THERE have been some fairly wacky experiments done to get an empirical handle on religion, from photographing seances to the electrically wired “God helmet” that makes people swear they feel the presence of the Almighty. But among the oddest is a series funded by the Pennsylvania-based Templeton Foundation at Baroness Susan Greenfield’s Oxford Centre for the Science of the Mind in the UK.
The idea is to see if religious feelings change the perception of pain. This is, with respect, a no-brainer. Researchers have been finding profound differences in people’s perception of pain according to any number…
