Interesting study came out this week on the brain processes involved in believing religious statements vs. nonreligious statements.

Newsweek article on the study here:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/216551

And the original paper here:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%...al.pone.0007272

The basic finding was that the difference between belief and disbelief was the same regardless of whether the statement was religious or mundane, or whether the person was a christian or an atheist. However, thinking about religious questions led to a very different network of activations overall compared to nonreligious statements for both groups of subjects.

Curious what people think of this.

Let me know when they test people who aren't ridiculous enough to be 100% sure one way or another. If those subjects also use the specific part of the brain for religious questions, then we'll talk. For now, as far as I'm concerned, that area of the brain is simply responsible for storing beliefs that the person unconsciously knows are unrealistic, and religion is just one of those topics.

Yes, being 100% sure that there was no outside influence at the beginning of our Universe's existence is unrealistic, in my opinion.

We don't know that they were 100% sure, just that they claim to believe all of the statements one way or another. In fact, one of the findings was that people take longer to answer the religious questions, which also generated more activity in brain regions known to process uncertainty. So, there may very well be more uncertainty for these people when believing religious things, but the brain areas responsible for distinguishing the truth of religious statements like "Angels really exist" was the same as for non-religious statements, like "Eagles really exist".

Or they feel a responsiblity to respond in a manner that best represents God's Word. Feeling you are answering a question that may leave you open to ridicule or force you to defend yourself makes everyone pause.

Except you know who..he just hits respond and starts typing...

Some people say we only use 10% of our brain....I think we only use 10% of our hearts.

I'm pretty sure the atheists didn't feel such a responsibility.

Maybe they were agnostics?

They were allowed to answer that they didn't know to any question, yet they all responded that they did not believe the religious questions.

A lot of athiest have brain washed themseves to quickly dismiss the entire possibility of a God so their quick dismissal of a religious question should show you their lack of intellectual honesty more than any brain pattern theories.

i'd bet you've never in your life heard an atheist quickly dismiss the entire possibilty of god.

I'd bet that your bet would be very small monetarily.

Brain washing shows up on the scans as a special color... want to get scanned?

As a person who was raised Catholic, went to Church every Sunday until I went to college, and attended Catholic schools K-8 (cept 6th grade) and high school, I had to read this twice... then I had to read it again.

I have come to the conclusion on my own, while being raised to follow catholic beliefs, that the catholic faith depends on brain-washing children to blindly believe the catholic teachings.

Were you raised catholic, or did you decide on all of your beliefs post-childhood by making an intellectual and educated decision on a higher power? Also, you honestly believe that "a lot of atheists have brain-washed themselves?," or are their beliefs simply THEIR conclusions after making an intellectual and educated decision?

Most of what I said was tongue in cheek, but I was raised neutral, no church, no militant anti-church.
Accepted Christ at ~20 years old.

And the problem with the way you phrased the question is that you are giving only two options;
1. that an athiest is a person who is brain washed or
2. an athiest is making a decision that is true because it is based on facts

There is a third option, that athiest believe something that is wrong, but are doing it because the data can be interprepted that way if you want to see it that way.

I think most of them fall into camp 3, although I think a large number of them are in camp one as well

what atheist camp do you fall into when it comes to all other gods but the biblical one?

Okay, let's pull out the tired poorly thought out "I belive in one less God than you" line that makes the athiest all happy inside, while they ignore how ignorant this thought process is.


One is infinity more than zero, but 2 is only a little more than 1. Pretending that there in no way to travel to china isn't proved because some people think you can get there on a skateboard.

But try that thought process on your wife; "Honey, I believe in marriage, but you believe that I have to be faithful to one less person than I believe I must be faithful too"

Or how about:

I contend we both believe 9/11 didn’t happen. I just believe in one fewer cause than you. When you understand why you dismiss all the 9/11 conspiracy theories, you will understand why I dismiss Arabs flying planes into the buildings


Or

I content we both believe Shakespeare didn’t exist. I just believe in one fewer identity than you. When you understand why you dismiss the theory that Shakespeare was Francis Bacon, you will understand why I dismiss Shakespeare being William Shakespeare.

nice bunch of moronic equivocating (lifted from christian apologist material i'm sure) to avoid a simple point.

the comparison doesn't even have to be other gods. atheists disbelieve in the biblical god for the same reasons you don't believe the sun revolves around the earth - because of evidence, not because of bias or subjective interpretation of vague data.

I'm sure you have told yourself this enough times that you actually believe it now

Athiest disbelieve because they don't want to have to answer for their actions.

They spend all their efforts finding anything that supports this desire they have, and ignore anything that should give them pause to their declarative statement.

People that actually don't know for sure call themselves agnostics and are intellectually honest, athiest are not intellectually honest, they are claiming to know the existance of every single being in the entire universe, thus allowing themselves to make the claim that they 'know' there is no god. This is why they are as a rule arrogant antagonist who troll message boards to tell everyone who thinks different than them that they are wrong.

The funny thing is how badly thought out most of their arguments are, so they are forced to grab onto clever quips that they think are deep.

Let me rephrase that for you:

How dare you copy someone else's work to refute the work I copied from someone else.

I think we got distracted from the fascinating research presented in the OP.

just like you don't make animal sacrafices to baal because you don't want to answer for your actions.



obviously you are aware by now that the vast majority of people that call themselves atheists including pretty much every one that has ever posted here aren't "strong", never make declarative statements about "god" in general, and don't claim to "know" no god of any type exists. this is just another ploy of yours to deflect from the point. stop lying.

stop projecting

Talk about your bias...

I'm just browsing and didn't read past this but do you really feel that persecuted and afraid to talk about religon. Perhaps you were just refering to
being "attacked" in this forum which has pretty much evolved into an ongoing discussion over the subject? In the world I live in anyone
who would bad mouth religon is pretty much going to be denegrated and shunned to say the least.

But I wonder why you suppose even devout religous people would give pause.

People like to be liked.

Saying something that could be diametrically opposed to the listeners point of view causes people to be hesitant. On here I think people are a lot less hesitant, but in a social setting, or under the phyciatrist's watchful eye, I can see people wanting to be sure about what they say, especially when you consider that to the Christian, presenting falsehoods about God are a big sin. Plus we do have an ulterior motive of being attractive to converts, so our answers are often tailored to be as inviting as possible.

I wasn't there so I can't speak to the individual situation, but I think these are reasonable reasons for a hestitancy in an answer about religious issues in a clinical trial setting.

Well, now that you mention it I guess religous people probably do feel silly talking about it. I never really looked at it that way. I suppose it's
also an unspoken creedo, kinda like bar rules where you don't talk about religon or politics.

I guess I was thinking along the lines of how those same people that don't like to talk about it also like to where it as a badge of pride by
having fish stickers on their bumpers, and all sorts of other religous symbols to show their belief. Just don't talk to them about them I guess.

More like its hard using such small words to help the other side understand what we're trying to say.

Kind of tiring to try to help people who are mostly too pigheaded to want the help.

The fish thing is so that Christian cops give us a pass. Works most of the time.

That's the Christian spirit!

Got to love the athiest spirit that sees no problem judging a Christian for judging an athiest.



A true believer in evolution would realize that it doesn't matter what a person believes or doesn't believe, only those things that contribute to the furtherance of the species has any merit (not that it is actully merit, which require an outside scale to graph things ( JJJ doesn't count) just better (even though there is no scale of good better or best))

But hey, as long as it makes your guys able to pretend that your are superior in your morality (even though history has shown that religions has been the driving force behind morality( in fact it has been it's creator and it's protector during the many times that human greed and lusts for power have tried to ignore morality))

-2600



Yeah religion has achieved perfect success in combating greed and lust. ( Except lust for little boys I guess, but that's not as important. )

Me: Let's compare contributions to society by groups

You: Not able because athiest can't always be quantified

Me: Then Russia vs USA, One country founded on athiem vs one on Judeo-Chrisitan values

You: Not a Christian country

Me: (bunch of quotes by founding fathers, plus examples of them attending church services held in government offices while in office )

You: [In God we trust added in the 50's, Another Catholic church scandal, current SC ruling on seperation of church state, finish with Scopes trial quote]

Me; [Joke about monkey]

You: [Better joke about monkey and a hamster]

Me: [Obligitory Richard Gere sub-reference that I feel guilty about posting]

You: [Super obscure joke that I don't get]

Me: [but I pretened to so I can be cool]

You: [forget to come back for a couple days]

Me; [checking back every hour wondering where you've been]

Someone else: [quotes something 30 posts ago and tries to be (witty, smart, condesending)]

Me: Loses interest

You: Already forgot about losing interest




There, saved us 2 days of posting.

Now what the hell am I supposed to do for the next two days.

read this?

I'm done.

I knew I should have found a picture of an open book.

You may have a (relatively important) screw loose, but I've got to hand it to you, this was very well done.

Yeah I just read it again and it was even funnier the second time.

Maybe you should explain it to Sam Harris then...