From the NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/opinion/13brooks.html?ref=opinion

Re “The Neural Buddhists” (column, May 13):

In 1996, Tom Wolfe wrote a brilliant essay called “Sorry, but Your Soul
Just Died,” in which he captured the militant materialism of some modern
scientists.

To these self-confident researchers, the idea that the spirit might
exist apart from the body is just ridiculous. Instead, everything arises
from atoms. Genes shape temperament. Brain chemicals shape behavior.
Assemblies of neurons create consciousness. Free will is an illusion.
Human beings are “hard-wired” to do this or that. Religion is an accident.

In this materialist view, people perceive God’s existence because their
brains have evolved to confabulate belief systems. You put a magnetic
helmet around their heads and they will begin to think they are having a
spiritual epiphany. If they suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy, they
will show signs of hyperreligiosity, an overexcitement of the brain
tissue that leads sufferers to believe they are conversing with God.