Are our brains structured to avoid refutations of belief in God? An experimental study

Persinger, Michael A.

doi:10.1016/j.religion.2008.05.005

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…If we are consider some studies results showing the role of death reminders in amplify religious commitments then we came in to the conclusion that a function of religion is to suppress death-anxiety, thus sharing one of Persinger's arguments (Persinger, 2009). The fact that religious people have better cognitive and (consequently) emotional stability in confronting the unknown, because of the belief system they adhere to, is a common place in everyday thinking.…”

Section: Dealing With Deathmentioning

confidence: 57%

The Evolutionist Role of Religion; Some Arguments

Rotilă¹

2018

MCDSARE

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In this article we analyze religion from the perspective of a stage necessary in the evolution of humanity, contributing to the birth of society, to the creation of specific dimensions of the human mind prior to the emergence of philosophy and then of science. We explore the possibility that mental religious resorts have facilitated the transition from group to society: the existence of a set of mental instruments that can be called the "religious package" has provided integrative meanings and goals, mediating the transition from small groups to large societies, from hunters-gatherers to agriculture and sedentariness. We bring some arguments for the state of religion of social survival strategy: through the cooperation it establishes in the multiple plans of human existence it favours the groups with the highest degree of coherence Several evolutionary advantages of religion: generates predictability through the systems of human classification and ordering of the possible relationships among the peers (social context stabilization), namely of ordering reality (cosmos), shaping existential models. Religion is an explanatory system of reality and normative for human existence, while ensuring the social framework necessary for outsourcing, thereby facilitating the development of the mind. Religion is an integrative meta-narrative: it is a reference framework for integrative narratives (contexts that make the meaning possible) that reduce the pile of information that invades the mind to some schemes of understanding. Religion could be the most appropriate example of geno-cultural co-evolution, clarifying this assumption being attempted through an appeal to anthropological and neuro-science research.

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Section: Dealing With Deathmentioning

confidence: 57%

The Evolutionist Role of Religion; Some Arguments

Rotilă¹

2018

MCDSARE

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“…Finally, nature itself has no option but to live by the law of the jungle, and without a spiritual compass, public appeal to our humanity sees only our animal nature. For example, belief in God is supposedly only the result of neurons firing in the brain to keep us from being too scared to struggle through the competition of life unto death (e.g., Dennett, 1991; Persinger, 2001, 2009). In sum, spirituality per se has no proprietary locus in contemporary public society, so peace must reside in the clouds; it becomes an elusive dream.…”

Section: The Problem: Nature Society and Religion Betray Peacementioning

confidence: 99%

The Spiritualization of Secular Society: The Challenge of Peace in a World of Diversity

Helminiak

2016

Journal of Humanistic Psychology

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Peace on earth is not to be expected. First, at least in its subhuman form, the law of nature is survival of the fittest, not self-deferential cooperation. Second, a philosophical consensus to provide needed epistemological agreement and ethical criteria for peace is nonexistent in the postmodern world. Third, conflicting beliefs among the world's religions and a sharp decline in religious affiliation incapacitate the traditional agencies of support for transcendent values, including peace. Thus, the daunting challenge has become the nonreligious and even nontheological spiritualization of secular society. Only this hope remains as history forces humanity to mature: Elaborate and rely on a humanistic basis for lofty values. In evocative terms, philosophers and humanistic psychologists have narrated that hope. More incisively, Bernard Lonergan has detailed the humanistic basis of that hope: distinctively human consciousness or spirit, the selftranscending dimension of the human mind, a bimodal, quadrilevel, epistemologically and ethically normative dynamism. But no agency exists to implement this hope, and peace still, depends ultimately on elusive human goodwill. Still the empirical specification of a philosophical foundation at least provides needed guidance, which, coupled with today's scientific, medical, psychological, and sociological technology, does sustain hope for peace.

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“…If the sense of self and its beliefs of an infinite post-self state are inculcated in early childhood, then by the time the person progresses through the various cognitive stages and exhibits the potential perspicacity to refute the argument even its initiation would be anxiogenic. In one experimental study (Persinger, 2009) normal volunteers who were exposed to progressive statements that would ultimately suggest God was a creation of neuronal function, displayed behavioral indications that the right hemisphere discerned the semantic implicit chain even without the participation of awareness. The cognitive sequence that would have led to the conclusion was avoided or displaced by circumlocution.…”

Section: The Importance Of Development and Sex Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

NeuroTheology and Its Convergence with NeuroQuantology

et al. 2010

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The principles of neuroscience assume and predict that all experiences are generated by brain activity as a consequence of structural patterns. A convergence of methodologies and measurements indicate that religious/mystical experiences and beliefs associated with them are predictable phenomena. The central roles of the right hemisphere, specifically the temporal lobe, and the chemistry, structure, and gene sequences that affect this region's electrical sensitivity and intercalation with the left hemisphere are reviewed. The precarious consequences of the enmeshment between the neuronal networks that mediate the survival of the self and moral judgments are considered. The neuroquantological bases to the cellular activity that mediates these experiences suggest an imminent change in paradigm that will alter the manner in which we perceive ourselves and our relationship to the universe.

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Are our brains structured to avoid refutations of belief in God? An experimental study

Cited by 6 publications

References 41 publications

The Evolutionist Role of Religion; Some Arguments

The Evolutionist Role of Religion; Some Arguments

The Spiritualization of Secular Society: The Challenge of Peace in a World of Diversity

NeuroTheology and Its Convergence with NeuroQuantology

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