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TechnoratiReaders of last week's edition of USA Today were treated to an introduction into the sociobiology of belief. Interestingly, this article appeared in the opinion pages of the paper - which is right where the article belongs.
Andrew Newberg, associate professor of radiology and psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that religion can be a force for good or for evil, depending on the conception of God that is the focus of belief. In its most basic form, Newberg's article can be reduced to his belief that when individuals believe in a God of mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, they are likely to experience benefits from this belief and then have a generally positive outlook on life. On the other hand, those who believe in a God of wrath, judgment, and vengeance are more likely to experience negative consequences in their lives and to demonstrate a basically negative outlook.
Newberg, along with his colleague Mark Robert Waldman, have been working on a psychiatric understanding of religious belief. Their recent book, How God Changes Your Brain, presents a comprehensive version of their argument and model of understanding. Newberg's article in USA Today is something of a distillation of the arguments made in their book.
The USA Today article presents an understanding of religion that is reduced to biological elements. Nevertheless, some readers of Newberg's article are likely to miss the basic biological reductionism and methodological naturalism that marks his understanding of religion and belief in God. Newberg's argument seems to be that we will be better off if more Americans held to an understanding of God that is, by his evaluation, more positive. As he writes:
There seems to be little question that when people view God as loving, forgiving, compassionate and supportive, this more likely results in a very positive view of themselves, and of the world around them. But when God is viewed as dispassionate, vengeful and unforgiving, this can have deleterious effects on one's physical and mental health. Again, the research is clear: If you ruminate on negative emotions, they activate the areas of the brain that are involved in anger, fear and stress. This can ultimately damage important parts of the brain and the body. What's worse, negative emotions can spill over into outward behaviors that generate fear, distrust, hatred, animosity and violence toward people who hold different or opposing beliefs. Thus, it becomes more easy to believe that "I, and my religion, is right and you, and your religion, are wrong." It is this destructive religious rhetoric that atheists are quick to point their fingers at when focusing on the negative qualities of faith.
In other words, Newberg would trace negative emotions and "destructive religious rhetoric" to an individual's conception of God. Beyond this, he attempts to trace this belief in God to biological causation and the specific areas in the human brain.
Writing in How God Changes Your Brain, Newberg and Waldman argue that "God can change your brain." They insist that this is true without respect to the specific belief in God. In their words, "it doesn't matter if you're a Christian or a Jew, a Muslim or a Hindu, or an agnostic or an atheist." According to their model, the brain creates understandings of God - a capacity developed through the evolutionary process. In terms of the neurological process, it really doesn't matter if God does or does not exist. "In fact, as far as we can tell, most of the human brain does not even worry if the things we see are actually real. Instead, it only needs to know if they are useful for survival." Continue »
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