January 5, 2003
WETWARE (via Buttercup):
Brain is wired for God, scientists say: Religion could have physiological basis (Amy Ellis Nutt, 01/04/03, Newhouse News Service)The human brain, even at its ancient, primitive core, is less an organ of impulse than a machine of reason. We are built to make sense of things. Our brains restlessly scan the world for patterns in chaos and causes in coincidence.We crave comprehension and, when faced with life's mysteries, sometimes we create explanations.
For many people, the answer to the most ineffable question of all -- "Why do we exist?" -- is God.
Neuroscientist Rhawn Joseph has spent years studying history, myth and biology in his quest to understand the universality of spiritual experience and its evolutionary function.
In his studies of the brains of Tibetan monks and Franciscan nuns, radiologist Andrew Newberg seeks out the relationship between neural activity and mystical experience.
Both men believe that the connection between the brain and spirituality suggests that there is a physiological basis for religion -- that human beings are hard-wired for God. [...]
"What we're really talking about is that, regardless of whether God truly exists or not, in some sense it's not even a relevant issue. Human beings are always going to have this sense of connection to God, defining God broadly, whether we create it ourselves or whether there really is a God."
Which leads us to the "chicken or the egg" question. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 5, 2003 11:14 AM
It makes sense that there would be a neurological basis for religion, it explains both the prevalence of religion, and the variability of religious content over time and across cultures.
I am surprised that religious conservatives have not made a louder oucry agains research of this type. If these kinds of findings are confirmed and become accepted science, it will tend to have a corrosive effect on religious authority.
Another book offering a neurological explanation of religion is "Religion Explained" by Pascal Boyer. It's an extremely tedious read, though ultimately interesting if you can get through it. A more fascinating book on how the mind creates "reality", though it doesn't address religion, is "The User Illusion" by Tor Norretranders.
Why? It can just be seen as another function of intelligent design and suggests that atheists are unnatural.
Posted by: oj at January 5, 2003 12:09 PMOr it suggests that the brain is naturally flexible.
I have a problem with the opening sentence,
that the brain naturally reasons. True
enough, as far as it goes, but you can
reason from evidence, or you can reason
from -- for lack of a better word --
concepts that the brain manufactures for
itself.
There seems quite a lot of evidence (from
Loftus, for example) that in the absence
of evidence, our brains just make it up.
Whether lower animals do this seems
doubtful.
It could be that the ability to create worlds
is just another way of defining consciousness.
I agree with Robert that these naturalistic
interpretations of thought are corrosive
of actual religion, because they end up with
La Placianism.
Even so, you could still argue that humans
require even their own manufactured
spirituality to function because we are
not rational.
I think this explains evil.
Speaking from the other side :-), I have to agree with OJ that this isn't strong evidence either way. Evolutionary psychologists have to explain why that neural structure would evolve (of course, some already have
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That's the wrong link - try here
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Orrin, this line of inquiry poses an alternative to the traditional religious explanation for things, namely, that what we have called revelation is actually an invention of the mind. This is what skeptics have been saying all along, and these studies reinforce the skeptical position.
Over time, if people are offered two explanations for religion, one supernatural and one natural, the supernatural position is bound to suffer some erosion.
Note that I said "religious authority" in my first post, not "religion". These kinds of studies make it clear that religion is a natural human trait, and won't just disappear. But it makes it harder to convince people that any one religious orthodoxy represents the truth.
I would take religious claims more seriously if religion was an alien concept to human minds, and there was a single occurence of religious revelation in history, which could not be explained by any natural theory. As it is, religious revelations happen constantly http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/02/lester.htm
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