This is your brain on God

[xSilverPhinx]

Religious and spiritual experiences activate the brain reward circuits in much the same way as love, sex, gambling, drugs and music, report researchers.

An fMRI scan shows regions of the brain that become active when devoutly religious study participants have a spiritual experience, including a reward center in the brain, the nucleus accumbens.
Credit: Jeffrey Anderson

This is your brain on God: Spiritual experiences activate brain reward circuits

Praise dopamine!

[Arturo]

I don't particularly like music. But I can see how drugs and God are related, being an ex drug user myself. Love, yeah. Gambling, not my thing.

What I find interesting is at the end they say:

Work by others suggests that the brain responds quite differently to meditative and contemplative practices characteristic of some eastern religions,  but so far little is known about the neuroscience of western spiritual practices.

Now I could care less about what they find on Western Religions, other than it having the purpose to show theists it's all just silly brain games, but what they find on the eastern religions is what fascinates me. I would also like to know what they find on other Western, Non-Abrahamic, Religions such as Wicca or some North or South American Tribal Religion.

[existentialcrisis]

Research has found that the language part of the brain lights up during prayer. It's as though they are actually talking to someone, although no-one is actually there.

It's engrained in our DNA due to our evolution. A survival mechanism.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Research has found that the language part of the brain lights up during prayer. It's as though they are actually talking to someone, although no-one is actually there.

It's engrained in our DNA due to our evolution. A survival mechanism.

How do you know no one is there?

[existentialcrisis]

Well, no one can know anything for sure. But that is the running theory based on evidence. I think there for I am, so I know I am there. As for a cosmic puppet master, there are too many inconsistencies. When in doubt use bayesian theory to analyse probabilities.

[Arturo]

Research has found that the language part of the brain lights up during prayer. It's as though they are actually talking to someone, although no-one is actually there.

It's engrained in our DNA due to our evolution. A survival mechanism.

Maybe it lights up because we are using language? And not because we think someone is listening?

[Tank]

Research has found that the language part of the brain lights up during prayer. It's as though they are actually talking to someone, although no-one is actually there.

It's engrained in our DNA due to our evolution. A survival mechanism.

How do you know no one is there?

Why doesn't god heal amputees?

[Asmodean]

Also, all them piss-poor schmucks faithfully playing the lottery. Why are so few of them rich? Wasn't Jesus all about giving free shit to the poor?

Having turned fish into wine or whatever, altering chance in a small way so that the poor have a higher probability of scoring a jackpot than the well-off ought to be a small thing, no?

[Bad Penny II]

Having turned fish into wine or whatever,

I'd of thought that kind of thing would appeal to a Scandinavian, non typical Scandinavian I suppose.

[Bad Penny II]

Research has found that the language part of the brain lights up during prayer. It's as though they are actually talking to someone, although no-one is actually there.

It's engrained in our DNA due to our evolution. A survival mechanism.

How do you know no one is there?

Why doesn't god heal amputees?

Why don't the museums stick arms on those broken statues?

[Asmodean]

Having turned fish into wine or whatever,

I'd of thought that kind of thing would appeal to a Scandinavian, non typical Scandinavian I suppose.

I like fish and dislike wine, so fuck Jesus!

Why don't the museums stick arms on those broken statues?

They are waiting for Jesus to heal them. Duh!

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Research has found that the language part of the brain lights up during prayer. It's as though they are actually talking to someone, although no-one is actually there.

It's engrained in our DNA due to our evolution. A survival mechanism.

How do you know no one is there?

Why doesn't god heal amputees?

I don't know.  I'm just trying to find out how people know that no one is there.

[Magdalena]

Having turned fish into wine or whatever,

I'd of thought that kind of thing would appeal to a Scandinavian, non typical Scandinavian I suppose.

I like fish and dislike wine, so fuck Jesus!

Why don't the museums stick arms on those broken statues?

They are waiting for Jesus to heal them. Duh!

You guys are funny. 

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Well, no one can know anything for sure. But that is the running theory based on evidence. I think there for I am, so I know I am there. As for a cosmic puppet master, there are too many inconsistencies. When in doubt use bayesian theory to analyse probabilities.

There are lots of options other than a cosmic puppet master.  There could be an advanced alien civilization that is listening to all our communications, for example. Or a deist creator. Or maybe we are in a simulation.  I think sometimes we overreach with our dichotomies.

[existentialcrisis]

Well, no one can know anything for sure. But that is the running theory based on evidence. I think there for I am, so I know I am there. As for a cosmic puppet master, there are too many inconsistencies. When in doubt use bayesian theory to analyse probabilities.

There are lots of options other than a cosmic puppet master.  There could be an advanced alien civilization that is listening to all our communications, for example. Or a deist creator. Or maybe we are in a simulation.  I think sometimes we overreach with our dichotomies.

Possibly but no evidence for either hypothesis. Especially the last one (simulation) since we only come up with that idea as soon as we developed computers with algorithms. It's an association fallacy.