Are we neurologically hard wired differently?

Xluna

I'd like to believe in some form of aftelife but can't. Yet so many people,who are not friends of the Catholic church anymore, just can't seem to let go a belief in a Deity,even when confronted with valid arguments for which they have no comeback. Most people seem to be like this from my experiance.

Are we neurologically different in some way?

liamw

Aren't we all neurologically different though?

I'm starting to see two different groups of religious believers:

One group of people tend to not critically think about the subject at all, go along with baptism, weddings, funerals etc. as they just see it as tradition and have also not really thought critically about the afterlife. Whenever you try to talk to them about religion they just don't want to talk about it. It doesn't interest them and they seem to prefer to hold onto the comforting belief.
I think that this group makes up the vast majority of 'christians'.

The second group of people do think critically about things in general. They tend to be very rational people, often good scientists and thinkers. This group tends to compartmentalize religious belief from standard scientific scrutiny and justifies the belief by placing it outside of the material world, and therefore outside of anything science can touch. I suspect the driving force behind the belief in this case is typically a personal tragedy where belief in a higher power helped them get through it.

This may seem like a polarized outlook but I think most believers fall into one of these categories. This is my opinion at this point; hopefully some people here can criticize it and comment.

Sam Vimes

No I don't think we're neurologically different. I remember Michael Shermer (I think it was) talking about some skeptic website and how people would laugh along at all the ridiculous things people believe until they came to their own pet theory and suddenly they'd get annoyed. We all have the capacity to believe what we want in the face of contradictory evidence, it just depends what specific thing we do it for. My own personal shame is that I was taken in by the whole 9/11 truth conspiracy for quite a while until I realised it was a load of crap. It's very difficult to look at anything truly objectively without all those sub conscious biases we all have creeping in.

In the case of religious believers, I'd say it comes down to they need an explanation for why we're here and hyperactive agency detection makes them think it must have been a god. And because putting a god in those gaps answers the biggest questions imaginable and provides so much comfort, the fact that the idea of the Christian god raises so many other smaller questions doesn't matter to them. If someone points out a gaping hole in their logic it's explained away by saying god is a mystery, calling the atheist a name, having "faith" that all of these questions will be answered or some other excuse because admitting that the whole concept is a load of nonsense would raise far bigger questions for them than the tiny little gaping hole you just exposed

DublinWriter

Excellent question.

This has been on my mind for the past year and I do believe the answer is 'yes'.

I think it's the next big step for the evolution of human-kind, a kind of psychological development as important as the opposable-thumb.

In the past perhaps those that were genetically disposed to holding superstitious beliefs were favoured more by environmental factors, such as community, society, etc.

liamw

Sam Vimes wrote: »

No I don't think we're neurologically different. I remember Michael Shermer (I think it was) talking about some skeptic website and how people would laugh along at all the ridiculous things people believe until they came to their own pet theory and suddenly they'd get annoyed.

I don't agree with this fully. I think the core of religious belief is rooted in the comfort of believing a higher power is looking after you in this life, and also in comfort of the afterlife (a blissful one). So sometimes I don't think religious belief is comparable to other ridiculous beliefs. I think some people are more susceptable to believing in the supernatural... but perhaps you are saying that this is just becuase some people don't apply critical thinking and down to life experiences? i.e. it is not genetic

strobe

I'm gonna say no. If that was the case then you wouldn't have adults going from believer to non-believer and visa versa.

Sam Vimes

liamw wrote: »

I don't agree with this fully. I think the core of religious belief is rooted in the comfort of believing a higher power is looking after you in this life, and also in comfort of the afterlife (a blissful one). So sometimes I don't think religious belief is comparable to other ridiculous beliefs. I think some people are more susceptable to believing in the supernatural... but perhaps you are saying that this is just becuase some people don't apply critical thinking and down to life experiences? i.e. it is not genetic

I'd say in a lot of cases it is comfort but I wouldn't say all. For some it's the easy answers to difficult questions, for some it was drummed into them as kids so they can't think any other way, some think we'll all start murdering each other if there's no magic man to punish us and as you say yourself, most just don't think about it a whole lot. Some are more susceptible to belief in the supernatural but I think we're all susceptible to accepting what we would already expect or want to be true uncritically and rationalising arguments against our position. We can all do confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance and wooly thinking, especially when we start to think that it's only the other guys who are susceptible to it

Dades

I think we are mostly a product of our genes, so yes, that has to be a factor.

But you can't ignore the other factors like age, social class, culture etc that help shape who we are.

iUseVi

Sam Vimes wrote: »

No I don't think we're neurologically different. I remember Michael Shermer (I think it was) talking about some skeptic website and how people would laugh along at all the ridiculous things people believe until they came to their own pet theory and suddenly they'd get annoyed. We all have the capacity to believe what we want in the face of contradictory evidence, it just depends what specific thing we do it for. My own personal shame is that I was taken in by the whole 9/11 truth conspiracy for quite a while until I realised it was a load of crap. It's very difficult to look at anything truly objectively without all those sub conscious biases we all have creeping in.

In the case of religious believers, I'd say it comes down to they need an explanation for why we're here and hyperactive agency detection makes them think it must have been a god. And because putting a god in those gaps answers the biggest questions imaginable and provides so much comfort, the fact that the idea of the Christian god raises so many other smaller questions doesn't matter to them. If someone points out a gaping hole in their logic it's explained away by saying god is a mystery, calling the atheist a name, having "faith" that all of these questions will be answered or some other excuse because admitting that the whole concept is a load of nonsense would raise far bigger questions for them than the tiny little gaping hole you just exposed

Yes but Sam when you educated yourself about the 9/11 stuff you came around. When Christians are given all the facts they don't come around. I used to be a JC style creationist (don't laugh) but when I started to read books and watch videos that changed.

OP: I think yes, absolutely. The only question for me is how much of it is "blank state" and how much is genetically determined. There's a difference between holding a cherished belief in the face of little or no evidence and holding a belief in the face of overwhelming evidence.

I've talked with my mother about homeopathy until I was blue in the face but she still believes it - without a shred of evidence. I just can't understand this.

Sam Vimes

iUseVi wrote: »

Yes but Sam when you educated yourself about the 9/11 stuff you came around. When Christians are given all the facts they don't come around. I used to be a JC style creationist (don't laugh) but when I started to read books and watch videos that changed.

OP: I think yes, absolutely. The only question for me is how much of it is "blank state" and how much is genetically determined. There's a difference between holding a cherished belief in the face of little or no evidence and holding a belief in the face of overwhelming evidence.

I've talked with my mother about homeopathy until I was blue in the face but she still believes it - without a shred of evidence. I just can't understand this.

Not coming around in the face of evidence is not exclusive to religious or supernatural belief though. Yet again I feel the need to mention all those debates on the Lisbon treaty and how people just refused to listen to reason, they'd grasp onto the flimsiest of straws, anything that would allow them to justify to themselves this gut feeling they had that the treaty was bad news. People believe what they want to believe and what their gut tells them to believe unless they make a conscious effort to look at the situation objectively. I'm sure there are theists reading this now who are thinking to themselves that we've been presented with all of these oh so convincing arguments for god's existence and they can't understand why we don't accept them so they try to explain it away, usually by the theistic catch all, sin.

liamw

Sam Vimes wrote: »

..make a conscious effort to look at the situation objectively.

I think this is a key point. I often find myself making this conscious effort to examine situations objectively. It's almost as if it's not the natural thing to do.

A lot of people don't realise how fallible their subjective sense is.

Sam Vimes

liamw wrote: »

I think this is a key point. I often find myself making this conscious effort to examine situations objectively. It's almost as if it's not the natural thing to do.

A lot of people don't realise how fallible their subjective sense is.

I don't think it is the natural thing to do, for anyone really. I'm sure we can all think of something in our lives that we've never subjected to serious scrutiny or have scrutinsed with a view to confirming it and maybe discounted something that could have warranted more investigation. A recent example is the whole public sector madness and all the crappy arguments and woeful justifications for why the country should borrow half a billion a week and cripple us all to keep them at celtic tiger wage levels. I remember a guy dismissing a study showing that the public sector were paid 25% more than their private sector counterparts based on some flimsy excuse that it didn't take account of X and when I pointed out that it actually did he just found some other excuse. When someone really wants to believe something they will always find a way to justify it and though some of these positions can be changed it takes an awful lot of effort, such as a thread where someone said they would only consider legalisation of prostitution to have "worked" if it totally eliminated the black market and until then then he would support more enforcement even though that will never reach the impossible standard of 100% effectiveness that he's set for the alternative.

The point is we're all guilty of it to some extent, it's just the some people try to make more of an effort to counteract this known flaw in our reasoning process and even then I'd argue that skeptics rarely apply the same level of skepticism to everything

Ickle Magoo

Dades wrote: »

I think we are mostly a product of our genes, so yes, that has to be a factor.

But you can't ignore the other factors like age, social class, culture etc that help shape who we are.

Yeah, same.

We are all hard-wired differently for a myriad of reasons but I think there certainly has to be an innate reason why some people scrutinise the faith they were raised with and find it wanting and others studying exactly the same information don't.

I'm not sure if people can be born naturally sceptical or not...if they can, I think I fall into that category.

Sam Vimes

Yes that's right, I'm skeptical of the skepticism of skeptics

Ickle Magoo

Well, I guess it beats credence for the credulity of the credulous.

iUseVi

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Yes that's right, I'm skeptical of the skepticism of skeptics

I'm skeptical of your skepticism of the skepticism of skeptics. :P

*gets coat*

EDIT: Man, I really shouldn't post after drinking. Sam, I was formulating response but I might get to it in the morning. :P

PeterIanStaker

Xluna wrote: »

I'd like to believe in some form of aftelife but can't. Yet so many people,who are not friends of the Catholic church anymore, just can't seem to let go a belief in a Deity,even when confronted with valid arguments for which they have no comeback. Most people seem to be like this from my experiance.

Are we neurologically different in some way?

I wouldnt say its neurologically diffferent, but I find that the older generation are far more conditioned into belief in an afterlife and can't debate why, or why not.

hiorta

What you say about the 'older generation' is true, in my experience. They certainly were subjected to brutal indoctrination in their younger years, though many discarded a lot of it when they began to see life for themselves.

I wonder if the 'older generation' were much different from others before they became the 'OG'. I really wonder if this is not a result of growing older and more experienced of the world, then returning to their imposed beliefs in the absence of known alternatives.

Of course, Catholicism has no control over Deities, but would like to pose as though they do.

studiorat

I'd have to say we are for the most part neurologically 'wired' in the same way starting out. But it would seem as we grow our brains develop in certain ways, we pick up skills etc. and as such I imagine we develop different thought processes along the way.

Whether this would lead some to be more suceptable to 'belief' than others would be a bit of a stretch I reckon.

There seems to be a bit of a neurology fashion going at the moment and I think there's an awful lot of people attributing our thought processes, specific skills and even moral outlook to our neural build. Perhaps not unlike genes being the answer to everything in the past.

johnnyskeleton

By "WE" do you mean atheists and agnostics?

While I don't personally believe in a god, I shudder to think that some people who also don't believe in a god see themselves as somehow neurologoically different (by implication better) or that they are somehow more civilized or evolved than people who have religious views.

For example, is it being suggested that those atheists who categorically believe that god does not exist are somehow better than us poor monkey-brained fools who simply recognise the limitations of our own understanding? For my part, I think that anyone who categorically denies the posibility of any higher being has some serious delusions of grandeur (unless of course you are actually God, in which case, get off boards.ie and get back to your mysterious ways).

ColmDawson

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

By "WE" do you mean atheists and agnostics?

While I don't personally believe in a god, I shudder to think that some people who also don't believe in a god see themselves as somehow neurologoically different (by implication better) or that they are somehow more civilized or evolved than people who have religious views.

I don't see how this inference can be reasonably made from the OP. Xluna even says "I'd like to believe in some form of afterlife but can't".

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

For example, is it being suggested that those atheists who categorically believe that god does not exist are somehow better than us poor monkey-brained fools who simply recognise the limitations of our own understanding? For my part, I think that anyone who categorically denies the posibility of any higher being has some serious delusions of grandeur (unless of course you are actually God, in which case, get off boards.ie and get back to your mysterious ways).

There are very few of those here, and I would guess that there are even fewer amongst the regular posters.

johnnyskeleton

ColmDawson wrote: »

I don't see how this inference can be reasonably made from the OP. Xluna even says "I'd like to believe in some form of afterlife but can't".

I think it is reasonable, because he is looking to see what differences there are and that would imply some qualitative differentiation between the two. Otherwise I can't see the value in a thread suggesting that atheists and theists are neurologically hard wired differently but in equal terms of ability.

For example, it would be an unusual question in the classical music forum suggesting that people who like Mozart are neurologically different to those who don't like Mozart.

ColmDawson wrote: »

There are very few of those here, and I would guess that there are even fewer amongst the regular posters.

My point being that agnostic beliefs are not that different to theistic beliefs (i.e., to answer the OP, no agnostic/atheists and theists are not hard wired differently in my opinion, it's just different brands of more or less the same product).

Ickle Magoo

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

I think it is reasonable, because he is looking to see what differences there are and that would imply some qualitative differentiation between the two. Otherwise I can't see the value in a thread suggesting that atheists and theists are neurologically hard wired differently but in equal terms of ability.

For example, it would be an unusual question in the classical music forum suggesting that people who like Mozart are neurologically different to those who don't like Mozart.

Are you sure you aren't being slightly paranoid? I took it to mean something akin to being left or right handed, not that there was a problem or one was inherently better than the other.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

My point being that agnostic beliefs are not that different to theistic beliefs (i.e., to answer the OP, no agnostic/atheists and theists are not hard wired differently in my opinion, it's just different brands of more or less the same product).

Theists heard about god and believed it - I heard about god and didn't, I never developed a faith. I think being highly skeptical is probably in part down to genetics and there for, hard-wiring. :cool:

Shenshen

It's an interesting question indeed... and it would give rise to the question about who is different (as in, deviating from the norm and the majority). Are people generally hardwired to be religious, or is the default non-religious?
If the default were religious, that would then of course prompt the question when such wiring entered our evolutionary development... can apes be said to be religious? Can monkeys?

I often do think that there are people who have a need for religion or spirituality. Those people cannot just live with the limitations of knowledge, they need more than that. Others are content with what they know, and find the spiritual superfluous, even a little silly at times.
But if such character traits are actually hard-wired, or if they are the result of character development, I honestly couldn't say.

liamw

Came across this:

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/957-homo-religiosus-why-we-are-hardwired-for-belief-in-god.html

Waking-Dreams

Shermer also said: What we know from neuroscience is that some of us tend to look at the world and find meaningful patterns and then impose on those patterns intentional agency; a projection of what our brain is doing to try and make sense of the world.

In essence, people create meaning themselves. I think this is why no matter how much evidence or logic you throw at some people, they can still hold onto their delusions about whatever; religion, new age beliefs, etc.

Not sure if we are hard-wired though. People can go through life and then become, for example, a Christian as an adult. I very much doubt that some kind of religious gene or mechanism was laying dormat until something set it off.

Anyone have a read of Johann Hari's piece on Heaven?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/faith/heaven-a-fools-paradise-1949399.html

Ghost Buster

For me this sums it up beautifully:
A friend of mine is expecting her first baby soon. Neither her or her husband attend mass, dont consider themselves catholic any longer and have started the whole debate as to whether they have their child baptised.
This in turn has started her questioning her last remaining residual 'Christian' leanings (once a Catholic....and all that)
She stated the other day " I know its all ****e, the church is doing terrible things and I'd love to just pack it all in............. but Im afraid to."

I asked if that isnt one of the things that is so insiduous about a religious upbringing, the instilled fear and unveiled threat of punishment if you dont tow the line.

She replied with. " Yeah, I suppose. But still..."
:mad: