The psychology of religion, the study of neurotheology, and the genetics of religious belief are fascinating areas of research. Both believers and nonbelievers can find information that leads to greater self-awareness. You can believe in both God and evolution, which is the approach taken by people like Dr. Francis Collins and Dr. Ken Miller. I believe in God, but I don’t believe in holy texts or other religious practices. The evidence indicates that religious ceremonies don’t have magical powers and aren’t beneficial beyond the basic social benefits such as relief from loneliness. Instead of having special supernatural benefits, religious traditions provide opportunities for socialization among people who share common moral beliefs and personality types due to genetic and environmental influences.
Most scriptural writings were probably created to spread rules that would promote good hygiene, both in a physical sense and in a moral sense. There weren’t antibiotics (aside from scattered reports of natural antibiotics in fermented drinks) in the time periods in which religions first developed. Therefore, preventing the transmission of pathogens was an important goal for human tribes. Religious beliefs also bind people into a common group. Groups needed a codified set of rules that would promote survival and keep societies from collapsing.
People don’t choose to be believers or nonbelievers in religion or evolution, since free will doesn’t exist. People are predisposed to develop certain beliefs due to genes, family environment, and culture. Ego displays by religious leaders and skeptics alike are pointless so long as they don’t actually improve the lives of their followers. With that said, I still think Living Scientifically is the best way to live. I’ve thought about unifying science and spirituality, as described in the post Science and Spirituality. I’ve also criticized paranormal research, as described in Why the Paranormal Doesn’t Matter. Cognitive dissonance is good.
In this post, I link to studies that discuss the genetic, neurobiological, and environmental influences that determine whether someone becomes a believer or a nonbeliever. These studies were found using this linked PubMed search. The religion[mh] is also an extensive and useful search for finding information on the science of religion. An extensive number of studies exist on the role of religion in health and life satisfaction. In contrast, this post tends to focus more specifically on the relation of religion to the brain.
The following two blogs are also useful sources for finding news on the science of religious behavior:
Now on to some of the studies:
A gene X environment interaction between DRD2 and religiosity in the prediction of adolescent delinquent involvement in a sample of males. (Link)
A terror management analysis of the psychological functions of religion. (Link)
An fMRI study measuring analgesia enhanced by religion as a belief system. (Link)
An investigation of religiosity and the Gastaut-Geschwind syndrome in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. (Link)
Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief. (Link)
Analytic thinking promotes religious disbelief. (Link)
Association of religion with delusions and hallucinations in the context of schizophrenia: implications for engagement and adherence. (Link)
Assortative sociality, limited dispersal, infectious disease and the genesis of the global pattern of religion diversity. (Link)
Authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, and the human prefrontal cortex. (Link)
Being human: Religion: bound to believe? (Link)
Beliefs about God, psychiatric symptoms, and evolutionary psychiatry. (Link)
Cerebral blood flow during meditative prayer: preliminary findings and methodological issues. (Link)
Cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief. (Link)
Contribution of religiousness in the prediction and interpretation of mystical experiences in a sensory deprivation context: activation of religious schemas. (Link)
Damage of left temporal lobe resulting in conversion of speech to Sutra, a Buddhist prayer stored in the right hemisphere. (Link)
Delusional ideation in religious and psychotic populations. (Link)
Delusions with religious content in patients with psychosis: how they interact with spiritual coping. (Link)
Differential diagnosis between non-pathological psychotic and spiritual experiences and mental disorders: a contribution from Latin American studies to the ICD-11. (Link)
Disorganized attachment, absorption, and new age spirituality: a mediational model. (Link)
Divine intuition: Cognitive style influences belief in God. (Link)
Does religious belief enable positive interpretation of auditory hallucinations?: a comparison of religious voice hearers with and without psychosis. (Link)
EEG activity in Carmelite nuns during a mystical experience. (Link)
Examining the links between spiritual struggles and symptoms of psychopathology in a national sample. (Link)
Executive functions in morality, religion, and paranormal beliefs. (Link)
Experiences of spiritual visitation and impregnation: potential induction by frequency-modulated transients from an adjacent clock. (Link)
Experimental Findings on God as an Attachment Figure: Normative Processes and Moderating Effects of Internal Working Models. (Link)
Exploring the existential function of religion: the effect of religious fundamentalism and mortality salience on faith-based medical refusals. (Link)
Exploring the natural foundations of religion. (Link)
Fiery tongues and mystical motivations: glossolalia in a forensic population is associated with mania and sexual/religious delusions. (Link)
For God (or) country: the hydraulic relation between government instability and belief in religious sources of control. (Link)
Functional brain mapping during recitation of Buddhist scriptures and repetition of the Namu Amida Butsu: a study in experienced Japanese monks. (Link)
Genes encoding for AP-2beta and the Serotonin Transporter are associated with the Personality Character Spiritual Acceptance. (Link)
Genetic and environmental influences on multiple dimensions of religiosity: a twin study. (Link)
Genetic and environmental influences on religiousness: findings for retrospective and current religiousness ratings. (Link)
God is watching you: priming God concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic game. (Link)
Guilt, discord, and alienation: the role of religious strain in depression and suicidality. (Link)
Highly religious participants recruit areas of social cognition in personal prayer. (Link)
Hypothalamic digoxin, hemispheric chemical dominance, and spirituality. (Link)
“I would kill in God’s name:” role of sex, weekly church attendance, report of a religious experience, and limbic lability. (Link)
Ictal kissing and religious speech in a patient with right temporal lobe epilepsy. (Link)
Immigration, parasitic infection, and United States religiosity. (Link)
Individual differences in adolescent religiosity in Finland: familial effects are modified by sex and region of residence. (Link)
Intrinsic and extrinsic religiousness: genetic and environmental influences and personality correlates. (Link)
Is our brain hardwired to produce God, or is our brain hardwired to perceive God? A systematic review on the role of the brain in mediating religious experience. (Link)
Is thought-action fusion related to religiosity? Differences between Christians and Jews. (Link)
Losing the big picture: how religion may control visual attention. (Link)
Mating Competitors Increase Religious Beliefs. (Link)
Moral thought-action fusion and OCD symptoms: the moderating role of religious affiliation. (Link)
Neural consequences of religious belief on self-referential processing. (Link)
Neural correlates of a mystical experience in Carmelite nuns. (Link)
Neural correlates of religious experience. (Link)
Neural markers of religious conviction. (Link)
Neural substrates of self-referential processing in Chinese Buddhists. (Link)
Neuroanatomical variability of religiosity. (Link)
Neurobiology of spirituality. (Link)
Neurocognitive processes of the religious leader in Christians. (Link)
Neurological aspects related to altered consciousness states associated with spirituality. (Link)
Neurological motor disorders experienced as religious phenomena: role of abnormal movement monitoring. (Link)
Numinous-like auras and spirituality in persons with partial seizures. (Link)
Obsessive-compulsive disorder with predominantly scrupulous symptoms: clinical and religious characteristics. (Link)
OCD cognitions and symptoms in different religious contexts. (Link)
On the perception of religious group membership from faces. (Link)
Paranormal and religious beliefs may be mediated differentially by subcortical and cortical phenomenological processes of the temporal (limbic) lobes. (Link)
Parasite-stress promotes in-group assortative sociality: The cases of strong family ties and heightened religiosity. (Link)
Partial epilepsy with “ecstatic” seizures. (Link)
Personality traits in adolescence as predictors of religiousness in early adulthood: findings from the Terman Longitudinal Study. (Link)
Preadolescent religious experience enhances temporal lobe signs in normal young adults. (Link)
‘Psychic sensitivity’, mystical experience, head injury and brain pathology. (Link)
Reflecting on God: religious primes can reduce neurophysiological response to errors. (Link)
Religion–an evolutionary adaptation. (Link)
Religion and brain functioning (part 1): are our mental structures designed for religion? (Link)
Religion and psychosis: a common evolutionary trajectory? (Link)
Religion and the attentional blink: depth of faith predicts depth of the blink. (Link)
Religion as a means to assure paternity. (Link)
Religion as attachment: normative processes and individual differences. (Link)
Religion, evolution, and mental health: attachment theory and ETAS theory. (Link)
Religion in the face of uncertainty: an uncertainty-identity theory account of religiousness. (Link)
Religion is natural. (Link)
Religion priming differentially increases prosocial behavior among variants of the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene. (Link)
Religion, fertility and genes: a dual inheritance model. (Link)
Religion, morality, evolution. (Link)
Religion, psychopathology, and substance use and abuse; a multimeasure, genetic-epidemiologic study. (Link)
Religion replenishes self-control. (Link)
Religiosity and agency and communion: their relationship to religious judgmentalism. (Link)
Religiosity as self-enhancement: a meta-analysis of the relation between socially desirable responding and religiosity. (Link)
Religiosity is associated with hippocampal but not amygdala volumes in patients with refractory epilepsy. (Link)
Religious attendance and frequency of alcohol use: same genes or same environments: a bivariate extended twin kinship model. (Link)
Religious attitudes and obsessional personality traits among UK adults. (Link)
Religious belief as compensatory control. (Link)
Religious beliefs influence neural substrates of self-reflection in Tibetans. (Link)
Religious delusion 13 years after brain injury. (Link)
Religious delusions: finding meanings in psychosis. (Link)
Religious experiences in epileptic patients with a focus on ictus-related episodes. (Link)
Religious factors and hippocampal atrophy in late life. (Link)
Religious involvement and obsessive compulsive disorder among African Americans and Black Caribbeans. (Link)
Religious obsessions and compulsions in a non-clinical sample: the Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity (PIOS). (Link)
Religious obsessions and religiosity. (Link)
Religious thought and behaviour as by-products of brain function. (Link)
Religious upbringing and neuroticism in Dutch twin families. (Link)
Religiousness and obsessive-compulsive cognitions and symptoms in an Italian population. (Link)
Religiousness, antisocial behavior, and altruism: genetic and environmental mediation. (Link)
Religiousness as a cultural adaptation of basic traits: a five-factor model perspective. (Link)
Rewarding prayers. (Link)
Schizotypy, delusional ideation and well-being in an American new religious movement population. (Link)
Scrupulosity: a unique subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder. (Link)
Scrupulosity and obsessive-compulsive symptoms: confirmatory factor analysis and validity of the Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity. (Link)
Scrupulosity disorder: an overview and introductory analysis. (Link)
Scrupulosity in islam: a comparison of highly religious Turkish and canadian samples. (Link)
Scrupulosity in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder: relationship to clinical and cognitive phenomena. (Link)
Self-transcendence as a measure of spirituality in a sample of older Australian twins. (Link)
Sequence of a trance: psychopathological disorders following religious experiences. (Link)
Social identity and the true believer: responses to threatened self-stereotypes among the intrinsically religious. (Link)
SPECT neuroimaging in schizophrenia with religious delusions. (Link)
Spiritual disciplines, modern brain research and Bosch’s psychological model of human dysfunction. (Link)
Spirituality and complex partial epileptic-like signs. (Link)
Spirituality and religion in epilepsy. (Link)
St Theresa’s dart and a case of religious ecstatic epilepsy. (Link)
Striking EEG profiles from single episodes of glossolalia and transcendental meditation. (Link)
Subsistence and the Evolution of Religion. (Link)
The correlation between thought-action fusion and religiosity in a normal sample. (Link)
The correspondence between attachment to parents and God: three experiments using subliminal separation cues. (Link)
The DRD4 gene and the spiritual transcendence scale of the character temperament index. (Link)
The etiology of stability and change in religious values and religious attendance. (Link)
The influence of cultural factors on obsessive compulsive disorder: religious symptoms in a religious society. (Link)
The interface between religion and psychosis. (Link)
The measurement of regional cerebral blood flow during glossolalia: a preliminary SPECT study. (Link)
The Need to Belong Can Motivate Belief in God. (Link)
The neural correlates of religious and nonreligious belief. (Link)
The neural substrates of religious experience. (Link)
The origin and evolution of religious prosociality. (Link)
The origins of religion: evolved adaptation or by-product? (Link)
The pharmacotherapy of moral or religious scrupulosity. (Link)
The power of charisma–perceived charisma inhibits the frontal executive network of believers in intercessory prayer. (Link)
The price of your soul: neural evidence for the non-utilitarian representation of sacred values. (Link)
The relationship between religion and thought-action fusion: use of an in vivo paradigm. (Link)
The role of prejudice and the need for closure in religious fundamentalism. (Link)
The role of the extrapersonal brain systems in religious activity. (Link)
The role of the medial prefrontal cortex in human religious activity. (Link)
The “sensed presence”: an epileptic aura with religious overtones. (Link)
The serotonin system and spiritual experiences. (Link)
The spiritual brain: selective cortical lesions modulate human self-transcendence. (Link)
Thinking of God moves attention. (Link)
Toward an alternative evolutionary theory of religion: looking past computational evolutionary psychology to a wider field of possibilities. (Link)
Turning to God in the face of ostracism: effects of social exclusion on religiousness. (Link)
Understanding biological and social influences on religious affiliation, attitudes, and behaviors: a behavior genetic perspective. (Link)
Vectorial cerebral hemisphericity as differential sources for the sensed presence, mystical experiences and religious conversions. (Link)
When god sanctions killing: effect of scriptural violence on aggression. (Link)
Why are religious individuals more obsessional? The role of mental control beliefs and guilt in Muslims and Christians. (Link)
Wrath of God: religious primes and punishment. (Link)
Updated 8/11/2012
