Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
UK, September 6, 2009: Humans may have been hardwired by evolutionary forces to believe in God, some scientists are suggesting. Far from being the result of poor education and childhood “indoctrination,” religious tendencies may have provided an evolutionary benefit by increasing the tendency of people to work together well, thus enhancing their ability to survive.
Bruce Hood, a professor of developmental psychology who sees organised religion as just part of a spectrum of supernatural beliefs, will present his findings at the British Science Association’s annual meeting this week.
Evidence has linked religious feelings and experience to particular regions of the brain. Andrew Newberg, professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania, has used brain-imaging techniques to show that feelings of spirituality are invoked by activity in “belief networks” operating across the brain. “The temporal lobe interacts with many other parts of the brain to provide the full range of religious and spiritual experiences,” he said.
[HPI note: Though many scientists affirm (or obliquely suggest) that spiritual experiences are a simple result of brain processing, other researchers affirm that, during spiritual experiences, the brain is just perceiving a reality that is normally unnoticed. A proponent of this is the eloquent Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, interviewed for the July/August/Septemeber issue of Hinduism Today. You can read the story here.