Why Has Religion Come To Dominate The Planet?

 The issue of why it's essentially impossible for an atheist in the U.S. to become a presidential candidate is tied to the nation's  hyper religiosity.    As I noted in my book, Atheism: A Beginner's Handbook,  a 2006 Univ. of Minnesota study ('Atheists Identified as America's Most Distrusted Minority')by Penny Edgell and associates found: "atheists now occupy the lowest rung of social respect for minorities in American society, lower than communists and Muslims."   Adding:

"A significant number of respondents associated atheism with an array of moral misbehavior ....and seemed to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good."

This in turn  relates to how the religious meme itself has come to dominate nation after nation.  Why then has religious behavior occurred throughout time, in societies at nearly every stage of development and in every region of the world?  Even given religions are seldom concerned with the "common good" and more about how they can gain converts,  advance their own agendas and even leverage political power, e.g.

• The Sad and Sorry Spectacle Of Evangelicals All T...

I suspect there are two possible answers to this question which may or may not be mutually exclusive with one another:

1) Religion is a basic manifestation of a mind virus or meme which has flourished in human brains

2) Religion is a behavior favored by natural selection, and so has come to dominate the human cultural landscape because it confers some survival benefit or advantage.

Let's consider (1) to start. This is based on the meme concept (with the meme acting as an ideational mind virus) first articulated by biochemist Jacque Monod in his Chance and Necessity. On page 155 Monod writes:

"The human group upon which a given idea confers greater cohesiveness, greater ambition and greate self-confidence thereby receives from it an added power to expand which will ensure the promotion of the idea itself. Its promotion value' bears no relation to the amount of objective truth the idea may contain."

He goes on to note (ibid.):

"The might of the powerful armament provided by a religious ideology for a society does not lie in its structure, but in the fact this structure is accepted, that it gains command".

One may inquire here what religious ideology has been most successful worldwide over the past twenty years. Careful inspection will disclose that it's none other than Christian Evangelism or Fundamentalism. It has not only gained ground over Roman Catholicism in places like Central and South America, but in Africa as well. Its ideational benefits are huge, given its simplicity, and its recipe for (eternal) reward: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior" is intoxicating.

Indeed the only religious ideology that rivals it in converts is Islam, with its promise of eternal rest and succor provided one wages war against the "infidels" (which, coincidentally, include the Christian Fundamentalists)

Not surprisingly then, the most powerful and insidious memes (ideas-beliefs) are those dedicated to the spread of religious beliefs. If we seek to ask why one set is more successful than a rival set, then we need to look at what Monod, for example, calls their "infectious power". This power can be set forth in terms of three main attributes:

1) Performance value: What change does the meme or meme complex bring about in behaviors for the person who adopts it? (For Christian Fundamentlists, the most major change is that they are intent on spreading their "message" to others, pagans, unbelievers, in the conviction that must "save their souls". They believe that Christ enjoined them to do this and not to do so is to ignore his edict to "go forth")

2) Propagation value: How far and wide is the meme spread, and what means are employed to achieve this? (E.g. Islam in the past has invoked beheadings locally, and more generally "holy wars" or Jihads to force belief onto uncooperative populations. Christian Fundamentalists make more use of the threat of "Hell" to any indigenous groups that are reluctant to accept their "personal Savior")

3) Infectious value: How easy is it to infect other brains? What attribute of the meme facilitates the infection?

In the last case, say for the faith meme in general, part of its structure inheres in automatically warding off too close rational scrutiny. Thus, reason and rationality are either: a) demonized (as byproducts of "Satan") or, b) marginalized as inferior to faith.

Example: from a 1990 CNN program featuring Skeptic Paul Kurtz, the topic "Does Satan Exist?"

Phone caller (to Kurtz): "Of course you will say that Satan doesn't exist! But that's exactly what Satan wants! He doesn't want anyone to believe in him!"

And we see here, the Satan belief component of the meme is perfectly designed to limit and minimize any damage from Kurtz's skepticism. After all, if one doesn't believe in Satan, he has to be under the spell of Satan...in causing disbelief!

No one can say that these religious mind viruses don't possess a certain innate beauty!

While the theory of mass infection of human brains is very compelling, and indeed was revisited in the book, Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society, by Aaron Lynch, it leaves open why a small subset of humans (atheists, other nonbelievers) aren't affected...or should I say, infected?

I suspect the likely reason is that their (mostly) scientific training provides an inoculation against the effort to infect their brains...by those trying to meet their convert quota. Because we have studied hard science for so many years we can easily recognize humbug when we see it. So, it washes off our ideational backs like a flu bug might for someone whose had the H1N1 vaccine.

Now, what about the second notion? This has recently been made popular in a number of venues, not least have been the claims for a "God gene" or - less dogmatically -that religious belief confers health and other benefits, against which I'd not necessarily complain. I just have problems accepting that religion necessarily "evolved" because it conferred essential benefits on early human societies and their successors. (I do think that ethics likely evolved and developed along lines favored by natural selection).

More plausible is that religious belief evolved along with blind optimist tendencies - as well as the ability to "see things that aren't there" (see the excellent book, Faces in the Clouds).   This ability is presumed to exist in one single brain complex, probably centered in the temporal lobes. We know, for example - as Monod points out in his book (p. 50, by reference to functional coherence in associated molecular cybernetic systems) that it is often very important that humans remain "dumb and happy" in the evolutionary scheme of the brain.

 The survival basis here is to reduce existential anxiety and probably a host of physical indicators (e.g. blood pressure) as well. But this is not to say anything real is doing it. Rather it is the believer's own beliefs manifesting as a kind of intangible opiate or narcotic. Not surprisingly, reckless uninformed optimism (as when people leap into the stock market because others are, believing they will succeed) and religious faith clearly emerge as symptoms of the same general brain defect that abhors reality.

This dynamic is widespread because this brain wiring defect is also widespread. A small percentage of humans (atheists ) lack it, but then they often lack the benefits as well. I wouldn't be surprised- given this, if atheists are found to have more depression, higher blood pressure, more general bad health indicators (poor lipid profiles, high c-reactive protein, etc). They might naturally show these because they suffer no delusions, and are fully cognizant of being orphans in a purposeless cosmos. To compensate for this painful existential awareness they might self-medicate in ways that the medical cognoscenti might not approve.  

An alternate theory has that a specific neuro-complex literally enables God as well as other proposed supernatural entities to abide in the brain.  This neural complex goes by the name of "orientation association area" or OAA, as defined by Andrew Newberg and Eugene d'Aquili in their book, 'Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief''.

Neurological measurements, i.e. from PET and SPECT scans, consistently showed electrical discharges spiraling down from the right attention area (right OAA) to the limbic system and hypothalamus “triggering the arousal section of the structure”. The authors’ test results and measurements revealed the activation of both the left and right association regions as their subjects focused on a religious artifact or object, say an image of Jesus. As assorted cortical thresholds were crossed, a maximal stimulation (given by spikes in the SPECT scans) produced a neural “flood” that generated feedback to the attention association area.

To make a long story short, the visual attention area of the OAA began to deprive the right orientation area (responsible for balance)  of all neural input not originating with the contemplation of the religious or devotional object. In order to compensate, and thereby preserve the neuro-spatial matrix (in which the self could still exist) the right orientation area had to default to the attention area focusing on the object.

In the words of the authors,  the religious object “is perceived by the mind as the whole depth and breadth of reality.”   This is a profound insight, and fully explains why it is essentially impossible to wean believers away from their objects of worship or devotion based on logic and reason alone. What has happened, in other words, is the subject’s whole existence and identity has become bound up with the focus of his brain’s OAA-  or more specifically – the right attention area’s focus which channels nearly all neural inputs to that region.  


Given this dynamic, the brain governed by the OAA will be singly directed to craft its own version of rationality to support its supernatural ideations.  This implies we simply cannot trust the rational expressions  of believers to be faithful accounts of reality.  

This is one reason the atheist philosopher A.J. Ayer - in Language, Truth and Logic-  insisted  on empirical support for any claims made.   As he writes (p. 158):


"The fact people have religious experiences is interesting from the psychological point of view, but it does not in any way imply there is such a thing as religious knowledge.   The theist - like the moralist- may believe his experiences are cognitive experiences, but unless he can formulate his knowledge in propositions that are empirically verifiable, we may be sure he is deceiving himself."

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Why aren't atheists' brains subject to OAA stimulation and domination?  A number of hypotheses have been advanced including that we have lack the "God gene" which makes the OAA effective.  Another proposal is that we are too trained already in critical thinking (and logic)  to be mesmerized by the OAA's  subversive appeals.   The converse is that most humans are unable - for whatever reason- to resist such brain influence, hence explaining the dominance of religious memes across the planet.

Amy Coney Barrett - The Nightmare Dotard SC Pick That Could Send Women's Rights Back A Century

Tonight, (p)Resident Donnie J. Dotard is set to announce perhaps the most critical Supreme Court pick in a generation.   It is not exaggeration or hyperbole to say that liberal America will be holding its collective breath - and experience no small degree of trepidation - when he announces it at around 9 p.m. EDT.  Knowing Dotard's perverse nature, I will bet that he will want to rub his malignant narcissism in our faces and pick Amy Coney  Barrett.  His degenerate base will also love it, because their primary entertainment these days is to watch liberal America freak out over each and every Dotard insult, especially if it impacts the (mostly)  silent sane majority.

Amy Coney Barrett may well be quite a nice person, as well as being a dutiful, devoted Catholic mom of 7 kids. As nice as she may well be, we cannot afford to have her as a Supreme Court Justice, which I suspect Dotard the pussy grabber will seek to impose on us tonight. And as you process that, also process the absolute irony of a self-described pussy grabber appointing a religious zealot like Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

At issue here is whether Barrett can deliver honest,  well reasoned judgments in critical cases such as to do with abortion, and lower case rulings re: Rose v. Wade.  At root is the extent to which the group to which she belongs, called People of Praise, which has roughly 1,700 members,  will be dictating her brain dynamics as she considers any abortion or contraception cases (the latter say, as regards contraception provided via the ACA for employees of religious outfits.)

A critical aspect of the group is their belief that they can receive divine or other esoteric, spiritual  messages via "speaking in tongues".   An old saw I recall from my brief foray into charismatic Catholicism  in the early 70s went like this: "It's okay and fine when you talk to God, as when speaking in tongues....but the time to worry is when God starts talking back!" Indeed. And the issue here becomes how does one distinguish an internal "voice" issuing from a brain center, from an external "God"?

Put another way: When Amy Barrett issues judgments how can we be certain these are forged by her innate intellect and not products of  "spiritual" voices she may "hear"?  This question is not frivolous at all, nor should it be construed as an attack on religion. Given its massive impact on human lives and life quality,  religion can never be exempt from serious scrutiny - or even criticism where and when appropriate.

In an earlier (June 18)  post on my response to the religionist  Tom McLeish,  I referred to  brain research done by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and his associate Eugene Daquill M.D.. Their main findings were published in their book, ‘Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief’.   Specific attention was directed at the brain region known as the OAA or orientation association area. Most pertinent is the authors’ portrayal of how a subject's OAA (orientation and activation area) translates images, sounds into religious reality, described in detail on pages 121-22.

Within minutes of holding a fixed image or religious ideation, neurological measurements, i.e. from PET and SPECT scans,  showed electrical discharges spiraling down from the right attention area (right OAA) to the limbic system and hypothalamus “triggering the arousal section of the structure”. The authors’ test results and measurements revealed the activation of both the left and right association regions amplified as the ideation or image was sustained.  As assorted cortical thresholds were crossed, a maximal stimulation (given by spikes in the SPECT scans) produced a neural “flood” that generated feedback to the attention association area. 

To make a long story short, the visual attention area of the OAA was seen to begin to deprive the right orientation area (responsible for balance)  of all neural input not originating with the contemplation or religious ideation.  In order to compensate, and thereby preserve the neuro-spatial matrix (in which the self could still exist) the right orientation area had to default to the attention area, and surrender to the supremacy of the ideation.  In the words of the authors (pp. 121-22):  "“it is perceived by the mind as the whole depth and breadth of reality.”

Based on this, I argued in my response that "we simply cannot trust the rational expressions of believers, or those like McLeish who defend religious accommodation. Their brains are likely hijacked in the service of the OAA."

Now, if Coney Barrett belongs to a group that gives prominence and unquestioned validity  to  speaking in "tongues" then these will play the same role as a fixed religious ideation or imagery in the OAA experiments.  In effect, the recipients will firmly believe they are in a special communication loop and privy to information and knowledge - say from the divine- that no one else is.  This is clearly going to cause them to also be convinced they possess superior judgment.

In many respects related to alleged "esoteric" communications, one finds parallels to the brain activity of ancient humans, say at the beginning of the Bronze Age. Much of this was already expounded in the 1976 book  authored by Julian Jaynes,  'The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

Jaynes, a Princeton psychologist (who'd also been in communication with Dr. Pat Bannister in the early 70s while she worked with schizophrenics at the Jenkins Mental Institution in Barbados) argued that ancient  human brains - prior to any evidence of higher consciousness (say as exemplified in use of  logic, reason and ethics) would have resembled the brain dynamics of modern schizophrenics.  

Jaynes maintained that, like schizophrenics, ancient humans would have initiated conversations with unseen deities as well as inanimate objects. And this is most important: even be the beneficiaries of their conversations with them! Jaynes argued that this showed there existed a constancy and wholeness of reality for these early Bronze Age humans. 

In line with this, one of the most startling finds by Daquill and Newberg was that the focus mandate of the OAA leads to a total de-afferentation of the orientation region. This then gives rise to the state known as Absolute Unitary Being, otherwise described as "one Mind linking all minds".  In other words, the OAA experiments showed the potential to attain states not unlike the ancient Bronze Age humans, or modern day schizophrenics. 

 By logical extension, one can conclude the potential for achieving these unitary (or schizophrenic)  states is also  possible for those who engage in speaking in tongues - such as Amy Coney Barrett's People of Praise. Again, in itself there's nothing wrong with pursuing such activities, but it does lead one to ask whether such practitioners can also serve as rational Justices.

Attainment of such exalted brain states may well be worthy of celebration and acclaim, but do we really want a Supreme Court Justice whose head is already filled with dogma subject to them?  Can we be absolutely certain when Ms. Barrett is rendering an opinion those hidden OAA "voices" aren't providing input - which we won't know and she certainly won't tell us?  Or, to be sure, her fellow Justices.

 The imperative for People of Praise  to seek meaning in esoteric communications  is understandable given the Scientism which is now ubiquitous in our modern world. Scientism insists the cosmos is purposeless and is the product of a long. purposeless evolution which also produced our material brains. Take that purposeless evolution away and these brains no longer exist.   The primary evidence for  the brain being a product of purposeless evolution as opposed to being a divine masterwork is the hodge podge way it is thrown together. That is, the more recent neocortex -  which embodies human intellectual achievement and creativity, sitting just 'above' more ancient ape and reptile brain regions. See, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2009/04/evil-natural-outcome-of-innate-brain.html


 Faced with this verdict on their brain limits by materialist evolution it is no wonder the ardent religionists, say like Tom McLeish or Amy Coney Barrett, seek a reality beyond those limits. That is their right to do, of course, and that defines the extent of religious liberty: the liberty of the religiously inclined to seek and perhaps find what they are looking for, even if only in secret rituals. Whether that be accommodation with modern science (McLeish) or being a beneficiary of supposed divine messages and guidance via "tongues" (Amy  Barrett). 

However, religious liberty does not include imposing these  aspirations (or their claimed 'results') on the secular side, or imposing one's beliefs to the extent of making the latter surrender its control over its own reproductive decisions.  That is especially the worry with Barrett, given we cannot be sure her  presumed divine messages will not dictate more severe controls, not only on abortion but the use of artificial contraception.  Such decisions could well wreck those parts of the ACA allowing it, and even hurl women's reproductive rights back a century or more. 

If Coney Barrett is indeed named to the highest court compliments of  the nation's pussy grabber-in-chief, it is the signal for all out resistance on a massive, national scale.  In other words, this nomination cannot be allowed to materialize or proceed. (I am invoking a variant of Dick Cheney's "1 percent" doctrine here, i.e. if there is only a 1 percent chance Barrett will be influenced by esoteric, "spiritual" communications, she can't be allowed to move forward.)

If one were to ask me what the least offensive SC pick might be, I would have to respond, Brett M. Kavanaugh - mainly because he appears to be able to question his past decisions. But that pick would require the Dotard to be in a sane and sober state, which I doubt we can expect.  Maybe I will be wrong, we will see.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/alex-henderson/80033/sex-trump-and-the-supreme-court-here-are-8-seminal-decisions-trumps-far-right-appointees-could-rever

Why Do Some Brains Tilt Toward Atheism?

According to a 2008 Pew Religious Survey only 12.7 percent of those who grew up in religious homes later shuck off their faith and become "nones" or those who hold to no religion. (Also incorrectly called "unchurched")  It turns out the skeptical brain has a lot to do with it, as well as why many nones are atheists.

Conversely, other brains seem to have a biological tendency to gravitate to religion and a wide spectrum of spiritual beliefs. In the popular book “The God Gene,” American geneticist Dean Hamer said that “we have a genetic predisposition for spiritual belief that is expressed in response to, and shaped by, personal experience and the cultural environment.”

Belief - according to many - has been a positive development for the evolution of our species, and we haven’t evolved beyond it. According to a May Gallup poll, 86 percent of Americans believe in God. But with such a majority the question now becomes: Why doesn’t everyone believe in God? What's with the 14 percent who don't believe in God?

Many researchers have asked this same question. Some studies suggest that a skeptical brain works differently than a believing brain.  One example is a 2012 study titled “Is it Just a Brick Wall or a Sign From the Universe: An fMRI Study of Supernatural Believers and Skeptics.” In this experiment, the participants’ brain activity was monitored while they read a scenario, then looked at a picture. They were asked what thoughts the image would evoke if they were in that scenario, then saw that picture on a poster as they were walking down the street.

For example, imagine you just had a job interview. You walk down the street, and see a poster of a business suit. How would that make you feel? What does that poster mean? The supernaturally inclined people were more likely to see it as a meaningful omen, a sign that they would get the job. The skeptics in the group did not see any significance in the image. To them, a poster of a suit is just that, a poster of a suit. No other meaning applies.

Why this non-response for skeptics? The researchers found that one region of their brains (the right inferior frontal gyrus) “was activated more strongly than in supernatural believers.” The more active that part of the brain, the less likely participants were to find supernatural meaning in the images. The researchers think this is because the active region of the brain is associated with cognitive inhibition.

Cognitive inhibition marks the brain’s ability to stop or override a certain mental process — the ability to stop unwanted thoughts, say, or to weed out irrelevant information. One example of where cognitive inhibition is useful is in overcoming prejudice. If people want to avoid discriminating, they need to inhibit or suppress any negative stereotypes they might have toward a certain group of people - say thinking of or referring to black people as "apes".

Recent research has enabled remarkable insights into brains and what drives some toward religious belief, even mania, while others are 'turned off'. The research discloses the latter condition isn't the result of 'demons' or "Satan" afflicting the person, but rather particular brain chemicals, dynamics that differ in their manifestation between religious and non-religious.

Also of particular interest in neurophysiological and neuropharmacological research is the brain region known as the OAA or the Orientation and Activation Area.  In his book, The Spiritual Brain: Science and Religious Experience,, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg provides a putative basis for the divergence in religious acceptance, belief by showing how the brain’s orientation association area(OAA) determines the belief system for each of us.

Since each human brain is different, and the OAA varies in cognitive function from brain to brain, then the beliefs we choose will reflect that biological brain disposition.. An atheist, for example, will manifest a very high reductive cognitive function, in addition to very low dopamine levels, according to Newberg. A Fundamentalist will typically display a very high causality cognitive function, overlaid by primitive fears issuing from the amygdala.  The hyper-religionist who believes s/he talks to God or actually knows the deity on an intimate basis exhibits fronto-temporal dementia, as first demonstrated by Dr. Patricia Bannister in Barbados decades ago.

She found that patients at the Jenkins Mental Institution in Black Rock, St. Michael. exhibited hyper-religious behavior, calling out "God" every waking hour and preaching non-stop to whoever might listen. All had to be put on largactyl to calm their feverish,  god-obsessed brains and this was interspersed with ECT. One could be assured, on the basis of her work, that this hyper faction of religious believer comprised a very small fraction, perhaps not even 0.5% of humanity.

Moving on, let's bear in mind that the object of attraction for all religious believers is not something actually known by them, but rather an artifact of their minds - constructed by their previous exposure to religious programming, their personal experiences, and the level of dopamine affecting their brain dynamics and especially the OAA.  We call this subjective approximation, which is in fact a regulative ideal, a "God concept".  Thus, as when a D. Post letter writer (Mary Carter) asserted "everyone thinks they know better than a higher power", she's oblivious to the fact  that she in fact created that "higher power" in her cranium. It's a pure presumption on her part that she hasn't supported by evidence.

We know that because all brains are limited in neural capacity, all God concepts (including "higher powers")  must likewise be limited, as well as relative to each other. Hence, no one can be claimed as 'true' to the exclusion of all others.  One can call this the first principle of religious belief: what people profess belief in is not an actual entity they know, but rather their own brain-confected God concept. So why should we accept or believe in one merely because someone says so?

The biggest factor in parents being able to successfully pass on their religion to their children was their relationship with their children. The authors found that “parents who interact with their children during their formative years in a warm, affirming and respectful manner are more likely to pass on their religious tradition, beliefs, and practices.” Other things that aid successful transmission include having parents of the same faith who do not divorce and having a strong relationship with grandparents of the same faith.

On the other hand, religious conflict between parents and children has been cited  one of the most common routes from religion to atheism. If resistant children were forced into religious activities, they often rebelled as soon as they had the chance. This is exactly what happened to me. Forced into going to church - Catholic Mass - even when I despised it, and  forced to choose between being a Mass server (with my three brothers) or working in our 1/3 acre Fla. backyard pulling weeds.

As soon as I left home, and arrived at Loyola University, I dropped the church shtick and went my own way.  No longer religiously bound,  I'd begun a journey that would lead to becoming one of the earliest outspoken atheists - both in the West Indies and in the U.S. At Loyola,  after attending a guest lecture by Jean -Paul Sartre (in Jan. 1965)  on existentialism, I moved rapidly toward that future  atheism.

Conversely, a child with weak cognitive inhibition and a positive relationship with his married parents of the same faith is likely to carry on in the religious family tradition. A child with strong cognitive inhibition who is forced to go to church against his will is likely to rebel.

Those parents concerned with sons or daughters following in their religious footsteps might do well to bear all this in mind when raising their offspring- assuming the latter's  brains are also predisposed to belief. I don't think mine ever was.

New Atheists "Get It Wrong" - How So?

Richard Dawkins: author of The God Delusion, now being taken to task by Sean Illing for 'intellectual laziness' in responding to religionists.

Sean Illing in a recent salon.com article ('New Atheism's Fatal Arrogance:The Glaring Intellectual Laziness of Bill Maher And Richard Dawkins') tries to make the case that "New Atheism" is way off the beam and suffers from intellectual torpor. Illing writes:

"New Atheism became part of the zeitgeist, a well-timed reaction against religious fundamentalism. The New Atheists are notoriously pugilistic. In print or on stage, they never run from a fight. Whatever you think of their tactics, they’ve succeeded at putting fanatics and moralizers on the defensive – and that’s a good thing."

Damned right it's a good thing because we have taken tons of crap, epithets and insults from the hyper-religious for years, hell decades. Thus, it was only a matter of time before atheists collectively struck back - giving as good as they got.  The descriptor "notoriously pugilistic" is therefore not much use without also noting the pugilistic, hostile provocations that incepted it.

Illing goes on:

"But there’s something missing in their critiques, something fundamental. For all their eloquence, their arguments are often banal. Regrettably, they’ve shown little interest in understanding the religious compulsion. They talk incessantly about the untruth of religion because they assume truth is what matters most to religious people. And perhaps it does for many, but certainly not all – at least not in the conventional sense of that term. Religious convictions, in many cases, are held not because they’re true but because they’re meaningful, because they’re personally transformative. New Atheists are blind to this brand of belief."

In fact, this isn't strictly true. I've explored the basis for religious convictions in a number of previous blog posts, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/01/peeling-back-layers-of-religious-brain.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/04/brain-babble-orwords-from-on-high.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/01/brain-studies-show-religious-absolutism.html


Also, I explored the personally transformative aspect of religious beliefs in my recent book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God, noting the appeal of emergent holistic God-concepts and how some of them (e.g. Brahman, Holomovement) could be reconciled with meaningful scientific tenets  - especially from quantum theory. Some aspects of this were explored in a number of other blog posts, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/12/gods-in-brain-but-not-personal.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/06/teilhard-style-conscious-evolution.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/03/michio-kakus-model-of-mijnd-is-too.html

The key point is not all arguments are "banal" as Illing claims.

Illing again:

"It’s perfectly rational to reject faith as a matter of principle. Many people (myself included) find no practical advantage in believing things without evidence. But what about those who do? If a belief is held because of its effects, not its truth content, why should its falsity matter to the believer? Of course, most religious people consider their beliefs true in some sense, but that’s to be expected: the consolation derived from a belief is greater if its illusory origins are concealed"

Once more a valid point that I've conceded in sundry blog posts, as well as in my recent book. Therein I noted the "Camus conundrum" discussed by Greg M. Epstein ( Good Without God, p62) to do with Albert Camus’ novel, The Plague.  The essence is embodied in a question Camus’ character Jean Tarrou asks his friend, Rieux:

'Why do you show such devotion considering you don’t believe in God?'

Epstein put this in a contemporary setting, referencing a 2006 book tour by Richard Dawkins for his God Delusion. According to Epstein,  Dawkins was somewhat startled when a young man approached him and asked directly: "Dr. Dawkins, I am thinking of committing suicide, what do you have to say?   Epstein relates that initially Dawkins was so nonplussed he could think of nothing to say,  then suggested the young man (a student at Harvard) could go to the humanist chaplain or – if he’d been at Oxford, he could go to the Anglican chaplain.  In understandable astonishment, Epstein observed (ibid.):


"Is that the best we can do? Rage, rage against the dying of the Enlightenment then shoo our troubled youth back to religion because we’re too distracted or cerebral or both to spend a few minutes of our deep thoughts on being more loving and more helpful?"

I went on to point out:

Let’s be clear the Camus conundrum highlighted in modern form by Epstein isn’t just a problem for Dawkins.  I am certain that in a similar situation, all the current hard core crop of atheists (including those waging wars on Christmas) would be at a loss for words. Overly obsessed with combat against the "believers"  and their myths they'd have lost sight of the human dimensions.

Hence, my arguments and reasoning have been fully in tune with Illing's as when he writes :


"The point is that such beliefs aren’t held because they’re true as such; they’re accepted on faith because they’re meaningful. Consequently, they have nothing to say to those who affirm God for existential reasons.  The New Atheist writers tend to approach religion from the perspective of science: They argue that a particular religion isn’t true or that the empirical claims of religious texts are false. That’s easy to do. The more interesting question is why religions endure in spite of being empirically untrue."

 And that is precisely the issue I addressed in my chapter  13 ('The Problem for Hard-Core Atheism-Reductionism' ) including  the Camus Conundrum and related issues, i.e. that Atheists of any stripe could not simply continue to harp on what they were against but had to state positively what they supported in the world, what they were for. This had special import in the socio-economic realm and I made specific reference to the Humanist Manifesto 2000 .

Atheists then were compelled to respond in some way to such socio-economic proposals and travesties as the "Ryan Budget", the "Ryan Medicare Plan" and overspending on defense (not to mention the Pentagon's inability to account for $1.1 trillion), when million of kids and families remained in poverty - due to Neoliberal policies and a warped system of economic justice. Atheists couldn't simply sit on the sidelines and wash their hands of the cultural and social battles raging in their midst. They had to wade in, or "lean in" as defined in much of the parlance today.

Illing again:


 "Camus was an atheist, but he understood the instinct for transcendence. And he knew that God was a solution (however false) to the problem of meaninglessness. Against the backdrop of death, what matters more: truth or a reason for living? “I’ve never seen anyone die for the ontological argument,” Camus wrote, but “I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others getting killed for ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living.” Today is no different; people continue to kill and die in defense of beliefs that give their lives meaning and shape."

Exactly so - and as I've pointed out, this desperate need for meaning in life is driven by specific brain centers. These brain centers, mainly associated with the OAA or orientation and activation area, are such that the person must give primacy to them in terms of honoring his or her beliefs. of this work has been done by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and his assosciate Eugene Daquill M.D.. Their main findings are published in their book, ‘Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief’.
As the authors note: (p. 5)

“In normal circumstance, the OAA helps create a distinct, accurate sense of our physical orientation to the world. To do its job well….depends on a constant stream of nerve impulses from each of the body’s senses. The OAA sorts and processes these impulses virtually simultaneously during every moment of our lives”

So, in other words, without the benefit of the OAA brain region, we’d be essentially discombobulated vegetables, unable to even get out of bed in the morning. We wouldn’t know which end is up or down, or right from left, and certainly wouldn’t be able to find our way out of a room, far less walk through a downtown of any major city.

The authors’ investigation of how the brain’s OAA translates an image into a religious reality is described in detail in their book, on pages 121-22. This is in connection with a person given an image of Christ and asked to focus on it. Within minutes, neurological measurements show electrical discharges spiraling down from the right attention area (right OAA) to the limbic system and hypothalamus “triggering the arousal section of the structure”.

Now, we know the hypothalamus has both arousal and quiescent components. The authors’ test results and measurements actually showed that as the subject focused on the image of Christ BOTH were activated. As assorted cortical thresholds were crossed, a maximal stimulation (given by spikes in the SPECT scans) produced a neural “flood” that generated feedback to the attention association area.

To make a long story short, the attention area of the OAA was seen to begin to deprive the right orientation area of the OAA of all neural input not originating with the contemplation of Jesus. In order to compensate, and thereby preserve the neuro-spatial matrix (in which the self could still exist) the right orientation area had to default to the attention area focusing on “Jesus”. As the authors put it (p. 121):

“ It has no choice but to create a spatial matrix out of nothing but the attention area’s single-minded contemplation of Jesus”

They go on to note that as the process of cortical threshold "re-emphasis" continues, all irrelevant neural inputs are stripped away until the only reality left is Jesus.

IN other words once the OAA is activated toward a certain belief matrix and certain cortical thresholds are crossed, the person is hostage to his own biology in driving that belief. Presenting him with epistemological or ontological facts is useless because the investment in the belief is already too great to part with it - and if he did his OAA would deprive him of neural input and even balance to enable mobility.

Illing once more time:

"The New Atheists don’t have a satisfactory alternative for such people. They argue that religion is false; that it’s divisive; that it’s unethical; that it makes a virtue of self-deception; that it does more harm than good – and maybe they’re right, but if they don’t understand that, for many, meaning is more important than truth, they’ll never appreciate the vitality of religion."


And I agree for the most part this has been true for most "New Atheists" - but not all. I have strongly defended a person's right to embrace God-concepts no matter how far off from the "truth" they may be - in the interest of attaining personal meaning and transcendence - or what appears so to the believer. This trumps truth because the believer's very life and life quality is bound up with it - given the OAA dynamic described above.

Illing ends with:

"The New Atheists have an important role to play. Reason needs its champions, too. And religion has to be resisted because there are genuine societal costs. One can draw a straight line between religious dogma and scientific obscurantism or moral stagnation, for example. That’s a real problem. But if religion is ineradicable, we have to find a way to limit its destructive consequences. Satire and criticism are necessary, but they’re not sufficient.

If we want to encourage people to care about the right things, we should spend as much time encouraging them to care about the right things as we do criticizing their faith."

No argument there. The question remains what will be the "right things" we encourage the religious believer to care about? I submit they need to achieve a practical translation beyond pure personal meaning. They need to activate that meaning into action in the real world.  That is why the precepts and objectives originally laid out in the Humanist Manifesto 2000 are so critical to tie in with meaning and the business of living - if for no other reason than to ameliorate the most radical extremes of religious expression - which are destructive to us all.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/eric-zuesse/62210/non-religious-population-is-soaring-in-america

Belief and Theory: Exact Parallels to Religion and Science (2)

“How can you believe in God and not believe in vampires?” – Tom Nelson, Intertel ‘Port of Call’, ‘Science and Religion’, June/July 2014, p. 1

 

Though written in a facetious vein, Nelson’s question has more than a little bit of ballast. If you are going to believe in an “infinite” personal entity for which there isn’t a scintilla of evidence, then you are going to have problems if you deny belief in possible vampires – because at the end of the day both fall under the same supernaturalist meme.

Nelson’s next point also bears careful consideration:

“Theory and belief are not in competition. They can and usually do abide side by side in the same minds, each in its own compartment. There is no gain on either side of the controversy in contending between theory and belief. It doesn’t matter what truth is, only what works and what doesn’t. In human psychology, belief has its place, theories serve their purposes.”

 But this needs careful parsing, and I wouldn’t be so bold to adopt it as a generalization. True, theory and belief  can both plausibly occupy some small subset of minds – namely scientists who are also ardent religionists, i.e. believers. A case in point I can cite was my thesis supervisor- who while excellent in solar physics (publishing a number of papers on solar radio emissions) nonetheless believed the creation account of the bible. How did he manage to do sterling research on the one hand yet retain a decidedly unscientific view on the other? I warrant he managed to compartmentalize his ‘theory’ and ‘belief’ sides.

Indeed, Nelson on the next page of his essay provides one very compelling reason:

“The purpose of belief is a certain psychological comfort, a means of coping with the fears and awareness that only human beings possess. We are the only species of animal that knows it is inevitably going to die.”

He then goes on to add that “consistent with this Christians believe humans have souls:”

 The “soul” being the vehicle to ensure post-death survival in some form.

 The takeaway here is that adoption of a religion is more a psychological choice than anything else. The “search” for a religion that “fits” may then be said to be an extension or extrapolation of that psychological template. In the end, just as “exorcism” was invented to parry the belief in devils (not devils per se), so religion was invented to consolidate overtones of comfort – via specific beliefs – as related to human life.

 Returning to the original claim, it is simply not true to say that belief and theory abide co-extensively in ALL minds. For example, I can’t say I have any “beliefs” – which means accepting something as true minus any evidence for it. I do have loads of theories, but as we know the standard and most accepted definition of theory is of a hypothesis for which the initial predictions have already been confirmed. In other words, evidence has been used which contradicts Nelson’s definition of belief.

Nelson reinforces this distinction in his next passage:

“The believer relies on what he calls ‘faith’ to sustain belief. Any questioning of the religious precepts will be met by the believer’s claim to ‘faith’ as the force behind his convictions. And what is faith? It is only the belief itself, the belief in believing….”

 Again, disclosing belief to be a psychological mode, likely retained by evolution in the OAA (orientation association area)  brain centers,  to provide existential comfort to orphaned minds. By extension, taking Nelson’s concepts to their limit, it matters not what belief mode or religion one professes. They are all relative since all are formed of this psychological dynamic. (Of course, the belief systems themselves don’t see it that way, each proclaiming itself the sole font of truth – even inventing ‘everlasting’ punishments for those that deny their validity.)

Again, revealing his dichotomy of mind, perhaps contradiction, Nelson writes:

“So we arrive at the great definitional divide. Science deals with nature, always testing to determine how close to unknowable nature is becoming. Belief deals with the human mind, allaying the distractions of fear and uncertainty and the dismay of living in a universe so frightfully complicated, while being aware of its complication, and more painfully aware that while we see the complication we cannot fully understand it.”

 Parts of the above make sense, but other parts do not. Granted that belief plays a role in allaying fears and uncertainties of existence – but does the mind so involved truly perceive the universe is that complicated to be “frightful”? I would argue that the converse is true and the minds of most humans don’t see the universe as complicated enough!  For this reason, they tend to treat it like a little play toy of their own minds. Hence, the absurd conception of a cosmos that’s six thousand years old and which admits of no Big Bang and no evolution either.

 This kindergarten version of the cosmos is accepted by way too many Americans and itself becomes part of their comfort-belief system. By allowing their primitive minds to wallow in uncritical belief they actually mentally perform a reductio ad absurdum to placate their existential fears.

Nelson’s next paragraph is also interesting:

“As science exploits nature, religion exploits mankind. The psychological need to believe and to alleviate the uncomfortable psychology of uncertainty and mortality is ever an opportunity for the charlatan. There is always someone to sell you what you think you need whether he can deliver it or not.”

 

And, of course, “salvation” sits at the top of what most religions promise to deliver…if only you will be a good little Do-be and follow their code to the letter. Never mind you’re selling out your own will and autonomy to tilt at supernatural windmills.

 Nelson, thankfully, ends by linking religion and its beliefs to superstition. He also offers a sound warning that “if prosperity and the illusion of security it brings fails, superstition will rebound.”  Which in fact we’ve seen through history and as he observes “war, famine, plague, upheaval are the allies of superstition.”

 Adding that superstition is the last refuge of the vanquished as they “cling doggedly to it as the only escape from a reality they can no longer bear.”

 Which is precisely why we need ever more science and its “positive results” – and I’d also add, some way science can help salvage those brains addicted to superstition!