Acknowledgements ; Chapter One: Introduction ; Chapter Two: Religion and Natural Selection ; Chapter Three: Wonder and the Moral Emotions ; Chapter Four: The Chemistry of Consciousness ; Chapter Five: Sexuality and Religious Passion ; Chapter Six: Pain, Healing, and Spiritual Renewal ; Chapter Seven: Spirituality In/Of the Flesh ; Notes ; Index

"In this work of broad scholarly foundations, Robert Fuller demonstrates that an emphasis on religion's ultimate grounding in human embodiment -- in our genetic dispositions, the electro-chemical activity of our brains, our sexual impulses, and our experience of the body in sickness and health -- need not reduce human piety to a meaningless or merely functional by-product of human evolution. To the contrary, this fundamental principle provides Fuller with a context in which to explore in depth the richness of religious traditions and spiritual practices as they have been formed by bodily dispositions and as they shape our experiences of the world and ourselves in turn." --David Wulff, Professor of Psychology, Wheaton College, author of Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary "Writing against both the debilitating relativisms of the humanities and the gross reductionisms of the natural sciences, Robert C. Fuller offers us here a third method or path through that one indisputable universal of all human culture and religion -- the human body. And this is a real body, not simply another "cultural image." This is lived flesh, combinative DNA, fearful and wondrous emotion, chemically catalyzed vision, pounding sex, ecstatic orgasm, excruciating pain, the natural environment in crisis, nature at its most intimate, a multi-billion-year evolved universe becoming conscious in, well, us. The possibilities for new thought and new theory seem literally endless here, "in the flesh." --Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion "This is a detailed yet fast-moving exploration of what science can, and cannot, tell us about the role of biology in spirituality. Ironically, even as Americans are becoming increasingly religious, scientists are discovering more and more about the brain systems and genes that underlie our beliefs. The strength of this book is that it will be equally appealing to devout believers and atheists alike." --Dean Hamer, molecular biologist and author of The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Gene "Writing against both the debilitating relativisms of the humanities and the gross reductionisms of the natural sciences, Robert C. Fuller offers us here a third method or path through that one indisputable universal of all human culture and religion -- the human body. And this is a real body, not simply another "cultural image." This is lived flesh, combinative DNA, fearful and wondrous emotion, chemically catalyzed vision, pounding sex, ecstatic orgasm, excruciating pain, the natural environment in crisis, nature at its most intimate, a multi-billion-year evolved universe becoming conscious in, well, us. The possibilities for new thought and new theory seem literally endless here, "in the flesh." --Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion "This is a detailed yet fast-moving exploration of what science can, and cannot, tell us about the role of biology in spirituality. Ironically, even as Americans are becoming increasingly religious, scientists are discovering more and more about the brain systems and genes that underlie our beliefs. The strength of this book is that it will be equally appealing to devout believers and atheists alike." --Dean Hamer, molecular biologist and author of The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes

Robert C. Fuller is Professor of Religious Studies at Bradley University. He is the author of numerous books, including Spiritual, But Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America, Naming the Antichrist, Alternative Medicine and American Religious Life, and Americans and the Unconscious.