Neurological explanation of religious belief?

[Deus Naturae]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW16Jy1HnH4

Thoughts?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Interesting, but I suspect that many who see it will interpret it in support of their existing beliefs concerning the existence of the Divine, tho it really doesn't lend itself to either an theist or an atheist position.  If the Divine exists and we are able to perceive it, then it stands to reason that given how our physical brains function there would be a portion of our brain through which we do that.  But just like being able to stimulate portions of the visual cortex doesn't disprove the existence light, being able to stimulate portions of the spiritual cortex doesn't disprove the existence of the Divine.  It doesn't prove it either tho.

[afleitch]

Probably. I'll post what I last said about it:

The TLDR version is this; more than likely with two extremes of brain functioning (autism and schizophrenia) providing some clues. If so, it has no impact on the unbeliever but it would have implications for belief systems

It’s not a matter of ‘anything goes’ with ideology. You can hold views that you can demonstrate are false. That position doesn’t really change.

To continue with what I was arguing earlier. It could be argued that because belief is an expression at all, then it must stand to reason that there has to be an element of ‘truth’ in it, otherwise it wouldn’t present itself as an option. The problem with that argument is that it in practice, it is not as selective as people would like. For the Christian it may affirm their belief, but it can also affirm the belief of someone who believes in Zeus, Xenu, elves or a talking fridge. So it may leave open the possibility that belief in something is true, but it does not define any further what that may be and still leaves the believer open to the pitfalls of pursuing the ‘wrong belief’ as expressed earlier. Furthermore such an argument by extension can be applied to any facet of human thought, physicality and ability; labelling one or more as ‘true’ merely because they are presented options.

For some people who are religious, their belief in a god in order to secure their own salvation (whether they consider salvation by faith alone, by works, or by both) requires that the dichotomy of belief v unbelief is not neutral. In order to be theologically consistent, they require their position to be correct (and by extension people who are classified by themselves as believers, but are not believers in his god are therefore also classified as ‘unbelievers.’) So the idea of both positions being neutral is contrary to that person’s belief and therefore cannot be true. However the issue here is not the premise of neutrality being wrong, but a person’s belief dictating to them that it has to be wrong in order to confirm their own belief. This again is something that is not unusual if we look at arguments utilised to suggest a ‘wrongness’ or a ‘disorder’ in someone who exhibits a trait which is merely an expression or extension of their humanity. While the tendency to view nature as a system open to the spiritual, paranormal, religious and intuitive is ‘neutral’ the conclusions reached can still be demonstrably false (and likewise for those who view nature as closed to such views)

On what basis can the argument for tendencies to belief and non-belief to be merely neutral positions be made? Belief in god is interlinked with social cognition (see my discussion in the ‘Is Atheism a mental illness’ thread); our ability and our propensity to think about minds other than our own. The study that piqued my interest was published in 2011 by Boston University on those who scored highly on the AQ, a standard test designed to measure people against the autistic spectrum which suggested those that scored higher on the spectrum tended to have both higher levels of atheist/agnostic levels of belief, but also higher levels of ‘internal’ belief systems; systems of morality based on an individuals perception of the world without recourse to other methods of perception. Jesse Bering in 2002 noted that in autobiographical accounts written by people with high functioning autism (such as Asperger’s Syndrome), god is seen more as a principle; a notion, rather than as a person. Given that he is a notion, then any discussion of god trends towards the deistic on the basis that the concept of ‘god the person’ is not tangible (i.e a god possessing human characteristics and concerned with human affairs) Those who are religious with high functioning autism (see Simon Baron Cohen) tend to be religious because of the order, system and sense of ritual that it brings rather than any form of anthropomorphising by the believer.

People on the autistic spectrum often lack the ability to see the purpose in objects or events. As mentioned earlier this is not necessarily disadvantageous except on an immediate level (the snake in the grass) as humans have a tendency to over see, or over think purpose in events that are natural or explainable. Humans have an inbuilt bias towards intuition and seeking a teleological connection in all events. Bering and Bethany Heywood found that while even atheists tend to say that some things happened to them ‘for a reason’, subjects with Aspergers gave ‘fewer teleological responses than the control group.’ Indeed, some even expressed confusion over why teleological responses to some questions could ever be given by anyone at all. A 2012 study from the University of British Columbia also concluded that those who scored more highly on the AQ had a weaker belief in a personal god. The same was true of people who scored lowly on the AQ but highly on the EQ (Empathy Quotient). The third conclusion was that men were much less likely than women to say they strongly believed in a personal god even controlling for autism (which has higher incidences of diagnoses in men)

If you are disposed to thinking that being on the autistic spectrum is a ‘deficiency’ as opposed to simply a quirk of post natal development that even predisposes those who suffer from it to some particular advantages, then you could conclude that ‘non belief’ is somehow a deficit in itself. The counter argument to this is of course, is that people who are on the autistic spectrum have a tendency to not over analyse the ‘purpose’ in mundane events and may be able to reach a more nuanced and more accurate view as to their cause (if any)

It has been established for a longer period (and to a greater degree of controversy) that schizophrenia and religious belief have an intrinsic link. Those who suffer from schizophrenic or schizotypal episodes can suffer from aural and visual hallucinations that to the sufferer are unambiguously real. An external observer may conclude that these hallucinations were not there (external to the sufferer) but may not be able to disprove or explain them to the satisfaction of the person who experiences them. Those who suffer from such episodes find it difficult to think in a clear and logical manner. Studies have shown that up to 21% of patients in Germany admitted to hospital have experienced delusions of a religious nature; that is to say delusions connected with specific religious beliefs as opposed to general feelings of spirituality, 21% in Austria and 36% in the USA. By contrast the figure for Japan is only 7% and Pakistan 6%. Studies have shows a cultural link in how sufferers interpret psychotic episodes. In the case of paranoid delusions, the assumed persecutor was more likely to be a supernatural being amongst those who were Christian, or culturally Christian than those who were Muslim or Buddhist (Stompe, Friedman, Ortwein et al) The difficulty for psychiatrists if of course that religiosity and dalliances with the supernatural are not in themselves psychotic episodes. This makes the treatment of those with mental and psychological health problems who are religious and may manifest delusions of a religious nature somewhat difficult. Saying that ‘god told me to feed the poor’ is of course consequentially different from someone saying that ‘god told me to kill prostitutes’ or ‘the bible says to pluck out my eye’ (see Feld and Waldfogel)

These examples are of course two extremes. The caveats (which in as sensitive a forum as this probably have to be stated despite being obvious) are of course ‘being atheist does not mean you are autistic and being religious doesn’t mean your schizotypal.’ However they do feed into how people’s inbuilt perception (both conditions have a genetic predisposition to them) or internal orientation make them susceptible to strong positions of belief and non belief. Most people of course lie between the two, with men being more inclined to non-belief than women for example. It would heavily suggest that neither position is ultimately ‘correct’ in comparison to the other.

If true, then that has wider repercussions for theologians more than for the non religious.

[bore]

It's worth pointing out that another research team in Sweden tried and completely failed to replicate this study.

But even if it's true it only has implications for certain theologies and only provides more weight to existing arguments. For instance if it can be proven that some people just can't be religious at all that would be a good argument against someone like Bushie's theology, but people who've never heard about christianity work just as well.

[DemPGH]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytaf30wuLbQ

For me it boils down to a need to explain and understand what isn't known in the absence of knowledge, and to infer something personal (that we are "privileged") behind it because as supremely conscious beings, we internalize everything. So there HAS to be more than physics and chemistry because physics and chemistry are impersonal. It's also why pseudoscience has a strong appeal. It's personal, it's about me.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytaf30wuLbQ

For me it boils down to a need to explain and understand what isn't known in the absence of knowledge, and to infer something personal (that we are "privileged") behind it because as supremely conscious beings, we internalize everything. So there HAS to be more than physics and chemistry because physics and chemistry are impersonal. It's also why pseudoscience has a strong appeal. It's personal, it's about me.

Except... that isn't true of pseudoscience in general. What does Homeopathy have to do with you actually? As Ben Goldacre has constantly pointed out, homeopathy is actually a more reductionist theory than most of current science. Unless you mean it in a very vague and effectively meaningless way that as consciousness is the foundation of our existence, pseudoscience come from consciousness... which is..... banal.

Like most genetic/neurological arguments of religion that are popularly made, it seems like good evidence of good old predestination.

[DemPGH]

^ Well, pseudoscience has been written about a lot by Shermer, Tyson, et. al., and I recall Sagan writing a lot about it. No, I meant more than that pseudoscience comes from consciousness.

First, I would separate "bad science" from pseudoscience. "Bad science" is just that - you start from a biased perspective, cherry pick data, manipulate conclusions. Climate change denial is a good example.

Pseudoscience is different - it isn't science because it's not guided by impersonal scientific methodology. It often uses scientific data, or else masquerades as something that is superficially scientific, but it makes completely unscientific statements. The very best examples are probably astrology and alchemy, although both became science much later (astrology became astronomy and alchemy became chemistry). The difference is that astronomy and chemistry use scientific data to make impersonal scientific statements. There's no magic or wishful thinking, which there is in pseudoscience. That's what I meant by "me."

Finally, "alternative medicine" involves a lot of magical thinking, low standards of evidence, and probably a lack of understanding of the problems at hand; there's a lot of "wishing makes it so," which gets back to Mikado's thread and the fallacy of denying objective reality. "If I ingest this plant or do yoga, my blood pressure will go down" or whatever, which ignores the underlying problem. 

[All Along The Watchtower]

The reality is probably much more complex than simply neurological differences between religious and non-religious people (Exhibit A: in many cultures, women tend to be more religious than men across the board of every other social category or characteristic, and there are plenty of unsettled controversies about inherent neurological differences between the sexes vs social and cultural conditioning of gender roles ....)

Additionally, how are we defining "religious belief"? For example, religion and spirituality in Japan (at least, from what little I know about it from talking with Nathan and a few others) are not things that can really be explained by a simple dichotomy between religious vs. not religious.

[ingemann]

The reality is probably much more complex than simply neurological differences between religious and non-religious people (Exhibit A: in many cultures, women tend to be more religious than men across the board of every other social category or characteristic, and there are plenty of unsettled controversies about inherent neurological differences between the sexes vs social and cultural conditioning of gender roles ....)

Additionally, how are we defining "religious belief"? For example, religion and spirituality in Japan (at least, from what little I know about it from talking with Nathan and a few others) are not things that can really be explained by a simple dichotomy between religious vs. not religious.

Even in the West there are no dichotomy, you find plenty of atheists and areligious people who believe in ghost and other supernatural phenomens, in fact some conspiracies are almost religious in nature and it's not uncommon that those people are atheists.

I would say if we do live in a universe without any kind of spiritual deeper meaning (God, Afterlife etc), I would say all human are hardwired to believe in irrational and supernatural thing and the belief in the Rational Man, who base his belief in knowledge and science is a fundamental irrational (if not more so) as the bronze age people's belief in a god causing thunder.