Faith/God/Prayer...genetic, maybe?

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I've long suspected certain brains have a predisposition for religious or spiritual thinking, while others have a the framework that cannot believe ("relate to" is a better word) these ideas.

When my dad lost his parents at an early age, that's when he came to prayer. When I myself faced a disastrous situation that I saw no way out of, that's when I turned to prayer myself. In both our cases, we felt uncomfortable and skeptical of it before, for the same reasons- prayer is tied to religion, and in both our thinking, religion didn't stand up to scrutiny. I didn't find this out about him until long after I began my inward journey.

I also had a religious professor that admitted that there's probably neurological basis for religious or spiritual thought. I gotta jet... I be back tomorrow.

Not my brain.

It seems more like submission in the direction of prayer.

I don't mean that as an insult, I mean, for example: when things get so bad I can't even think I go through my recyclables and smash it all up because it doesn't matter and actually helps fit more into the bin.

I think you wouldn't have turned to prayer if you didn't already have that idea as something that could help you, so I really don't think there's a disposition towards prayer.

I just think the disposition is for getting out of stress that can hurt you through things that don't actually make anything change, because otherwise we'll have a heart attack.

Some methods are better than others, I used to cut. Some people smoke. These hurt the person doing them.

Prayer hurts a lot of people if you make it known. Just because it is pretty much inseperable from religion.

Imagine a web of rope with words connecting to things that are relevant. If you support prayer and lift it up, you pull up everything its ropes attach to a little bit too.

You may be interested in a book called The Faith Instinct, which discusses the evolutionary basis of religious belief.

I just found this in a review of that book:

"The Faith Instinct concludes that religious behavior was favored by natural selection because of the survival advantage it conferred on early human groups."

That "because of the survival advantage" makes sense to me, but carrying the instinct for that on into mere religion does not.

Natural selection can act on groups as well as individuals. A group of humans that practiced a given religion would potentially have greater social cohesion and less antisocial behavior than a non-religious group of humans, thus the religious group will be more likely to succeed and prosper than the non-religious group.

This should provide all the necessary information you are seeking.

http://www.dmoz.org/Science/Social_Scie ... otheology/

Thanks Magnus. I bookmarked it.

By the way, is that avatar you?

Yeah it's me. I put it up for sand. LOL

I haven't read through all the links yet, but basically your theory is called Neurotheology.
Pretty interesting stuff...

I only wish I could call it my theory. Thanks again.

I would agree, seeing as you take every opportunity to say how useless prayer is, and how unthinking people of religion are.

It's so awesome when we think of something original and then find out that there is so much truth to it. Then again, it's kinda a drag to realize that it's not so original.

I love Calvin and Hobbes btw.

In my own case, I take that as evidence of simple discovery or possibly a bit of revelation.



Yes, understood ... and on my assumption you would not believe or suspect any kind of supernatural connection causing that selection, from where else might it come? Or to word that differently:

How could natural selection lead to any form of spiritual observance or practice?

Overall, however, I would doubt sectarian religion (as opposed to simple spirituality) stems from any such science, connection, selection (unless a lack of it), source or whatever else all of this might be called.

Maybe there is, maybe there is not, but it falls outside the range of scientific inquiry, ie scientists can not tell you anything useful or meaningful there.


If that spiritual observance or practice enhanced either an individual's or a group's chance at survival and reproductive success, it would be favored by natural selection.


Well, sectarian religion is quite often a unifying factor for the members of the religion—think of close-knit religious communities such as Hasidic Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. That social cohesion, where the group supports one another and works for the common good, is hugely adaptive. Perhaps the best example of this is Islam- Islam provided a unifying force in the Arab world that enabled the extremely rapid development of a massive empire which, at one point, threatened to overrun Europe. Sectarian religion would probably actually be selected over simple spirituality, since many of the adaptive benefits to religion stem from the faith community, which doesn't exist in individual spirituality.

So then, a scientist might just simply ignore any statement from anyone suggesting any kind of supernatural connection or "predisposition for religious or spiritual thinking" (OP)?



Yes, favored, but not leading to, causing, originating or in whatever way bringing about?

Not to press you personally here, but just to suggest science cannot truly or completely ignore the thought or consideration of "supernatural" and still be good science.



Understood, but it begins at the individual level ... although, that really is irrelevant here, I think.