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Searching for patterns

How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, by Michael Shermer

How do we believe, especially believe in God? Do we believe for rational reasons? Is a leap of faith rational or irrational? If science has a patent on reasoning, and if religious faith is denied a license to use reason, then faith gets stuck with what is not rational. Because many skeptics assume that religion has nothing to do with reason, for them faith or lack of faith is the product of a choice based on emotions.

Neurotheology?

The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience, by Eugene D'Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg

A century ago the psychologist William James identified what he saw as a common core in religious experience, universal across cultures, and he argued (in The Varieties of Religious Experience) against a "medical materialism" that would reduce and dismiss such experience. Since that time many have tried to understand religion through the study of religious experience, and many, like James, have given special attention to mysticism.