For some years now I’ve mused about the idea of religion and belief as being something that is inate to the human condition, perhaps as a hardwired feature within the folds of our melons or just something that gets ingrained within us as we go through the normal process of analyzing reality and dealing with the complexities of a sensory system that is unable to be omniscient. Today on CNN.com is an article entitled, “Are humans hard-wired for faith?“, which talks about Dr. Andrew Newberg’s quest to explore the way the human brain functions in capacities dealing with religion, faith, rapture, meditation, and other religiously-based activities.
Personally, I’m surprised that it’s taken a neuroscientist this long to broach this subject, although I can imagine that the topic itself is somewhat unpopular to a large mass of people in the world, due to religious freakism. (a phenomenon that I’m going to write about next, I think) The overriding importance that religion has played in humanity’s rise from cavemen upwards is, at the very least, terribly impressive. Whole systems of government, entire wars, methods of culinary preparation, and social systems have been a result of religion throughout the ages. It shouldn’t be a big surprise to anyone to think that this may all be influenced by some sort of circuitry in our brains urging us as onward soldiers of God.
Many things are hard-wired into our brains — language acquisition and speech are both predisposed, mothering instincts are pretty well proven to exist within our circuitry, and various “fight or flight” reactions are still built in from our earlier days in the jungles. Religion has played a pretty big role in survival, bringing people together for common purposes and giving them the reason to move onwards, so one can imagine that it’s a hardware feature rather than a software one.
I loved the fact that the article mentioned the reaction from the various sects of people in the world — religious advocates see this as a good thing, citing the structures in the brain as a “built-in telephone to God”, while atheists see it as justification for why religion exists in the first place despite evidence to the contrary.
Myself, I am highly interested in it from both a philosophical perspective and a religious one. I think there are useful implications in both senses.
In a philosophical aspect, it is fascinating to think about religious inclinations and feelings arising from the structure of an sentient neural net — it makes one consider the implications of constructing an artificial neural net and seeing if religious tendencies arise from it naturally. I can envision a series of loopbacks forming within the ‘net that would generate the sort of pattern enforcement and shifting of recognition required to start such a thing, but only on a macro level — the details escape me so far (which is my own fault — I need to get back into it, frankly).
Religiously-speaking, it makes me muse about the way people use and abuse religion, taking it for granted and forming habits, routines, and rituals in their lives centred around religious activities. If you think about it, none of this is natural by the way religion oughtto act — it should be a very dynamic system in which religion flexes along with the person believing it.
Yet one of the most overriding factors in most religious systems is its inflexibility, the ever-non-changing status of belief, and the rituals surrounding all of it. Why should this be? Frankly, I believe it is because humans are essentially lazy and habitual beings, comforted by pattern recognition and prone to forming routines. Treating religion in a ritual way ensures comfort, acceptance, and, to some extent, sanity. Explaining this by saying that the brain has a tendancy towards religion and belief only reinforces my original thoughts.
So, what do you all think on this? Is religion entirely a byproduct of our minds, are we simply pre-disposed towards it but not guaranteed to engage in it, or are we hardwired to believe in something, anything? And, if so, can be reasonably break from it fully enough to not be beholden to our inate feelings and inclinations, or are we doomed to replace a formal religion with some other “religious” aspect in our lives for as long as we metabolize?
