Posted on 05/09/2017 7:01:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Scientists found that damage in a certain part of the brain is linked to an increase in religious fundamentalism. In particular, lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reduced cognitive flexibility - the ability to challenge our beliefs based on new evidence.
The researchers, led by Jordan Grafman of Northwestern University, utilized data gathered from Vietnam War veterans as part of the Vietnam Head Injury Study. They compared levels of religious fundamentalism between 119 vets who had lesions and 30 veterans who didn’t.
The study further confirms that the prefrontal cortex is associated with religious beliefs and is the latest in a number of recent studies that look to find the neurological basis for religion.
“The variation in the nature of religious beliefs are governed by specific brain areas in the anterior parts of the human brain and those brain areas are among the most recently evolved areas of the human brain,” said Grafman.
How free these areas are from disease, in particular the part known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, may determine a person’s mental openness - necessary to appreciate the “diversity of religious thought.” The prefrontal cortex was previously linked to having a cognitive function in spiritual experiences.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigthink.com ...
An open mind is like an open mouth -
designed ultimately to close upon something solid.
Scientist find these people are harder to program and manipulate.
Like climate change, institutional racism being everywhere and homosexuality being innate not behavioral, as well as gender is not inherent but selectable
There are no atheists in foxholes.
Fake science!
this is what communists and the ussr did. Not believing in the “good of government dictatorship” was a mental illness. Defectors that were caught were put in mental hospitals.
This is an effort to stop people voting for the next Trump.
Junk science is too respectable a description.
Muslims that mass murder and rape people = a ok.
Communists that mass murder = a ok
Leftists (basically the same as communists) that rape, murder babies and think men are women = a ok.
Christians that don’t do those things = EVIL and brain damaged.
Uh huh guys, keep trying.
Uh, it's spelled Takoma Park. And it was the home of Doctor Raoul Deming.
So, they used a population not only more likely to have lesions of all types, but also exposed to life-or-death situations where most normal people would call upon a higher power, and this is what they came up with? Was there a control population of civilians with no life-or-death situational exposure? Sixth-graders could design a better study than this.
I feel like my mind cleared thanks to religion. I have a moral framework.
Suffering shows many people the way to Christ. So what’s new in the world?
So THAT is what is wrong with Moslimss!
And the data gathered on them reported how religious they were on some sort of scale and not just the religion listed on their dog-tags? I'm calling BS on this "study". This is the same kind of made-up crap that "proves" that conservatives are dumber than average and GW Bush had the lowest IQ of any president in history.
Exactly. And I’d like to know what their definition of religious “fundamentalist” is. Somebody who goes to church only during Christmas and Easter? Somebody planning to start their own ministry the minute they got out of the military and wanted to be a chaplain when drafted? Somebody who thinks that Jim Jones had it nailed but he just didn’t do it right?
It doesn’t even matter, this is just more made-up crap to shovel on people that they don’t like.
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