Is religion and athiesm part of a brain wiring?

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We can alter the "inevitable" through free will.

I'm not claiming we possess 100% free-will potential.

But we mustn't confine ourselves to what we believe is possible on the basis of our subjective notions pertaining to our "wiring."

I might not believe I'm a leader based upon my "nature," and I might believe I am "confined" by my "nature." My life's decisions have been based on that premise.

However, what I believe, and what someone else might believe as pertains my "nature" could very well be diametrically opposed. Perhaps, I should have listened to others?

^^

And even if the argument I presented is one that I haven't seen anyone attack adequately to undermine in the last 8 or 9 years that I've been of this conclusion you're demonstrating here quite well the point I was making up front - ie. that a person's emotional health needs certain things and quite often, for pragmatic reasons, they'll be compelled to always believe what serves them best internally even if and when the facts aren't on their side. They'll do so because the internal trade-offs make objective truth inexpedient or even penalizing.

Part of why I'm able to be a determinist and be so successfully is that my suffering was combined with a very ambitious drive to find the best solution to any problem at any time, if there were any aches and pains in my life I figured it was my fault, and by the time I started almost metaphysically blaming myself, lets say by example for being single, all because I wasn't at some unknown place at some unknown time to make an unknown result happen - it started to sink in that I had no basis for being any place that I wasn't at, or not doing something that I wasn't already doing, because I had no informative or motive material to send me to that place at that time. It's a bit like the joke of 'You know, I've been meaning to win the lottery but I keep procrastinating...'. What I think rips a lot of us up is that often times the best we can manage with life is, and will be, way below the mark of what we wanted and I think that's a lot of what people are trying to evade when they hold to free will dogmatically.

Thirty years ago that question would have seemed absurd-that your degree of religiosity was influenced by your genes, or by your "brain wiring". But in recent years they discover things all of the time that show that traits once thought to have been simply a matter of "character" to be linked to biology- like apraxia, and dyslexia, the autism spectrum, etc.

So now that proposition no longer seems so unthinkable.

But even though its now becoming thinkable it doesn't mean that its now become testable.

There are so many variables. Religions themselves vary, and probably different religions may attract different types.

My theory is that there are moderate folks who oscillate between being moderate religious, and moderately skeptical. And then there are extreme folks who swing from being bikers with skulls tattooed all on their foreheads, to being snake handling pentacostalists who writhe on the floor of church the next day, and then back again. Some like it hot- both their religion and their irrelgion, and some like both things mild.

Fear of mortality is a big reason for religion, but certainly not the only reason.

In the US I suspect that a certain nongenetic environmental neurosis happens: one generation starts to loose its faith, but continues to cling to religion with a death grip. This causes them as parents to force religion on their children with even greater forces than otherwise. This back fires and cause the next generation to become traumatized, and to grow up more hostile to religion than even the typical secular person or atheist is. So you get the desperately religious, and the virtiolically atheist at each other's throats online all of the time.

If people can't stop something, does it mean it's wired in their brain?

It has also been proven how empathy impacts us and that is why people cannot kill anyone no matter how hard they try but I bet they would if done in self defense. I also read we all have something in our brain that keeps us from harming others and those who don't have a conscious do anything like hurt people and not care.

I used to think we all made choices and we choose to be however we choose to be. Now I realize it has to do with how our brains are wired and some can do things easier than others or more naturally than others while some others have to train themselves. Some reason some people are more prone to PTSD while some others are not. Why is it that some can still listen to a song despite hearing it when they were in a bad situation while someone else cannot listen to a song because it was the song that was played in their bad situation? Not everyone in the war gets PTSD. My grandfather served in the war and he has killed people in it but he turned out fine while someone else ended up with PTSD in the war after killing people. It might also depend on who they killed. Maybe my grandfather only killed his enemies, no civilians while some other army troops had to so hence PTSD. One of my uncle served in the Viatnam war and so did my dad's friend and no PTSD.

I personality disorders also a brain wiring? It's been proving anxiety disorders are because what happens is while everyone has anxiety, most people only get it in rational situations and anxiety is just your brain's way of telling you there is danger so hence anxiety. But for those with anxiety disorders, their brain can't tell the difference between danger and no danger so the person gets anxiety for no reason or they get anxiety about something most people wouldn't have anxiety about. When I saw that article somewhere, people with anxiety disorders didn't like it and said it would just be used as an excuse to not improve and to use as an excuse. I thought "Like how people with autism use theirs as an excuse to not change and get better because it's also their brain wiring?"

No matter how our brains are wired, I still think everyone can still make effort like how a sociopath can fake niceness and not do bad things. It just means they wouldn't have a problem doing it if they had the chance and if there wouldn't be any consequences. Atheists would have to fake a religion if they lived where being atheist is illegal. Now just imagine if religion was illegal, religious people would have to fake being non religious. Makes me wonder if sociopaths are unhappy if they have to act nice and not do bad things to people and if it also takes them effort and if they find it exhausting.

I feel like most of us agree---but that it's a matter of degrees.

There are many shades between pure free will and pure determinism. Perhaps one might see "free will" in a mostly deterministic setup; whereas another might see determinism where there's mostly free will, but not absolute free will.

I see both elements, obviously. But I am on the side of free will in most instances.

I am not absolutely an adherent of free will at all times, nor determinism at all times. I take it case by case,

I think there are things in our environment that our genetic wiring cannot accept and so we'll bull-headedly charge into situations, at times, in ways that are in service to our internal fixations.

A short but interesting video from Robert Sapolsky on free will, I think he and Sam Harris have equally progressive stances from the determinst side of the argument:



In short we have a lot of cultural dynamics that run aground pragmatically if we attempt to live fully by deterministic roadmaps, mainly because our society, its laws, and its customs are - from the ground up - built on the assumption of free will. A whole societal conversion away from free will would have to be slow and, really, accountability would have to be summed up in terms of agency - which isn't free will but its an acknowledgement that if you're the type of person who'd rent a penthouse appartment in Mandalay Bay and fire rounds into a music festival that you have to be put away not for moral reasons or for punishment but because something in your wiring and the current mathematics that define your behavior makes you a high risk to other people's well being. Treating and aiding criminals in losing their criminality, IMHO, is a 'technology' - if we might call it that - which we need to invest a heck of a lot more in. Putting them in situations where they have to join gangs, deal with ever-present threats of rape or stabbings from other inmates, clearly isn't the way to de-derange a person.

I have nothing against morals, or against punishment for people committing crimes.

It might be. I remember when I did tech support for the Tampa/Clearwater/St. Pete's region and customers would (far more regularly than I anticipated) ask if I "believed in God" or less often if I had "accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and saviour" and at first I'd always respond that "I'm a strict materialist atheist, I don't believe in the supernatural; gods, spirits, souls, magic in any form, whether or not I can understand the universe fully doesn't mean that what I fail to understand can't be understood with a thorough enough understanding of physics, I see no need for supernatural explanations" and they'd always be mind-boggled and either insist that eventually I'd change my mind or that I 'just needed to believe'. Eventually I started saying I practiced "Ásatrú, I follow the old gods".

Somehow they seemed to be incapable of accepting that one is genuinely an atheist, but could easily understand following gods other than theirs. Similarly I can't conceive of how some people genuinely believe in the supernatural. Further, having interacted with more 'spiritual atheists' I've come to accept that even some portion of my fellow atheists are incapable of accepting a strictly materialist understanding of the universe. This realization caused me to believe that some people are inherently more likely to have spiritual needs than others.

Robert hitting this topic directly:

It's rather like Marx saying that religion is the "opium of the people."

I do believe that a "belief system" could provide a certain structure when people feel out of sorts about things in general.

Another Very Interesting Question Posed by League Girl Per is Religion
And Atheism Part of A Brain Wiring and of course in all Questions
Related to Religion; the lack there of too in a Belief of God(s) per
Atheism And of course per the Basic Definition of Religion for the
Set of Political Rules that Humans come to
Hold as Traditions together as
Common Binds for Survival
And even a Thrive of Life
that becomes so special
that words are created
to approximate the Holy
and Sacred Attachments Humans
Actually Feel and Sense About Words;
Including Actual Artifacts we create/use with
the emphasis on Art instead of Just Concrete
Facts we Create as Labels to Describe Objects we
can empirically Measure in our Environments we can repeat and confirm
in common observation per is the light Red or Green unless one happens to be Color Blind.
The Bind part of this is largely a Neurochemical and Neurohormonal one with emphasis on the
Social Bonding Neurohormone Oxytocin per the most common Nurturing example of what most
folks say when they see a New Born Child per Aw; that Baby is so Cute and we all Feel Warm and
Fuzzy inside about that Baby that True not all people are innately wired to feel and sense as Science
Shows now if a Child is even born otherwise innately to feel and sense this warm and fuzzy social
Bonding Nurturing Force of Being Human; if not properly fed from Birth with Warm Hugs and kisses
of Parental Love that potential can become Cold as a Freezer where now a New Born and
Cute Baby is another object in the environment of meh; oh yeah, a Baby or whatever
move on to the next Dopamine Stimulating Screen or whatever otherwise turns
you on next. So, We can; at least some of us may be able to see here that
per the Basic Definition of Religion per what binds us together in
meaning and purpose per rules and artifacts including Words
of Holy and Sacred ways of Feeling About those Symbols
And Rules of Religion also known as the Politics
of Religion too that also restrict us in
binding ways too that are in some cultures common
sense for Survival too when promiscuity can lead to Veneral
Disease without Cures and unwanted Pregnancies in Socio-Economic
Scarcity; yes, there is a great deal of reason to religion too per the politics
of the rules of religions too. So, yes, two aspects of religion too; the warm
and fuzzy of Social Bonding Holding Hands in Church with the real Placebo
effect at least for those who benefit from the real Placebo effect of Belief in
Positive ways of thinking together for even healing illness as science shows is possible
now too; whereas, the opposite Voodoo effect of the Nocebo effect is really real now too;
in other words,
be careful what
you wish for; for that
makes a difference the same
as if someone says prayer for
a label for that wish same and different too as
Positive thoughts lead to Positive Actions and Consequences too.
Hmm; it really helps to have a definition of God as that applies to this whole conversation
too; for while we in the West are saturated in Christianity; particularly, in the current Politics
that rise and fall with that at this point in American History as clearly shown now in the News;
Oh 'God', everyday it seems. The Patriarchal Anthropomorphized Version of a Tribal God in
Abrahamic Religions that is of course a part of Human Nature too; is surely not the only
Definition of God for sure as far as Theism Goes for Some folks Believe that all of Nature
is God always now and even beyond per variations on the Human Made Abstract Construct,
Pantheism, too.

And as far as Free Will Goes; duh, of course there is no such thing as Totally Free
Will; case in point; if there was/is Totally Free will it wouldn't be nearly as hard
to commit Suicide; even with the worst pain known to Humankind, which i
for one surely endured with Type Two Trigeminal Neuralgia from
Wake to Sleep for 66 Months; yes, about the closest example
i can provide for what that feels like is someone drilling
your teeth without Novocaine except for in my case
it was my right and ear that experienced that pain
from wake to sleep for 66 months of which close
to 33 months, i spent on or about on this Internet Site then;
for no drug would help; but it is also true that a state of Meditative
Flow in Writing can be more effective than opiates just like any other way
of Changing Mindful Awareness in Meditative Zen like Flow; so, sure, hehe;
in this way; Writing can and will be a Healing Drug if done in flow; not unlike
Free Verse Styles of Moving Meditation also known as Yoga Dance and Tai Chi
and the such as that. So, here is where the part about Relative Free Will comes in.
i have practiced both of these forms of Meditation for around 2993 days precisely
now to this point sense Thanks Giving Day in 2010, starting on this Website then.
True, it took along dam time to get good enough at it to escape that pain in about
33 Months to make that Happen by July through August of 2013; bottom lines are
it definitely worked and now that i have added in about 3000 Hours or so of meditative
movement otherwise known as free style public dance in 8600 Miles in 52 months along
with a much 'purer' style of Meditative Writing also known as Free Verse Poetry without any
rules for that as it comes 'Freely' as Meditative Movement does too; yes, if I wake up with a pain
anywhere that used to be from head to toe for 66 months; i for one can raise my arm slowly
in meditative flow per mind over matter per metaphor too; and voila, the pain melts away
and i feel like 16 years old all over again Fresh as a Sunflower Better than the wilted
Rose of fall i used to be before. Yes, if i could put this in a pill it could probably
make World Peace; but hehe, in all matters related to the Kingdom of Heaven
now; this experience takes work and endless practice of what some folks
name as a Zen Experience of Life too. For me at least, God is everywhere
within inside outside above so below and all around but of course that
is the norm of perspective when one feels and senses a Bliss and
Nirvana of an Experience from Head to toe and more. Do i blame folks
for not seeing and feeling a God this Big and a Religion so core in Happiness
to the experience of Living now; well, duh; of course not; for if they do not believe
this experience of life is possible through Positive Epigenetic Potential and Neuroplastic
Potential from head to toe and more it just will not happen. True too; as science shows too;
only about a third of the population can even benefit from the Placebo Effect now too; In this
way as far as wishes of prayers go in personal Healing Beliefs that do come true as Science shows
too not everyone is endowed innately and environmentally to benefit from the Placebo impact more
and effect as well as affect of Prayers now real. But here is the very interesting part; when i experienced
that pain and numb of a relative hell for 66 months along with 19 total Medical Disorders then; Without
Hardly any emotions; not even enough to make the basic Cognitive Executive Functioning ones to make
simple decisions in life then; as science shows too, emotions are memories and memories are emotions too;
So what this means too; if you one does find a way to regulate their emotions and integrate their senses as
a meditative flow can bring either sitting still or dancing in public like a Butterfly on Feet; the amount of Relative
Free will in Mastering how one feels and senses life or even potential Cognitive Executive Functioning in Short
Term Working Memory and Focus to do stuff too; yes, one can be very low in Relative Free Will and overall Strength
of Will to get the laser focus of completing tasks done now too. I am not going to bore you now with all the amazing
things i can do now with all the Relative Free Will that is increased as me now; sure, with Strength upon a Foundation
of Love and Grace too; but, as recently mentioned on this web site a week or so ago the last time i visited a Sincere
Question posed by League Girl here; this entire experience of Life has inspired me enough to upload my soul per
what it really is now in terms of 5.5 Million Words in 52 Months as a Bible with 6 Subchapter titled Bibles i
overall name as "SonG oF mY SoUL", Still. For me at least God is a Verb, the Verb of all that is now; and sure
now i am not the only one by far who feels and senses a God as Big as this; Truly Beyond the Human Abstract
Constructed Term as Infinity Named Now a Love Higher than most folks see and feel now. I could
explain it in finer detail and that's why i leave that endeavor up to 7 titled Bibles so far
in 52 Months of Getting that 'job' done longer in what is a whole lot of fun now.
Now, considering i used to Live in Hell if that is what 'you' as an individual might
see life more as now. Hey, if i can live where i do now; i suppose that
you can too. Is it easy; hell no, and it seems hell may be necessary
to totally get here now. But on the other Hand, Look Around; Life is not
easy for it is not that way as is anywhere one really looks if one looks a little
further than the Cover of Books now. And for me at least, i do not want a Perfect
God nor do i want to be a perfect Human Being; i already tried that in School and
Work and the Stress of doing that led to those 19 Medical Disorder, then. True, if
God as all that is is perfect we would just be Deterministic Fully Robots now.
The God i Feel and Sense is a MasterPeace Painting of both dARk and LiGHt.
But True too; i have the perspective of both Heaven and Hell; i'm lucky
that way and no
i Haven't always been
that way but am now eternally
so for all that exists is now; and
now can and will be Heaven or Hell;
true too, in part, depending on Will and Choice;
It's kinda like the ending of the Forrest Gump Movie as a Feather
Randomly and Purposefully Floats Through the Air by the Laws
of Nature; the difference in a Human and a Feather is we are the
ones who create the meaning and the purpose of the Feather particularly
for our view of life now. For me at least i could write another Bible; yes, about
783K words just like the size of the Old King James Version just based on that one
Feather for that Feather for me at Least has/is colors that never end in the Flow of
Imagination and Creativity that is real at least in my Multi-Verse View of Reality now.
Not all folks can do that
nor can some
discern
whether
a light
is 'really' green
or red; Stop or Go;
i Go no matter what colors
other folks see. For me at least
it makes common sense and feel to feel good now.
You might be amazed at the religious effort that both
Atheists and 'God' Fearing Folks do to avoid being happy
for just
a Dance
with God
as Nature now
Naked and Free of all the
binds of what can and will become
religion including science that holds back
Butterflies from escaping cocoons now. Dance
is innate; Language is an Environmentally Created
way of life as the source of all culture, religion and politics
now. While it might seem juvenile and stupid to do a naked
Dance with Nature that has no reason at all but doing a non-doing
of free; Nature says different without Human Clothes of Language and
all that other stuff now. Nature says move; yes, Dance and even Sing for no
other reason than heART FeLT tHiNk from Head to toe more; For me at least
that call of the wild innately instinctually and yes intuitively too is both God
and me
too. Anyway, the answer
to the Question is it depends
on what kind of Feather you are;
Just a Feather; or a MaGiC Feather
With no limits or expectations now.
My Feather (me) is no limits or expectations;
My Feather Floats Free with the all encompassing
Force of all that is just is just is just am now Happy and Free;
i Love this imperfect
God for me
at least
'he'
is so cool NoW;
And i enJoy HeR eVen MoRe.
As aLWays have a nice day, now; i have
this issue where it is almost impossible
for me not to answer questions in great detail in even bigger picture view now.
Some Folks Call it Asperger's Syndrome; other Folks Name it Bi-Polar Syndrome.
i for one name it Heaven cause i can and will Do it NoW and no no one else is required to believe 'i' even exist..