Least and most religious nations

[denuseri]

According to reaserchers in California:

"Is humankind hardwired to be spiritual? Recent research suggests that we just might be, as scientists from the University of Udine in Italy identify areas of the brain in which levels of activation regulate spirituality. This study, published in the February 11 issue of the journal Neuron, serves as a first step in pinpointing the biological root of spiritual and religious feelings. Looking for a direct link between neural activity and spiritualism, Dr. Cosimo Urgesi and his colleagues interviewed eighty-eight cancer patients with brain tumors of varying severities before and after their surgeries. They discovered that the people who had tumors removed in the left and right posterior parietal regions of the brain showed a considerable increase in self-transcendence. Though spirituality in many ways is seen as separate from religion, both incorporate a complex of attitudes and behaviors relating to a transcendent human condition. Religious beliefs and practices have been a source of succor and conflict for nearly all of recorded human history, making this study significant in that it paves the path for future investigation that can advance our understanding of the neurobiological reasoning behind disparate outlooks on spirituality. While some experts discourage comparing the neural mechanisms involved in spirituality with those of religious practices, the causative link between brain functioning level and state of transcendence should be further pursued as it may lead to answers of why humans are religious, and potentially reveal our genetic predisposition for belief."

"Previous reports confirm the relationship between spirituality and frontal, parietal, and temporal cortexes. In particular, the brain's right parietal lobe defines the aspect of "me." According to Brick Johnstone, a neuropsychologist at University of Missouri, this region assesses the body's position and location in space. Any modifications to the area would disrupt this awareness and feelings of individuality would fade. In essence, the sensation of transcendence would be heightened. By comparing imaging of damaged brains and the subjects self-described spirituality, one study, published in the journal Zygon in 2008, provides evidence that people with less active parietal lobes (i.e., "Me-Definers") are more likely to be spiritual. However, the research conducted by Dr. Urgesi is the first to suggest a causative link. His team surveyed the spirituality of a person by scoring their level of self-transcendence, which is an allegedly unvarying personality trait that abstractedly reflects a decreased ability to sense individual self and largely identify oneself as incorporated with the universe. In order to gauge self-transcendence (or ST), patients underwent formal interviews focusing on their level of religiosity, report of personal mystical experiences or extrasensorial consciousness (including the presence of God), and acceptance of their illness. "Damage to posterior parietal areas induced unusually fast changes of a stable personality dimension related to transcendental self-referential awareness," Dr. Urgesi concluded. Because a specific area of the brain closely controls this trait, spirituality and religious behaviors may be a direct result of diminished activity in the parietal area."

In other words...since people are spiritual and religious and any number of other things, and since in science we have found that structure equals function in all things from basic atomic principles to higher brain function...then there must be a physical area of the brain that governs said spiritualism and religion and any other number of human enmotive responses to stimuli.

Ergo we are to a certian degree "hardwired" to be what we are.

[Thorne]

Ergo we are to a certian degree "hardwired" to be what we are.

Perhaps that's true, perhaps not. Hard to tell at this point. But even if it were true, what does that mean? After all, men are "hardwired" to be polygamous. People are "hardwired" to kill enemies. There are numerous traits which can be considered to be "hardwired" in our brains, yet we have the ability to overcome them. That's a part of being human, too.

Just because there was once a survival advantage in believing in the supernatural doesn't mean that we must still do so. As humans haven't we advanced to the point where such simplistic explanations for the world around us are no longer necessary? And perhaps no longer advantageous. We no longer can afford to believe that mumbling a few trite phrases will help us to overcome disease and adversity. There are better ways which actually work. Our survival, MY survival right now, is dependent upon those rational methods of curing disease. No gods are going to help me, or you, or anyone else. Doctors and medicine and science just might.

[thir]

Perhaps that's true, perhaps not. Hard to tell at this point. But even if it were true, what does that mean? After all, men are "hardwired" to be polygamous. People are "hardwired" to kill enemies. There are numerous traits which can be considered to be "hardwired" in our brains, yet we have the ability to overcome them. That's a part of being human, too.

There is absolutely no scientific evidence that we have such a hard-wirering.

Nor for listening to the rich, nor that seeking profit at all costs is a human trait we absolutely must obey

Just because there was once a survival advantage in believing in the supernatural doesn't mean that we must still do so.

What advantage was that?

As humans haven't we advanced to the point where such simplistic explanations for the world around us are no longer necessary?

I don't know..this hard-wire thing for one seems pretty simplistic to me. And so do a good many other manipulative, simplistic ideas and slogans.

And perhaps no longer advantageous. We no longer can afford to believe that mumbling a few trite phrases will help us to overcome disease and adversity.

Why not? In so many places that is all people have.

There are better ways which actually work. Our survival, MY survival right now, is dependent upon those rational methods of curing disease. No gods are going to help me, or you, or anyone else. Doctors and medicine and science just might.

For those who can afford it, you mean.
Other methods are used by people who cannnot, and some of them work, even if not a part of Western medicine.

[Thorne]

There is absolutely no scientific evidence that we have such a hard-wirering.

Of course not. We call it reflex (such as "fight or flight"), or instinct, or innate ability. Kinda hard to have hard wiring in a soft and squishy brain.

What advantage was that?

Who knows? Perhaps declaring a place to be the "abode of the gods" was a good way to keep people from walking in places where they could be killed. Maybe it just made people feel good to believe there were powerful beings looking out for them. Why do we consider it bad luck to walk under a ladder? It isn't, really. It could be dangerous, though.

I don't know..this hard-wire thing for one seems pretty simplistic to me. And so do a good many other manipulative, simplistic ideas and slogans.

It IS simplistic. It's a metaphor for autonomic responses in our brains. And those manipulative ideas and slogans try to access those responses and nudge people to move in a particular direction.

Why not? In so many places that is all people have.

Because it has been shown that such things do not really work! We need to make sure people have things which DO work.

For those who can afford it, you mean.

I'm not going to get into the whole poverty issue here.

Other methods are used by people who cannnot, and some of them work, even if not a part of Western medicine.

See my response to denuseri, above, regarding acupuncture.

[thir]

This is a most interesting article, but like so many of its kind, it is all up to the journalist to get it right, and they don't always, or they do not think people are interested in the details.

It would be interesting to know if Cosimo Urgesi is religious himself, just wondering because lately I have seen a number of articles on research on various matters concerning religion or belief, among which one on belief and health, and they were all sponsored by a Christian organisation. But maybe it is a trend in research.
It also has a bearing on what questions he asked in the survey.

I wonder what was his reason for asking his informers about both religion and sprituality, seeng how the article shows that it is debated whether the two should be kept apart.

I miss a proper definition on religion, and much more one on spirituality! Also on 'self-transcendence,' and 'a transcendant human condition'.

It does say that the team surveyed 'the spirituality of a person by scoring their level of self-transcendence, which is an allegedly unvarying personality trait that abstractedly reflects a decreased ability to sense individual self and largely identify oneself as incorporated with the universe.'

So, by way of asking, he is trying to determine an alleged trait which abstractedly reflects a decreased awareness of self, and a larger identification of being one with the universe.

So, if he sees spirtuality as being sort of the opposite of an awareness of self, why does he not continue to use purely scientific methods to investigate that?

Right back in the 60's it was discovered that people who meditated had different brain waves from people who were sleeping, or awake.
There are lots of situations where people loose track of self: apart from meditating, being creative or seriously intent on something, listening to music, or being completely exhuasted, for instance. It would be easy enough to measure people's brain waves during such situations, wouldn't it? And much more reliable.

I can understand that spirituality is seen as having to do with a feeling being one with the universe - after all we are made of the same stuff, and it is not to be wondered if that can be felt. Indeed, it can.

But why does he see a sense of self as versus transcendence? As if you have more of one, you must have less of the other, and vice verca.
The way I see it, they are just two different mind sets.

I know this is not what is meant, but it seems to be that he is saying that religion comes from brain damage!

According to reaserchers in California:

"Is humankind hardwired to be spiritual? Recent research suggests that we just might be, as scientists from the University of Udine in Italy identify areas of the brain in which levels of activation regulate spirituality. This study, published in the February 11 issue of the journal Neuron, serves as a first step in pinpointing the biological root of spiritual and religious feelings. Looking for a direct link between neural activity and spiritualism, Dr. Cosimo Urgesi and his colleagues interviewed eighty-eight cancer patients with brain tumors of varying severities before and after their surgeries. They discovered that the people who had tumors removed in the left and right posterior parietal regions of the brain showed a considerable increase in self-transcendence. Though spirituality in many ways is seen as separate from religion, both incorporate a complex of attitudes and behaviors relating to a transcendent human condition. Religious beliefs and practices have been a source of succor and conflict for nearly all of recorded human history, making this study significant in that it paves the path for future investigation that can advance our understanding of the neurobiological reasoning behind disparate outlooks on spirituality. While some experts discourage comparing the neural mechanisms involved in spirituality with those of religious practices, the causative link between brain functioning level and state of transcendence should be further pursued as it may lead to answers of why humans are religious, and potentially reveal our genetic predisposition for belief."

"Previous reports confirm the relationship between spirituality and frontal, parietal, and temporal cortexes. In particular, the brain's right parietal lobe defines the aspect of "me." According to Brick Johnstone, a neuropsychologist at University of Missouri, this region assesses the body's position and location in space. Any modifications to the area would disrupt this awareness and feelings of individuality would fade. In essence, the sensation of transcendence would be heightened. By comparing imaging of damaged brains and the subjects self-described spirituality, one study, published in the journal Zygon in 2008, provides evidence that people with less active parietal lobes (i.e., "Me-Definers") are more likely to be spiritual. However, the research conducted by Dr. Urgesi is the first to suggest a causative link. His team surveyed the spirituality of a person by scoring their level of self-transcendence, which is an allegedly unvarying personality trait that abstractedly reflects a decreased ability to sense individual self and largely identify oneself as incorporated with the universe. In order to gauge self-transcendence (or ST), patients underwent formal interviews focusing on their level of religiosity, report of personal mystical experiences or extrasensorial consciousness (including the presence of God), and acceptance of their illness. "Damage to posterior parietal areas induced unusually fast changes of a stable personality dimension related to transcendental self-referential awareness," Dr. Urgesi concluded. Because a specific area of the brain closely controls this trait, spirituality and religious behaviors may be a direct result of diminished activity in the parietal area."

In other words...since people are spiritual and religious and any number of other things, and since in science we have found that structure equals function in all things from basic atomic principles to higher brain function...then there must be a physical area of the brain that governs said spiritualism and religion and any other number of human enmotive responses to stimuli.

Ergo we are to a certian degree "hardwired" to be what we are.

All people are not religious, and many would not say that they are spiritual either.
I do think that there is no basis for any theory of 'hard-wireing' of us. It sis an expression that has been so abused lately.

My own personal conviction is that we are all spiritual, in the sense that we are made of the same stuff as our surroundings, and that I think that if you want, you can feel it.

[leo9]

You are aware that the article you are quoting from is headlined "Selective Brain Damage Modulates Human Spirituality, Research Reveals" - or put more simply, as the authors explicitly say in the text, brain damage makes us religious? I don't think that was the message you wanted to convey!

According to reaserchers in California:

"Is humankind hardwired to be spiritual? Recent research suggests that we just might be

Maybe some research does, but this doesn't, except inasmuch as having colour vision and depth perception "hardwires" us to perceive beauty in a sunset. There is a world of difference between having the neural hardware to do something, and having the emotional and intellectual software to do it.

To take a safely materialistic example: it was believed for centuries (on the basis of the same sort of symptom-lesion studies as this) that the organ called Brocca's Area was key to human speech, to the point where paleologists used it as the test of whether a newly found species could talk. Then more careful research found that most of the activity associated with speech took place in quite different places. It's now suspected that Brocca's Area may be some sort of motor control: without it you can't form words, but you can have it and still be incapable of speech.

I am even more suspicious of using lesion studies to track down something as fuzzy and ill defined as spirituality. But even if they could find which areas are active in those mental processes we call spiritual, that would tell us exactly as much as identifying Brocca's Area told us about how we can deliver speeches that make people angry or poetry that makes people weep.

Though spirituality in many ways is seen as separate from religion, both incorporate a complex of attitudes and behaviors relating to a transcendent human condition. Religious beliefs and practices have been a source of succor and conflict for nearly all of recorded human history, making this study significant in that it paves the path for future investigation that can advance our understanding of the neurobiological reasoning behind disparate outlooks on spirituality. While some experts discourage comparing the neural mechanisms involved in spirituality with those of religious practices, the causative link between brain functioning level and state of transcendence should be further pursued as it may lead to answers of why humans are religious, and potentially reveal our genetic predisposition for belief."

There are so many contradictions and unexamined assumptions in that passage that I'm surprised it made it into a scientific journal: probably because it was peer-reviewed by doctors, not by philosophers. They start by recognising that spirituality and religion are apples and oranges, then go right ahead and add them up and get the answer in pears.

"Previous reports confirm the relationship between spirituality and frontal, parietal, and temporal cortexes. In particular, the brain's right parietal lobe defines the aspect of "me." According to Brick Johnstone, a neuropsychologist at University of Missouri, this region assesses the body's position and location in space. Any modifications to the area would disrupt this awareness and feelings of individuality would fade. In essence, the sensation of transcendence would be heightened. By comparing imaging of damaged brains and the subjects self-described spirituality, one study, published in the journal Zygon in 2008, provides evidence that people with less active parietal lobes (i.e., "Me-Definers") are more likely to be spiritual.

That is actually an interesting point, and there's been some fascinating research into this using magnetic effects to temporarily disrupt parietal function. But there's a big unanswered question about whether the level of activity in a particular brain area is physically caused ("hard-wired") or simply indicates that the way that particular personality works is currently making less use of that area.

When I'm using this PC, the graphics card has much less activity than when my game-playing son does. The PC's physical ability to do fast high-res graphics is the same, I just don't use it. Is someone with a less active parietal area less "me-defined" because they don't have the hardware for it, or is their personality just using the "me-definer" less? The answer you get may depend on whether you're a neurologist or a psychologist.

His team surveyed the spirituality of a person by scoring their level of self-transcendence, which is an allegedly unvarying personality trait that abstractedly reflects a decreased ability to sense individual self and largely identify oneself as incorporated with the universe.

Emphasis added! That's the first time I've seen a scientist use "allegedly" like a tabloid journalist. Maybe he hoped nobody would notice it in all that high-level waffle.

In order to gauge self-transcendence (or ST), patients underwent formal interviews focusing on their level of religiosity, report of personal mystical experiences or extrasensorial consciousness (including the presence of God),

None of which are the things which he claims to have a mechanism for linking to parietal fucntion, so he's out on a limb already. In particular, experiences of the presence of God(s) by definition don't involve loss of awareness of self, because there must be a self to be meeting God: self-transcenders don't meet God, they become one with God. I doubt if this researcher groks the difference; the full text of the article clearly implies that he's a hardcore materialist trying to prove that religious experiences are just brain malfunctions. In the hope of curing them? Thorne, you should sponsor this research!

[thir]

Thorne, you should sponsor this research!

Except it isn't very scientific!

[Thorne]

Thorne, you should sponsor this research!

If I only had the money!

But then, I think I'd rather buy an island in the middle of the Pacific, far away from anyone. Just me and my harem.

The problem I have with this kind of research, and this kind of discussion actually, is the tossing about of the terms 'spirituality' and 'transcendence' as if they were real, measurable effects. I'm not so sure that they are. Place three people in a room and you're liable to get four different descriptions of spirituality. What one person might consider a spiritual, or transcendent, experience, another will consider to be a pretty good high. Almost every description of such an experience which I have ever heard could have come just as easily from a drug or alcohol abuser. Could this tie in with the implication that such things are a construct of a damaged brain? Or, like you on the PC, from someone who is not using the full potential of their brain? I don't know that I'd want to go quite that far, but it does tend to imply that any such spiritual experiences are constructs of the mind, and not of some outside, supernatural origin.

[thir]

The problem I have with this kind of research, and this kind of discussion actually, is the tossing about of the terms 'spirituality' and 'transcendence' as if they were real, measurable effects. I'm not so sure that they are. Place three people in a room and you're liable to get four different descriptions of spirituality. What one person might consider a spiritual, or transcendent, experience, another will consider to be a pretty good high. Almost every description of such an experience which I have ever heard could have come just as easily from a drug or alcohol abuser.

Which is why the debated research with Urgesi is out the window!