch. 5 Hunting for the God Gene 81

Ch. 6 Isn't God a Trip? 104

Ch. 7 Searching for the God Spot 134

Ch. 8 Spiritual Virtuosos 164

Ch. 9 Out of My Body or out of My Mind? 192

Ch. 10 Are We Dead Yet? 216

Ch. 11 A New Name for God 243

Ch. 12 Paradigm Shifts 268

Acknowledgments 287

Notes 291

Index 313