Deepak Chopra operates a business that offers "life-changing retreats" and courses instructing clients in meditation and "alternative medicine," especially Indian techniques. In How to Know God he postulates seven responses of the brain to God. From this notion he constructs a detailed theistic scheme. A prominent theme of the book is an attempt to relate his ideas to quantum physics. Readers and reviewers have heaped praise on the work, but it contains numerous errors of fact and logic. In this essay Michael D. Reynolds demonstrates some of the errors in the foundational first chapter of the book.
Could it be that Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and a well-known critic of religion, believes in transcendence—and perhaps even in God? Author Lisa Miller of Newsweek International seems to think so. What are the facts?
"Dr. Jill Taylor's book, My Stroke of Insight is the story of a neuroscientist who experiences a stroke and loses the faculties of the left side of her brain. Her stroke became a mixed blessing as it transformed her into a spiritual person. Her story provides wonderful insights into right-brain functions, the brain that deals with the mysteries of creativity as well as spirituality. I feel optimistic that Jill Taylor's book can develop a bridge between religious, spiritual and secular people so that they can develop insights into those practices and experiences that are traditionally discussed in religious and holy books, and develop a language that can be used to share experiences and insights."
An obscure Jewish sect in New York has been gripped in awe by what it believes to be a mystical visitation by a 20lb carp that was heard shouting in Hebrew, in what many Jews worldwide are hailing as a modern miracle. Many of the 7,000-member Skver sect of Hasidim in New Square, 30 miles north of Manhattan, believe that God has revealed himself in fish form.
