Are humans hard-wired for faith?

[Eddo36]

Saw this article a bit back. Was interesting. Belief is the best way for people to cope with the fear of the unknown like death. Thoughts?

 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/04/04/neuro...logy/index.html

 

NEW YORK (CNN) -- "I just know God is with me. I can feel Him always," a young Haitian woman once told me.

 

"I've meditated and gone to another place I can't describe. Hours felt like mere minutes. It was an indescribable feeling of peace," recalled a CNN colleague.

 

"I've spoken in languages I've never learned. It was God speaking through me," confided a relative.

 

The accounts of intense religious and spiritual experiences are topics of fascination for people around the world. It's a mere glimpse into someone's faith and belief system. It's a hint at a person's intense connection with God, an omniscient being or higher plane. Most people would agree the experience of faith is immeasurable.

 

Dr. Andrew Newberg, neuroscientist and author of "Why We Believe What We Believe," wants to change all that. He's working on ways to track how the human brain processes religion and spirituality. It's all part of new field called neurotheology.

 

After spending his early medical career studying how the brain works in neurological and psychiatric conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, depression and anxiety, Newberg took that brain-scanning technology and turned it toward the spiritual: Franciscan nuns, Tibetan Buddhists, and Pentecostal Christians speaking in tongues. His team members at the University of Pennsylvania were surprised by what they found.

 

"When we think of religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, we see a tremendous similarity across practices and across traditions."

 

The frontal lobe, the area right behind our foreheads, helps us focus our attention in prayer and meditation.

 

The parietal lobe, located near the backs of our skulls, is the seat of our sensory information. Newberg says it's involved in that feeling of becoming part of something greater than oneself.

 

The limbic system, nestled deep in the center, regulates our emotions and is responsible for feelings of awe and joy.

 

Newberg calls religion the great equalizer and points out that similar areas of the brain are affected during prayer and meditation. Newberg suggests that these brain scans may provide proof that our brains are built to believe in God. He says there may be universal features of the human mind that actually make it easier for us to believe in a higher power.

 

Interestingly enough, devout believers and atheists alike point to the brain scans as proof of their own ideas.

 

Some nuns and other believers champion the brain scans as proof of an innate, physical conduit between human beings and God. According to them, it would only make sense that God would give humans a way to communicate with the Almighty through their brain functions.

 

Some atheists saw these brain scans as proof that the emotions attached to religion and God are nothing more than manifestations of brain circuitry.

 

Scott Atran doesn't consider himself an atheist, but he says the brain scans offer little in terms of understanding why humans believe in God. He is an anthropologist and author of "In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion."

 

Instead of viewing religion and spirituality as an innate quality hardwired by God in the human brain, he sees religion as a mere byproduct of evolution and Darwinian adaptation.

 

"Just like we're not hardwired for boats, but humans in all cultures make boats in pretty much the same way, Atran explains. "Now, that's a result both of the way the brain works and of the needs of the world, and of trying to traverse a liquid medium and so I think religion is very much like that."

 

Atran points to the palms of his hands as another example of evolutionary coincidence. He says the creases formed there are a mere byproduct of human beings working with our hands -- stretching back to the ages of striking the first fires, hunting the first prey to building early shelter. Although, the patterns in our palms were coincidentally formed by eons of evolution and survival, he points out that cultures around the world try to find meaning in them through different forms of palm reading.

 

Anthropologists like Atran say, "Religion is a byproduct of many different evolutionary functions that organized our brains for day-to-day activity."

 

To be sure, religion has the unparalleled power to bring people into groups. Religion has helped humans survive, adapt and evolve in groups over the ages. It's also helped us learn to cope with death, identify danger and finding mating partners.

 

Today, scientific images can track our thoughts on God, but it would take a long leap of faith to identify why we think of God in the first place.

[Guest The Architect]

Get rid of that damn avatar!

[Humodour]

Skimmed it. Quick thoughts: faith needn't be associated with religion in any way. But yes, belief and faith are intrinsic parts of human reasoning and decision making.

 

I have faith that what people tell me about gravity is true. I have faith the gravity will act tomorrow like it did today.

[Arkan]

Skimmed it. Quick thoughts: faith needn't be associated with religion in any way. But yes, belief and faith are intrinsic parts of human reasoning and decision making.

 

I have faith that what people tell me about gravity is true. I have faith the gravity will act tomorrow like it did today.

 

 

That's not the same thing as faith. Based on experience, it is reasonable to assume gravity will act tomorrow like it did today. No faith needed.

[Xard]

Faith can too be based on experience

[Nick_i_am]

Get rid of that damn avatar!

 

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[Dark_Raven]

Faith no more.

[Enoch]

It's evolutionary biology. Primitive societies in nature survive better when they are cohesive and stable. Religion makes primitive societies more cohesive and stable (e.g., "don't overthrow the chief-- the gods will punish you!"). Thus, population groups with strong religious tendencies (i.e., a genepool characterized by well-developed brain development in the areas associated with religious experiences) tend to thrive moreso than those with weak religious tendencies.

[Walsingham]

It's evolutionary biology. Primitive societies in nature survive better when they are cohesive and stable. Religion makes primitive societies more cohesive and stable (e.g., "don't overthrow the chief-- the gods will punish you!"). Thus, population groups with strong religious tendencies (i.e., a genepool characterized by well-developed brain development in the areas associated with religious experiences) tend to thrive moreso than those with weak religious tendencies.

 

Interesting notion. But what makes the point relevant only to primitive societies? Unstable societies are the majority across the globe.

[Enoch]

It's evolutionary biology. Primitive societies in nature survive better when they are cohesive and stable. Religion makes primitive societies more cohesive and stable (e.g., "don't overthrow the chief-- the gods will punish you!"). Thus, population groups with strong religious tendencies (i.e., a genepool characterized by well-developed brain development in the areas associated with religious experiences) tend to thrive moreso than those with weak religious tendencies.

 

Interesting notion. But what makes the point relevant only to primitive societies? Unstable societies are the majority across the globe.

I'm not entirely sure, but it's certainly true that the most dominant modern societies on the globe are religiously pluralistic. I'd surmise that the rise of modern civilization made other factors contributing to societal success more important than religious cohesiveness. For example, the rise of an ethos of nationalism essential replaces religious cohesion with national cohesion.

[Shryke]

on a serious note though, i'm not all that surprised that people are making their own interpretations about this

 

it seems to me perfectly rational for the faithful to believe this is just another aspect of "god's design" etc etc

it's not something i will personally believe though *shrug*

Edited February 27, 2008 by Fionavar

[Fionavar]

Thread Pruned ... just once ...

 

*starts derailment stop-watch*

[Guest The Architect]

Your post interests me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

Well, you'll just have to wait till next year!

 

And if you choose to complain violently about it... then, my sacrificial underling Krezack will face you, to receive a beating until I call Eddo to come down from the sky in his parachute with jet-pack and shoot you in the face with a gun!

[Fionavar]

And that's a wrap ...