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Kris Millegan wrote:
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> Fairytales.
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> k
Brain researchers find 'God module'
Los Angeles Times
[re-post]
NEW ORLEANS -- No one knows why humanity felt its first religious
stirrings, but researchers at University of California, San Diego, reported
Tuesday that the human brain may be hard-wired to hear the voice of heaven.
In an experiment with patients suffering from an unusual form of epilepsy,
researchers at the UC San Diego brain and perception laboratory determined
that the parts of the brain's temporal lobe -- which the scientists dubbed
the "God module" -- may affect how intensely a person responds to religious
beliefs. The researchers said the experiment was the first effort to
address the neural basis of religious expression.
People suffering this type of seizure have reported intense mystical and
religious experiences as part of their attacks but also are usually
preoccupied with mystical thoughts between seizures. That led the
researchers to use the patients as a way of investigating the relationship
between the physical structure of the brain and spiritual experiences.
The researchers determined that one effect of the patients' seizures was to
strengthen their brain's involuntary response to religious words, which led
the scientists to suggest a portion of the brain was attuned to ideas about
a supreme being.
"It is not clear why such dedicated neural machinery ... for religion may
have evolved," the team reported Tuesday at a meeting of the Society for
Neuroscience in New Orleans. One possibility, the scientists suggested, was
to encourage tribe loyalty or reinforce kinship ties or the stability of a
closely knit clan.
The scientists emphasized that their findings in no way suggest that
religion is simply a matter of brain chemistry. "These studies do not in
any way negate the validity of religious experience or God," the team
cautioned. "They merely provide an explanation in terms of brain regions
that may be involved."
Until recently, most neuroscientists confined their inquiries to research
aimed at alleviating the medical problems that affect the brain's health
and to attempts to fathom its fundamental neural mechanisms.
Emboldened by their growing understanding of how the brain works, however,
scientists now dare to investigate the relationship between the brain,
human consciousness and intangible mental experiences.
Craig Kinsely, an expert in psychology and neuroscience at the University
of Richmond in Virginia, said: "People have been tickling around the edges
of consciousness, and this sort of research plunges in. There is the
quandary of whether the mind created God or God created the mind. This is
going to shake people up, but (any conclusion) is very premature."
Vilayanur Ramachandran, the senior scientist involved in the experiment and
the director of the center for brain and cognition at UC San Diego, said,
"We are skating on thin ice. We are only starting to look at this. The
exciting thing is that you can even begin to contemplate scientific
experiments on the neural basis of religion and God."
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