Belief and the Brain's 'God Spot'

[quote]Sloth wrote:
ephrem wrote:
…do you think that religion/religious beliefs had/have a bigger impact on the survival of the human species than science?

Well, if religious beliefs allowed for coming together into cultures/communities/nations or what have you, yes. It’s only then, man having more leisure, that he could specialize and pursue intellectual knowledge. [/quote]

…one could argue that the catalyst for that was our move from hunting/gathering into agriculture, which is [somewhat] scientific…

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
ephrem wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
ephrem wrote: …do you think that religion/religious beliefs had/have a bigger impact on the survival of the human species than science?

The ability to think/believe the abstract is required for both.

…that does not answer the question DD…

I think it depends on how you define science. In the modern scientific method sense of the word, it arrived, I think, too late in our history to affect survival rates that immensely and is more applicable to comfort than survival.

In a more general definition of science, I wouldnâ??t pretend to know what had a larger impact on survival rates thousands of years ago.

What does it matter?[/quote]

…just wondering…

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
This only makes sense to someone used to righting off personal choices as biologically predestined. [/quote]

I was responding to Pat’s point, not agreeing with it:

[quote]pat wrote:
I don’t find it unusual that one would need a biological component for religious faith. Radios need an antenna to pick up signals, so do we, so to speak.[/quote]

[quote]ephrem wrote:
pat wrote:I don’t find it unusual that one would need a biological component for religious faith. Radios need an antenna to pick up signals, so do we, so to speak.

…signals that can be simulated using electric currents giving the subject religous experiences aren’t exactly supporting the God-idea, but i do see where you’re coming from. Anyway, not trying to stirr to pot or anything…
[/quote]

just because you have learned to manipulate the dials on your radio, does not invalidate or disprove the creator of the radio

[quote]ephrem wrote:
pat wrote: See, atheism is unnatural.

…an interesting comment, and not far from the truth if we consider the findings of this study.

“Some evolutionary theorists have suggested that Darwinian natural selection may have put a premium on individuals if they were able to use religious belief to survive hardships that may have overwhelmed those with no religious convictions.”

…a tribe bonded together by a shared religion stands to survive better than a tribe without such a bond. Ironic don’t you think: God is the result of evolution, lol.
[/quote]

Huh

The article clearly says:
““There is nothing unique about religious belief in these brain structures. Religion doesn’t have a ‘God spot’ as such, instead it’s embedded in a whole range of other belief systems in the brain that we use everyday,” Professor Grafman said.”

So thinking about god is the same as thinking about cheese.

jnd

[quote]forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
I don’t find it unusual that one would need a biological component for religious faith. Radios need an antenna to pick up signals, so do we, so to speak.

Clearly, one’s salvation depends on his biology rather than on any choices he actually makes. God saves…but only if you are one of the lucky few with the genetic makeup to accept God’s help. If your brain doesn’t have a big enough soul chamber, you’re SOL :)[/quote]

You are once again, completely incorrect.

[quote]koffea wrote:
ephrem wrote:
pat wrote:I don’t find it unusual that one would need a biological component for religious faith. Radios need an antenna to pick up signals, so do we, so to speak.

…signals that can be simulated using electric currents giving the subject religous experiences aren’t exactly supporting the God-idea, but i do see where you’re coming from. Anyway, not trying to stirr to pot or anything…

just because you have learned to manipulate the dials on your radio, does not invalidate or disprove the creator of the radio[/quote]

…it does, and it doesn’t. It does invalidate the antropomorphic views we have of [the generic] God, but it doesn’t negate the possibility of an engineering higher force, that is true…

[quote]jnd wrote:
ephrem wrote:
pat wrote: See, atheism is unnatural.

…an interesting comment, and not far from the truth if we consider the findings of this study.

“Some evolutionary theorists have suggested that Darwinian natural selection may have put a premium on individuals if they were able to use religious belief to survive hardships that may have overwhelmed those with no religious convictions.”

…a tribe bonded together by a shared religion stands to survive better than a tribe without such a bond. Ironic don’t you think: God is the result of evolution, lol.

Huh

The article clearly says:
““There is nothing unique about religious belief in these brain structures. Religion doesn’t have a ‘God spot’ as such, instead it’s embedded in a whole range of other belief systems in the brain that we use everyday,” Professor Grafman said.”

So thinking about god is the same as thinking about cheese.

jnd
[/quote]

…yes, but the consequences of those beliefs go deeper than that, and the brain provides experiences [which do come from specific areas of the brain] that corroborate those beliefs. But i do like the comparison though, lol…

[quote]koffea wrote:
ephrem wrote:
pat wrote:I don’t find it unusual that one would need a biological component for religious faith. Radios need an antenna to pick up signals, so do we, so to speak.

…signals that can be simulated using electric currents giving the subject religous experiences aren’t exactly supporting the God-idea, but i do see where you’re coming from. Anyway, not trying to stirr to pot or anything…

just because you have learned to manipulate the dials on your radio, does not invalidate or disprove the creator of the radio[/quote]

Correct. You could stimulate the brain to make you orgasm, but that’s not sex. The brain has a capacity for religion as it does for any other experience in the human condition. The brain’s ability and the external reality are not the same thing. Without the biological component, you are incapable what ever experience the component relates to. Being limited beings, we are incapable of sensing most of what goes on around us. Our 5 senses are good, but incomplete.

[quote]pat wrote:
You are once again, completely incorrect. [/quote]

Did you miss the part where I quoted YOU saying that the brain is correlated with a person’s capacity to have faith? You said it, not me.

[quote]ephrem wrote:
koffea wrote:
ephrem wrote:
pat wrote:I don’t find it unusual that one would need a biological component for religious faith. Radios need an antenna to pick up signals, so do we, so to speak.

…signals that can be simulated using electric currents giving the subject religous experiences aren’t exactly supporting the God-idea, but i do see where you’re coming from. Anyway, not trying to stirr to pot or anything…

just because you have learned to manipulate the dials on your radio, does not invalidate or disprove the creator of the radio

…it does, and it doesn’t. It does invalidate the antropomorphic views we have of [the generic] God, but it doesn’t negate the possibility of an engineering higher force, that is true…

[/quote]

Wrong, try again!

You arenâ??t very good at science are you?

The study found that several areas of the brain are involved in religious belief, one within the frontal lobes of the cortex â?? which are unique to humans â?? and another in the more evolutionary-ancient regions deeper inside the brain, which humans share with apes and other primates, Professor Grafman said.

Which explains why we are able to simultaneously process religious beliefs on both a rational (frontal cortex) and a visceral (or at least, sub-cortical) level.

The article talked about stimulating these areas to produce a “religious” feeling, with varying degrees of success (had no effect on the devout atheist, for instance.) This indicates to me that the area in question is not as developed in all people, which would explain why some people are more susceptible to religion than others. I would be interested in seeing PET/MRI scans of various religious and non-religious people, with a comparison of their brains to see if the religious ones had more ganglia in this region than the atheists.

I also wonder what the consequences would be of removing or disabling these areas. Would a devoutly religious person suddenly become an atheist, with no loss of cognitive function otherwise? More tantalizingly, would a person who was previously credulous of other, non-religious but nonetheless faith-based claims suddenly become less so? Would a person who always believed in astrology or flying saucers suddenly not? Would someone who was always a sucker for the newest gizmo suddenly become skeptical of advertising? And would a lifelong flag-waver suddenly question the actions of the government?

I look forward to seeing more research into this matter.

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
ephrem wrote:
koffea wrote:

just because you have learned to manipulate the dials on your radio, does not invalidate or disprove the creator of the radio

…it does, and it doesn’t. It does invalidate the antropomorphic views we have of [the generic] God, but it doesn’t negate the possibility of an engineering higher force, that is true…

Wrong, try again!

You arenâ??t very good at science are you?[/quote]

…why don’t you explain it to me then?

[quote]ephrem wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
ephrem wrote:
koffea wrote:

just because you have learned to manipulate the dials on your radio, does not invalidate or disprove the creator of the radio

…it does, and it doesn’t. It does invalidate the antropomorphic views we have of [the generic] God, but it doesn’t negate the possibility of an engineering higher force, that is true…

Wrong, try again!

You aren�?�¢??t very good at science are you?

…why don’t you explain it to me then?

[/quote]

How bout you explain how it invalidates an anthropomorphic god.

…our brains may have the propensity for religious beliefs, but we fill in the gaps. Throughout every culture, in every country, people have [had] some kind of beliefsystem in a higher force to explain life, death and reality…

…this study shows how our brains appear to have evolved to be sensitive to religious beliefs, regardless of how we shape these beliefs in real life. That means that our brains can’t tell whether we believe in the god of Abraham, in Krishna or Jesus. The actual truthfulness of our beliefs aren’t supported by the brain’s propensity for religious beliefs…

…but that does not mean there’s no chance that a higher force designed our brains like that…

[quote]ephrem wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote: How bout you explain how it invalidates an anthropomorphic god.

…our brains may have the propensity for religious beliefs, but we fill in the gaps. Throughout every culture, in every country, people have [had] some kind of beliefsystem in a higher force to explain life, death and reality…

…this study shows how our brains appear to have evolved to be sensitive to religious beliefs, regardless of how we shape these beliefs in real life. That means that our brains can’t tell whether we believe in the god of Abraham, in Krishna or Jesus. The actual truthfulness of our beliefs aren’t supported by the brain’s propensity for religious beliefs…

…but that does not mean there’s no chance that a higher force designed our brains like that…

[/quote]

“That means that our brains can’t tell whether we believe in the god of Abraham, in Krishna or Jesus.” Iâ??m not sure exactly what you mean by that. That brain structure doesnâ??t biologically predict a belief in a specific god? Because my brain knows the specifics of what god I believe in.

Anyway, none of that invalidates an human-like god. I’m not arguing that there god in man-like, just that this study doesnâ??t come close to tackling any issue related to it.

Maybe we have different definitions of invalidate. “to make or show (an argument) to be faulty”?

The actual truthfulness of our beliefs aren’t contradicted by the brain’s propensity for religious beliefs… (see what I did there?)

Not prove and invalidate are entirely logically different.

[quote]koffea wrote:

just because you have learned to manipulate the dials on your radio, does not invalidate or disprove the creator of the radio[/quote]

The counterpoint being that when you tune your radio to a certain frequency, and sometimes hear what you imagine to be the voice of Zargon, Emperor of Alpha Centauri, speaking within the static, it does not necessarily prove conclusively that Zargon exists.

The more I think about this supposed “God Spot” in the brain, the more it sounds like a sextant.

Know what a sextant is? If you’ve ever sailed a ship, you know.

A sextant is a very old device for celestial navigation on sailing ships, used for centuries before the advent of modern navigational tools such as the Loran and GPS. It works very well indeed, provided you have a clear sky and horizon to work with.

Funny thing about the sextant, though, and the astrolabe that preceded it, is that it works on the assumption that the sun and the stars all orbit the earth.

Now, modern science has disproved the Ptolemaic model of a geocentric universe pretty damn incontrovertibly. The evidence supporting the heliocentric model specifically, and a universe at which our planet is not the center, could fill several libraries. Nonetheless, the little sextant keeps on working, blithely ignoring the fact that the premise upon which it works is false.

Certainly, the sextant isn’t going to help you to discover any great truths about life, the universe, or anything.

But if you’re out at sea, and just trying to find your way, perhaps it’s all you need.

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

“That means that our brains can’t tell whether we believe in the god of Abraham, in Krishna or Jesus.” Iâ??m not sure exactly what you mean by that. That brain structure doesnâ??t biologically predict a belief in a specific god? Because my brain knows the specifics of what god I believe in.

Anyway, none of that invalidates an human-like god. I’m not arguing that there god in man-like, just that this study doesnâ??t come close to tackling any issue related to it.

Maybe we have different definitions of invalidate. “to make or show (an argument) to be faulty”?

The actual truthfulness of our beliefs aren’t contradicted by the brain’s propensity for religious beliefs… (see what I did there?)

Not prove and invalidate are entirely logically different.[/quote]

…the brain is a container that favors religious beliefs [from an evolutionary standpoint]. How that container is filled does not matter, e.i. the beliefs that container is filled with can range from the occult to humanism, from christianity to hinduism, it does not matter…

…the subject of the beliefs does not matter, it is the result of those beliefs [survival of the tribe] that counts. This weakens [invalidates] the actual truthfulness of the beliefsystem because it is interchangeable. Okay?

…i did not know that, very interesting. I like what you did here: the assumption of how it works is wrong, but it still works because the variables are what they are. Nice…

[quote]ephrem wrote:
…the subject of the beliefs does not matter, it is the result of those beliefs [survival of the tribe] that counts. This weakens [invalidates] the actual truthfulness of the beliefsystem because it is interchangeable. Okay? [/quote]

huh?