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SKOKEY
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God is all in the head
NPR's All Things Considered is running a series this week on brain chemistry and belief in spiritual things. It's quite interesting and seems to confirm what I've thought on the subject. Believers definitely have different brains. It's funny that when the research subjects are told about how their brains are different, they don't say, "Wow, so it is all in my head" and instead say, "Our brains allow us to experience the truth". The experiences those people have are so real to them, we could never convince them otherwise. There is evidence that physical changes to the brain such as during brain surgery, can change a persons view of reality concerning belief or non belief.
Here are the first 3 episodes. Each one is about 8 minutes long.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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5/20/2009, 6:09 pm
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Lesigner Girl
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Re: God is all in the head
"Our brains allow us to experience the truth".
That's a typical response. 
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5/20/2009, 7:04 pm
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SKOKEY
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Re: God is all in the head
I think he phrased it a bit different but that's how I interpreted and remembered it.
Wouldn't it be a shock if we are the ones with the brain defect and one day are face to face with the maker? I do find it odd that there are less of us than the spiritual people. In evolutionary terms, there must have been a survival advantage to believing in spirits.
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5/20/2009, 7:16 pm
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Lesigner Girl
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Re: God is all in the head
Religion would have to be a byproduct of other things that are useful. To give some possible examples...
Very young children can be very trusting of their elders. When they are told, "Don't jump off a cliff" or, "Don't leave the hut by yourself," and they listen, this helps the child to grow up so they can have children of their own.
If a child doesn't trust their elders and jumps off a cliff anyway, or is eaten by a lion because they left the hut and wandered into the jungle alone, that child won't go on to reproduce.
When a child is raised by people who believe in gods, that child starts life out with that assumption, because they trust their elders to tell them the truth.
Also, I think there is a big correlation between belief and imagination. Thanks to the human imagination, we have created tools, learned how to grow crops, etc. It is this imagination that gives people ideas on why there are such things as hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, illness, and so on, and when people weren't advanced enough to figure it out, they used their imaginations to invent a reason. Likewise, imaginations can cause people to see and hear things that aren't there, feel like they are being watched when they're not, etc.
Of course, magic shrooms may have played a part in the invention of gods, as well.
Humans also look for patterns in things, and this can also be beneficial to our survival. Take growing crops, for instance, or stocking up on wood because you know winter will be coming. But looking for patterns can also lead to religiosity and other superstitions, such as a lucky shirt bringing good fortune, or breaking a mirror causing bad luck. "As soon as I finished praying, a parking space opened up. Hallelujia!"
So no, it isn't religiosity that has helped in evolutionary terms, but other beneficial traits that, when combined, can create and maintain religion as a byproduct.
Why are moths always attracted to porch lights and fire? Because they use the moon to navigate, but their eyes have not evolved enough to tell the difference between the moon and a light that is nearby.
As for why there are so few non-believers compared with believers? I'm not so sure that is really the case. If it is, then there would be a lot of contributing factors. Since we are in a thread discussing brain chemistry as a factor (which has come about through evolution), then I will take a stab at that one.
I think we have evolved in such a way that we have developed beneficial traits that lead us away from religion, as well as diminished other traits that used to be more important to our ancestors' survival. Simply put, our brain chemistry is different. Some people are more logically-minded, while others are more imaginative and/or more trusting.
Wouldn't it be a shock if we are the ones with the brain defect and one day are face to face with the maker?
If some magical being were to knowingly and deliberately create lifeforms without the ability to believe in it and then damn them for eternity for not believing in it, such a being would not be worthy of being worshipped.
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5/20/2009, 8:14 pm
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Morwen Oronor
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Re: God is all in the head
Here's another reason for there being believers and non=believers: society needs leaders and it needs followers, and sometimes the followers need leaders too.
Watching John Adams yesterday, something really became very evident to me.
The people who were daring enough to go ahead and declare independence and the ones that wanted to hold back and wait to see what happened.
The way I see it, the ones who were ready to say 'let's just do it' were the Democrats, i.e. the natural leaders.
The ones who held back and kept saying 'no let's wait and see' are the ancestors of today's "Republican-minded" people, the ones who still want to wait and see today and who resist change like letting gay people get married etc etc.
So to get back to the topic, I see the leaders as the ones who don't need external validation for their desire to explore new things and who will "boldly go where no man has gone before" and the followers (i.e. the people who need religion) as the ones who say it "was good for my father, so it's good enough for me".
And there are more of these people because we need more people who produce food than we need people to tell them how to distribute the food.
Enough from me, I have more thoughts, but I'll give someone else a chance to speak,
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The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.William Spencer Churchill
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5/20/2009, 10:17 pm
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SKOKEY
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Re: God is all in the head
An evolutionary advantage may also be that, generally speaking, religious folks with hope of a bright future and everlasting life have a stronger placebo effect on disease. The stronger your will to live and the feeling that mystical beings are pulling for you, the better chances of you getting over what is making you sick.
If you're just a miserable wretch with no desire to go on living, you are more likely to curl up and die.
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5/21/2009, 5:57 am
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Morwen Oronor
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Re: God is all in the head
On the other hand, the knowledge that you have only this one chance could drive you to take better care of yourself and thereby gain a longer life than if you just give up with the belief that the life after this one is better.
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The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.William Spencer Churchill
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5/21/2009, 6:21 am
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SKOKEY
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Re: God is all in the head
Oh sure, there's us well adjusted atheists who can think like that, but the research on the general population seems to indicate otherwise.
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5/21/2009, 11:32 am
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