Lesson video

Hi, my name is Ms. Marks, and today, I'm gonna be your religious education teacher.

Our lesson today is called the temporal lobe, and it's part of our unit on the psychology of religion.

It's really interesting and I can't wait to get started.

So, let's go.

By the end of our lesson today, you will be able to describe what the temporal lobe is and why some scientists link this to religious experiences.

But first, let's start with our key words and our words are epilepsy, neuroscience, religious experience, senses, and temporal lobe.

Epilepsy is a medical condition where a person has repeated fits or episodes caused by unusual brain activity.

Neuroscience is the study of how the brain and the nervous system work.

A neuroscientist is a person who studies this.

Religious experience is a personal feeling or a moment when someone believes they connect with a higher power or with God.

Senses are the way that a human or animal body gathers information about the world around them.

And the temporal lobe is part of the brain that helps with hearing, memory, and understanding language.

So, look out for those today.

Our lesson today will have two parts.

Firstly, we're going to look at the temporal lobe as part of the brain, and then secondly, we're gonna look at the temporal lobe and how this connects with religious experiences.

So, firstly, the temporal lobe as a part of the brain.

Where would someone feel the following things? Now, you may point to the screen, you might have drawn a person on a piece of paper, or you might point on your own body, or you could just think about where would someone feel these things? Hunger, an itchy bite on your cheek, and a stubbed toe.

Have a think about where you might feel those.

You could pause the video and talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, actually, all of those things are felt in the brain.

You might have thought you'd feel hunger in your stomach or a bite on your cheek or a stubbed toe in your foot, but where you are actually experiencing those feelings is in your brain.

Well, how does that work then? Well, each of those sensations I mentioned earlier relate to a part of the body, yes, but we experience the feeling of them in our brains.

When someone stubs their toe, a signal of pain has sent through the nervous system of the body up to the brain.

Ow.

It sends a signal up to the brain.

And then, the brain knows not to let the foot go back to the same direction again.

You learn not to whack your toe on that table, but you go past every morning, because the signal has gone to your brain to tell you to do this.

And this works from all the different senses of the body.

So, the brain is like gathering information constantly about the world around you from your senses.

And it's processing it a bit like we might say a computer does.

So, as you can see, the body here has all those nerves leading up to the brain, bringing in information, everything it's seeing, feeling, touching, tasting, and sensing about the world around it.

And the information from the senses feed into a picture for the brain of what the world is like outside of the body.

But sometimes it's not an exact copy of what's actually happening in physical reality, but the person can feel that it's very real, 'cause their brain is telling them something is happening.

So, Izzy, Alex, Lucas, and Aisha are talking about the times the brain might not exactly give a copy of reality here.

You may have heard of some of these things or have some other ideas.

So, Aisha says, some people have amputations and they can still feel their limbs.

So, if you have a limb like your legs or your arms amputated, which means cut off, sadly, sometimes people still feel it even though it's not there and it can be really horrible, 'cause you've gotta try and like scratch something that's not even there to scratch.

And so, we know that their brain is feeling something that isn't physically there.

Lucas says that sometimes people have deja vu when they haven't been there before.

So, deja vu is that strong sense people sometimes get that they've been somewhere before or they've heard a certain thing before.

They've already sensed it and they are doing it for a second time, but they know they haven't really, but it really feels strongly like they have.

I dunno if you've ever had deja vu.

Izzy says, sometimes in a dark room, people see figures that aren't there.

And when you flick the light on, oh, it was just a coat on the back of the door.

It wasn't really a person in the corner of the room.

And Alex says, well, in the desert, sometimes people see mirages that aren't there.

Very cruel, isn't it? If you're super thirsty in the desert and it looks like water, but it's not really there, but your eyes and your brain process it as if there is something there.

Let's do a quick check.

Which two statements are correct about the brain? The brain uses information from the senses to have a picture of what's in the world around the body.

The brain processes information it gets from the senses through the nervous system.

And the brain has an exact copy of how the world is around the person's body.

Which two are correct? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Yes, the first two were correct.

The brain does use information from the senses to have a picture of the world, and it does process information through the nervous system, but it doesn't always have an exact copy of how the world is around that person's body.

Different parts of the brain then work together by sending messages to each other.

It's very complex, the brain, and there's different parts that do different things and the way it communicates with each other.

These messages are electrical impulses sent along pathways that connect them.

So, I've got an image here of a computer circuit sort of showing that, that they'll go along the pathway and connect to each other to form that picture of how the world is in reality outside of the body.

So, we can think of it like a computer with signals being sent through a circuit board.

The computer works as a whole, but there are different areas that focus on different things.

One important area of the brain is the temporal lobe.

It's shown in red on the GIF here.

The temporal lobe is connected to speech, words, and memories.

And can you see quite well protected there around about here in the brain.

And it's got two sites.

It also has other parts of the brain in there.

They're all connected to each other, which help with our emotional feelings connected to our experiences.

So, how we might think about what we've experienced, how we might feel about a memory to do with something we've experienced.

And that's important for what we're thinking about today.

And neuroscientists are really interested in the brain and particularly the different areas of the brain.

But where does this word neuroscience come from? Well, it comes from Greek and Latin.

And it has these two stems, neuro meaning nerve and science from scientia meaning knowledge.

And you probably know the word science from maybe some subjects you're studying at school.

So, therefore, a neuroscientist investigates how the brain works in relation to the nerves in the body.

Laura explains to us in her lab outfit here why neuroscientists are interested in the temporal lobe.

Laura says, one area that processes sense information for our brain is the temporal lobe.

Neuroscientists study this to help us understand more how the brain works.

This means they can help people who have medical conditions that affect how the brain works.

Let's do another check.

Is this true or false? The temporal lobe is part of the brain that's connected to words, speeches, and memories.

Is that true or false? Well done.

That is true.

The temporal lobe is a part of the brain connected to words, speech, and memories.

One medical condition which influence how the brain functions is epilepsy.

Sometimes this is described as an electrical storm in the brain.

So, epilepsy is a medical condition that people can have help for, but it is quite a hard condition to live with.

When someone has an epileptic fit or an incident, sometimes they're called seizures, the signals that are usually sent around the brain are set off course, interrupted, or changed.

So, if we remember the brain is working with signals going back and forth to different parts of it, and if they get interrupted or sent in the wrong way, then that can have a big influence on a person who's suffering from epilepsy.

This can give the person strong sensations and feelings that aren't always coming from their senses outside of the body, but they're internal to the brain to what the brain is doing.

So, for example, they might hear sounds that aren't really there or see something isn't really there in reality.

And that's what some people who suffer from epilepsy describe.

One form of epilepsy is temporal lobe epilepsy.

So, we're bringing together some of our keywords here.

Temporal lobe epilepsy change how signals are sent to and from the temporal lobe, because we've said that epilepsy is a condition that can upset the way that the messages are sent when someone's having an epileptic moment.

So, therefore, it can change how this is happening in the temporal lobe.

And remember, the temporal lobe influences emotional reactions to sense, experiences, and memories.

So, I might feel things that aren't necessarily there in reality, or I might feel something but have a reaction to it, which is different to what I would normally have, a different emotional reaction.

So, therefore, temporal lobe epilepsy can cause strong emotional reactions to senses and also influence memories of an event.

So, let's do another check.

What term is a medical condition that can influence how signals are sent to different parts of the brain? Well done.

Yes, it's epilepsy is what we were just talking about earlier.

So, let's practise what we've learned so far.

Alex is trying to explain how temporal lobe epilepsy can influence the emotions and the memories that a person has, but parts of his explanation are incorrect.

Rewrite his explanation so it becomes correct.

So, I'm gonna read his explanation and you have to think what mistakes there might be and you can rewrite it to make sure it's correct.

The heart receives information from the senses and tells a person what they're experiencing.

The temporary load helps to create an emotional response to this.

If someone has temporal lobe agency, this can cause sensations that are in the world around the body and small emotional reactions to these experiences.

What mistakes has Alex made and how could you correct them? Off you go.

Well done for all your hard work there.

Let's see if we can correct what Alex has said.

Your answer should look something like this.

The brain receives information from senses and tells a person what they're experiencing.

The temporal lobe helps to create an emotional response to this.

If someone has temporal lobe epilepsy, this can cause sensations that aren't in the world around the body and intense emotional reactions to these experiences.

Well done.

So, onto part two, the temporal lobe and religious experiences.

Sometimes when people have an experience that's out of ordinary, they can say it's a religious experience.

So, something that's so extraordinary, so unusual, they may say it's a religious experience.

And religious experiences are often part of historical stories in religions.

You might know some from religions you've already studied.

Here's two examples.

God speaking to Moses as a burning bush or Mary, the mother of Jesus, being visited by an angel.

So, it's not always necessarily God that is involved in these directly or a belief in a God.

It can be other things as well that are seen as religious experiences.

Some people believe they have religious experiences in modern times too, so perhaps through prayer or meditation.

And there are many different types of religious experiences both in the history of religions, but also in what some people say they experience today.

One common feeling is an intense love for all and an intense love for God or a higher power and an intense love for all of humanity.

Another common experience is hearing a voice of God or perhaps a voice of an angel.

Another common experience might be seeing heaven or having a vision of some life after death.

Sometimes people describe feeling a godly presence nearby or something divine or some kind of greater power being close to them.

Sometimes people say they see angels.

Sometimes people feel united with a higher power and they always feel like they lose themselves in this higher power.

So, these kind of things are often known as religious experiences, particularly if the person themselves feel that they're having a religious experience.

So, let's check that.

Is this true or false? All religious experiences are the same.

It's false, but why? Well, there's a large variety in what people experience as religious experiences, such as hearing the voice of God or feeling an intense connection to all living things.

So, there's a big variety of what a religious experience could be.

Some people who have temporal lobe epilepsy have experiences like those that we just read about when they have a fit or an incident due to their medical condition.

And let's meet Ramachandran.

He's a neuroscientist who studies temporal lobe epilepsy and the links with these experiences that people feel.

So, he's a neuroscientist who's really interested in temporal lobe epilepsy and how they can give people the sensation of a religious experience.

One of Ramachandran's patients is a young man called John, and his name really is John.

John has temporal lobe epilepsy and he has frequent fits and incidents, and he describes them as being like an earthquake in his body.

So, if you can imagine how strong that must feel to him, and it's something happening in his brain, if you remember, the epilepsy is that medical condition that can disrupt how the messages are sent through the brain.

So, he has a very, very strong feeling when he has this incident or fit.

When he has these, he feels extremely strong emotions, has a strong desire to talk about philosophy, and he believes he's having a God-like sensation.

Some of the feelings John has had due to his temporal lobe epilepsy are feeling he's omnipotent.

So, all powerful and like he can do anything.

Feeling a great pain at the thought of others suffering.

So, he speaks about watching the news and reading the papers and getting very, very, very upset at the thought of anyone else suffering.

Feeling he's spoken with God or that God has spoken directly to him.

Feeling like he must save the human race.

So, he also speaks about being a bit like Noah, who's a prophet in the Old Testament, who had to save the whole human race from a flood.

And he says he has that feeling when he has this fit.

Feeling an intense floating joy.

So, a more positive experience that he has there.

He feels so much joy.

And he says he often feels that every living thing is connected, every blade of grass, every single living thing is connected and alive together.

Now, can you see how some of these could link to the religious experiences we learned about earlier? Some of them may have some similarities there, and he himself says he feels like he is speaking with God.

But does the fact that we can see some natural causes to these supernatural feelings that people may have, like John with his temporal lobe epilepsy, mean that there is no higher power and no God involved in these experiences? Well, Izzy and Lucas are discussing this and what John's condition can tell us about the temporal lobe and religious experiences.

Izzy says, the fact that John's intense experiences are linked to his temporal lobe epilepsy could show that religious experiences have a natural rather than a supernatural cause.

So, we could see Izzy is suggesting, perhaps with all religious experiences, some kind of natural cause behind them, causing them, which aren't necessarily God or a higher power perhaps.

But Lucas says, well, if someone believes that God or a higher power created people and their brains, maybe they believe that God created some people to be able to have religious experiences in this way.

So, yes, there might be something natural we could see that's causing these experiences, but perhaps that was done as part of the plan from God in the first place.

And that's a bit like what Ramachandran says, our neuroscientist who we met earlier, who says that it's as if God designed some people's brains able to pick up on these messages more than others.

Alex, Aisha, and Laura are discussing what this might mean for religion.

Alex says, I think temporal lobe epilepsy shows that these religious experiences aren't really religious.

Aisha says, it could be one way that people have religious experiences, but there can be other supernatural ways that people have them too.

And Laura says, I think God designed some brains to have these experiences, so they could be natural and religious.

I wonder why Alex, Aisha, and Laura have these views.

Other things that could have informed them to have this perspective on this, because not everybody is going to have the same view about religious experiences and then temporal lobe, and that's fine.

Do you agree with Alex, Aisha, or Laura or do you have a different view of what might have informed your view on temporal lobe epilepsy and religious experiences? Let's do another check.

Which statement here is correct about John's experiences? John has a religious experience every day, John has only ever had one religious experience, or John has religious experiences when he has an epileptic fit or incident.

That's right, it's C, John has a religious experience when he has an epileptic fit or incident.

So, let's see what we've learned so far with this practise task.

You're going to see a statement from Izzy and a statement from Jacob, and you're going to give a reason as to why each of the statements could be seen as true.

So, Izzy's statement, temporal epilepsy shows that there is a natural cause to some religious experiences.

And Jacob's statement, not all religious experiences are caused by temporal lobe epilepsy.

There could be supernatural causes.

So, for each statement, you're going to think of a reason why they could be seen as true.

Off you go.

Some really good thinking happening there.

Well done.

So, we had a statement from Izzy and a statement from Jacob, which could both be seen as true around temporal lobe epilepsy and religious experiences.

How could we explain them to be both true? Your answer might have included, Izzy's statement could be true because neuroscientists have linked temporal lobe epilepsy as a physical condition to experiences that seem religious.

Jacob's statement could also be true, because there are many more different types of religious experiences than the ones John describes that may have causes like God or a higher power.

Well done for all your learning today.

This is a big topic to be covering the brain and religious experiences.

So, really well done.

Let's recap what we've learned.

The brain functions by receiving messages from the senses and processing this to form a picture of the world around the body.

The temporal lobe is an area of the brain that helps with speech, memory, and emotional responses to experiences.

Temporal lobe epilepsy is a condition that can cause intense experiences that can seem religious.

Temporal lobe epilepsy could mean the religious experiences have a natural cause, but there are other religious experiences which may have a supernatural cause.

It's been really fun learning with you today and I hope to see you soon.