Neurological Effects of Religion

While writing this post, I found myself having to list detailed definitions along with caveats and careful explanations: the concepts of religion and spirituality are complex and often ill-defined, so if you aren't careful, someone will raise their hand and say "well, what about this obscure point that you didn't address?!"  So over time the post evolved from a concise, clear description of interesting neurological facts to a meandering monstrosity. The need to keep the post short, clear, and interesting is at odds with the need to be procedurally complete.

I decided to err on the side of concise clarity.  If something rubs you the wrong way, we can hash it out in the comments later.

So lets jump right in.  In this post I will describe the neurological effects of religious worship.  Note that I am no expert.  Everything about specific neurological activity comes from the books How God Changes Your Brain by Newburg and Waldman, and Why God Won't Go Away by Newburg et. al.  Everything else is mine.

The neurological effects of worship can be summarized in one sentence: we become like what we worship¹, regardless of whether what we are worshiping is real or imagined.  For example, if we worship an angry, authoritarian, punitive God, we gain a proclivity for anger and we become less capable of being understanding and compassionate.  The amygdala - the part of the brain that produces fear and anger - is strengthened.  Interestingly, when we are angry it becomes physically impossible for us to think rationally.  On this topic, Newburg and Waldman wrote

"Anger interrupts the functioning of your frontal lobes. Not only do you lose the ability to be rational, you lose the awareness that you’re acting in an irrational way. When your frontal lobes shut down, it’s impossible to listen to the other person, let alone feel empathy or compassion. Instead, you are likely to feel self- justified and self- righteous, and when that happens the communication process falls apart. Anger also releases a cascade of neurochemicals that actually destroy those parts of the brain that control emotional reactivity."

It goes without saying that we should avoid worshiping "angry" Gods - the effects are clearly destructive.  In fact, I don't think that many people would admit to following this kind of God.  Rather, I think that people worship the authoritarian, punitive type of God without realizing what they are doing.  I'll talk more about this later, because worshiping the wrong kind of God - knowingly or unknowingly - is unhealthy and destructive.

In contrast, worshiping a compassionate, loving God actively strengthens the frontal lobe and the anterior cingulate.  The frontal lobe is the reasoning center of the brain, and the anterior cingulate is the area of the brain that allows us to suppress fear and feel empathy and compassion.  Worshiping a loving God actually rewires our neural circuits so that we don't respond with anger as quickly or easily.  It also makes us more physically capable of feeling empathy, compassion, and love for others.

To be clear, the "God" that you worship isn't necessarily the same God described by your religion.  Practically speaking, your God may be more accurately defined by what you allow yourself to focus on.  For example, if you tend to focus on the "wicked" state of the world and the impending judgment of God, then you probably worship an angry God.

More generally, your God may be described by the attitude that you generally espouse when you aren't thinking about God at all.  If you are consistently pessimistic, angry, or fearful, it has the same neurological effect as worshiping an angry, authoritarian God.  In contrast, if you actively work on being understanding, compassionate, and optimistic, it has the same neurological effect as contemplating a loving, compassionate God.

The idea that worship and regular daily activity are closely related forms much of the basis for what I called "Spiritual Atheism" in the title of my last post.  The idea suggests that at least some of the neurological benefits of religion can be obtained by consciously adjusting your attitude about life.  That is, perhaps you can get the benefits of religion without using the religion at all.

There are other benefits of religious practice that I haven't talked about - reduced fear of death, deep peace and comfort, powerfully tangible joy, and direction and meaning, not to mention the social benefits of interacting in a religious community.  In my next post, I will discuss why these other benefits can also be obtained outside the context of traditional religion.

1. When I say "worship," I am referring to specific, conscious activity centered around a God figure.  This activity could be religious ritual, deep contemplation, study of religious texts, or meditation.  In this post, I will make the case that worship and daily activity are not necessarily disjoint.  They are, I think, closely connected.  But when I use the "worship" by itself, I refer specifically to God-centered activities.

Spiritual Atheism

In this and the next few posts I am going to describe a brand of spiritualism that is compatible with many concepts of deity - from "no God" to the "unknowable God" to the highly personal God.  This idea is new to me, but I am not perfectly well-read in the philosophical and religious literature.  Chances are good that someone else thought of this hundreds of years ago.

I originally conceived of this idea while thinking about a common objection that people have about religion.  Many people see religious belief as unjustified because there is simply no evidence to support it - there is no quantifiable reason to believe.  For some, religion seems to be outdated, outmoded, unfounded, superstitious, untestable, overly emotional.

To put it another way, religion always seems centered around powerful personal emotion.  This emotion can, in fact, be so powerful that God can seem more real and literal than the words on this page or the chair you are sitting in¹. It is expected that if you are a devoted worshiper, you will begin to "know" that what you are worshiping really exists, irrespective of what that thing happens to be.  The following quote, from the book "How God Changes your Brain," illustrates this point:

"The thalamus [the part of your brain that is mainly responsible for perceiving/interpreting reality] makes no distinction between inner and outer realities, and thus any idea, if contemplated long enough, will take on a semblance of reality.  Your belief becomes neurologically real, and your brain will respond accordingly.  But for someone else, who has meditated on a different set of beliefs or goals, a different reality will seem true."

Don't misunderstand my purpose here - I am not trying to minimize the value of religious belief or invalidate anyone's faith.  Rather, I am pointing out an objection that many atheists and agnostics have about religion - specifically, that human beings will predictably believe in whatever religion they choose to immerse themselves in, whether it be Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Mormonism, or whatever.  But "believe" isn't strong enough a word, because eventually the belief will feel like certain knowledge.  More certain even than physical reality.  As a method for finding absolute truth, then, religion seems inadequate because the part of our brain that makes us think something is true doesn't actually care whether that thing is true or not.

It is probably an uncomfortable thing for many religious people to read this - please don't let it bother you.  As explained in The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, the existential study of religion has no bearing on religion's value.  Just because we are neurologically wired to believe what we worship does not mean that we shouldn't choose to worship. 

In fact, studies that measure the neurological effect of religion show that worship is almost always incredibly healthy.  In my next post, I will describe how religion positively affects the mind.  Then, I will describe how all the positive neurological benefits of religion can be obtained in a way that avoids the atheistic/agnostic objection I described in this post.

1. This has been shown to be true through anecdotal descriptions by scores of religious individuals, and by a number of neurological studies. The book How God Changes Your Brain by Waldman and Newberg describes many of these studies.

So much for idealism

Last year about this time I started hunting around for companies that make injection molds (for those who don't know, an "injection mold" is something used to make plastic parts in high quantities).  One local company was particularly hospitable.  They invited me to their factory, showed me around the manufacturing floor, and introduced me to their lead engineer - all the while emphasizing the benefits of making local contracts instead of foreign ones.  "Face-to-face contact, better service, faster lead-times, security (no-one will steal your design here), safety, and perhaps above all, PATRIOTISM."

I found the same general message on their web-site, although it was much more direct.  They even had a page devoted specifically to documenting all the cases when Chinese manufacturing had gone bad - poisonous plastics on sandals, toxins in baby food, stolen designs and molds.  You name a China-oriented scandal, and they dutifully reported it.  I assumed that they were fighting to keep their business running in the face of cheap competition overseas.

Just last week (a year after my first contact with them) I called on them again to get a quote on a new design.  The picture this time was completely different.  There was no offer for a site visit, no communication with engineering staff, no aggressive self-promotion.  I specifically asked if I could talk to an engineer, but they reported that they no longer did mold design.  They outsource all their design work to - get this - China!  I guess their struggle to justify higher costs in the name of locality and patriotism failed.

I guess sometimes you just can't fight the tides of world-wide economic change.  You embrace them or you die.

Even "Scientists"

I stumbled upon an interesting article today.  Apparently scientists have found a planet which is potentially habitable because it is the right distance from its star for liquid water to exist.  The story itself is fascinating to me, but I couldn't help but notice the following quote from one of the scientists who made the discovery:

"Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet," said Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, in a statement released by NASA. "The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common."

Ten points to the first person who can tell me what is wrong with that statement.

The Kindle

Last week I installed the "Kindle" app for my Droid and promptly downloaded 18 books.  They are just sitting there, on my phone, waiting for me to read them.  Sometimes I feel a wave of excitement when I realize that I have 18 books just sitting in my pocket, AND that I could download virtually any book in the world in a matter of minutes.  It feels like... like I felt as a little kid when I would remember suddenly that Christmas was right around the corner.

There is something satisfying about pulling out my phone and using it as a book.  On the other hand, there is also something satisfying about flipping through the pages of a real book.  I like to smell my books as I read them, bringing the pages close and fanning them so that the air blows over my face.  I revel in the smell of the paper, the ink, and the glue that holds everything together.  I'll never be able to get that out of my phone.

I will probably buy a real Kindle just because it is larger and the screen is designed to approximate a real book more closely.  But I don't suppose that electronic readers will ever replace all of my books.  There is too much of an emotional connection there.

Fashion

While sitting in the lobby of a dentist office today, I was intrigued by the appearance and conversation of two hygienists standing behind the front desk.  The two girls obviously lived in a completely different world than I did - I could tell just by looking at them.  Something about the way they carried themselves said that they were perpetually cognizant of their clothing, makeup, hair, and general appearance.  They tried hard enough that it was painfully obvious; they had a little too much makeup, fake tans, and carefully crafted hair.

I found their appearance a little distasteful (just a personal preference, I guess).  But if I didn't care for their looks, their conversation was even more repelling.  One of them held an issue of US Weekly magazine and, referencing a picture of a woman on the cover, said "what does that shirt look like to you?"

The girl glanced at the cover and said, "oh wow, that's, like, a Wal-Mart shirt!"  The other laughed.  "Yeah, can you believe it?!  How could she wear a WAL-MART shirt on the cover of US Weekly!"

Hearing the exchange, I thought to myself, "I can't believe you even care enough to know that it is a Wal-Mart shirt..."  I found myself feeling a little annoyed at them for caring so deeply about something that seems, to me, so absolutely frivolous.  Thinking more carefully, though, I realized that there isn't anything inherently wrong with caring about fashion.  I imagine there is a kind of art to it.  Keeping astride with the world of fashion is probably tricky and, for some, exciting.

I thought their fashion interests were frivolous mainly because fashion is irrelevant.  Fashions come and go, irrespective of the real issues that plague the world.  But it suddenly occurred to me that, while I am not interested in fashion, I am interested in a lot of things that are equally irrelevant.  My sitting down to play the piano isn't going to change the world.  Sure, I develop a talent, but deep down I don't think there is anything that makes a talent for music any more valuable than a talent for recognizing and even setting social trends.  The only difference lies in how those talents are perceived by the world.

I guess my point is that my gut reaction was to see those two hygienists as shallow and irrelevant.  But in this case, my gut reaction was based less on reason and more on my own social expectations.  Their interests were so far removed from my own that I made a knee-jerk judgment without really understanding them.  I wonder how often I do that.

Mormon Missions and Marriage

To understand this post, you need to comprehend a couple things about Mormon culture.  First, Mormons assign a very high value to Marriage.  To us, marriage is an eternal thing.  Once you are married on Earth by the proper authority, you and your spouse are sealed together forever, even after death.  Not only is marriage eternal, it is also necessary for exaltation - in the life to come, you can't obtain the highest degree of happiness without a spouse.  We therefore encourage young adults to not unnecessarily delay marriage.  It is, in a real way, the "next step" in your progression.  Because of this, Mormons often marry at younger ages than people in other cultures.

Second, Mormons are encouraged to serve ecclesiastical missions for the church.  Young men are almost expected to do so - they typically go for a full two years at the age of 19.  Young women, on the other hand, can choose to go if they want, but there is no real cultural expectation for them to do so.  Unlike young men, young women go at the age of 21.  I tend to think that guys go starting at an earlier age because it provides good training that keeps them out of trouble during those formative late-teen years.  I feel like women are usually more mature at that age and are less in need of a rigid mission life-structure to keep them out of trouble...  In any event, we serve missions because we feel it is important for everyone to understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, to the point.  It often happens in the strange world of Mormonism that young women who are dating seriously entertain the idea of going on a mission instead (or, more rarely, the young woman is willing to delay the mission to see if the relationship will pan out, but the guy involved thinks that the mission ought not be delayed).  From a Mormon theological perspective, this makes no sense!

While it is important to spread the gospel, marriage is generally considered a trump card.  Why?  Because marriage is eternally important and, contrary to some commonly-held perceptions, the Lord can do His work without the aid of one more sister missionary.  Of course, some will argue that "the field is white, already to harvest," and that there are souls waiting for the gospel, souls who "won't be reached if I don't serve."  In response, I point out that I spent 80% of my proselyting time in more or less fruitless cold-contacting.  If my own mission were really bursting with hungry souls, we wouldn't have been so actively engaged in searching for them and not finding them.  If someone is genuinely prepared to hear the gospel, there are slews of church members and cold-calling missionaries who have time enough to teach them as soon as the Lord steers them in the right direction.  Don't flatter yourself into thinking that there are people who you and only you can reach.

To be clear, no soul will rot in hell because you chose to get married instead of serving a mission.  On the other hand, you might stymie your own progression by insisting that there is a dire need for your help as a full-time missionary.  I'm sorry to break it to you, but... there isn't.  This is why virtually every Bishop or Stake President you talk to will encourage you to pursue the relationship.  Maybe you should take their advice.