Neuroscientists must not be afraid to study religion
Neuroscientists are urged to explore religion and spirituality despite credibility concerns. Advocates propose a neuroscience of religion to study how faith affects the brain, revealing correlations between religious practices and brain activity. Collaboration between neuroscientists and religious scholars is increasing to investigate further.
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Neuroscientists are encouraged to delve into the study of religion and spirituality, a field often avoided due to concerns about scientific credibility. Despite the significant impact of religious beliefs on human behavior, research in this area remains limited. Scholars advocate for the establishment of a rigorous field called the neuroscience of religion, aiming to understand the neural mechanisms underlying the effects of faith. Recent studies have shown correlations between religious practices and brain activity, including differences in connectivity patterns among individuals engaging in religious activities. Brain-imaging techniques have revealed insights into how religious and spiritual experiences influence neural networks, with some studies exploring the effects of psychedelic drugs on brain regions associated with religious encounters. Collaborations between neuroscientists and religious scholars are emerging to further investigate the relationship between the brain and religious cognition. Utilizing tools like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and computational analysis could provide new avenues for studying religious and spiritual experiences in controlled settings.
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10 commentsReligions haven't stopped being resistant to investigation and their members remain zealous.
Even the claim about meditation in the article will upset people, as then it isn't God delivering peace to your mind.
Doing research in this area could easily lead to something you wouldn’t want to publish out of fear.
Also as an aside from my time doing research, I don’t think anyone is afraid to conduct research that’s critical of religion.
There isn't a reference provided for that sentence in the article, but it's something that seems true to me, from my own experience. I'd really love to see some hard research confirming or denying this.
- /? auditory cortex verbal hallucinations: https://www.google.com/search?q=auditory%20cortex%20verbal%2...
- /? auditory cortex for schizophrenia treatment: https://www.google.com/search?q=auditory%20cortex%20for%20sc...
- Humanism > Varieties of humanism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism#Varieties_of_humanism re: the many ways bootstrapping a sufficient morality because the Golden Rule and the 3 Laws of Robotics are insufficient in comparison to e.g. statutes printed out every year; and because LLMs lack reasoning, inference, and critical thinking and thus also ethics.
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