What they found was that, unlike the other activities, personal prayer lit up sections of the brain that seem to be connected normal social interactions. It activated so called 'theory of mind' processing.In the graphic shown, they're looking specifically at a region of the brain (the temporo-parietal junction) that is thought to be involved in figuring out why people are behaving the way they are.
In other words, these Christians (all members of a rather hardcore Danish Lutheran sect) seem to believe in a God who is like a good friend, with whom you can have a conversation, rather than a kind of disembodied, primal force.
All this won't be terribly surprising to cognitive anthropologists, or to anyone who has made a close study of western religion as it is actually practised. But it will probably surprise theologians, who insist that that is absolutely not what God is - and take people like Dawkins to task for their naivety in suggesting otherwise.
As the study authors explain:
This finding ... offers important insights to the study of theology, in which Christian doctrine on God’s nature includes abstract concepts like God’s omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, the Trinity and the Holy Spirit. Interestingly, in terms of brain function, our results suggest that the Inner Mission [that's the name of the Christian sect] participants mainly think of God as a person, rather than as an abstract entity.
In fact, this brain imaging study confirms an analysis from earlier this year showing that people very much treat prayer like a conversation with a friend. And it also confirms another recent imaging study, which found that other aspects of religious thinking also press into action fairly standard brain circuitry dealing with normal, real world interactions.
This new study has some rather interesting details, however. In addition to looking at what happens when these Christians engage in personal prayer, they also looked at the results or ritual prayer.
They found that reciting the Lord's Prayer was pretty much the same as reciting a nursery rhyme. And remember that these were highly orthodox Christians, who take the Lord's Prayer very seriously and recite it regularly.
The Rev Dr John Polkinghorne has recently opined that the sense of wonder that scientists feel (on good days) is "in a sense, an act of worship". I rather doubt that, based on these results!
And what about poor old Santa Claus? Well, Justin Barrett argues that even fervent belief in St Nick is not the same as believing in God (basically on the somewhat tendentious grounds that adults don't believe).
This study found that these Christians were completely unmoved by making wishes to Santa. Perhaps unsurprising, given that he is a false god and all that!
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Schjoedt, U., Stodkilde-Jorgensen, H., Geertz, A., & Roepstorff, A. (2009). Highly religious participants recruit areas of social cognition in personal prayer Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsn050
Thanks for this interesting post. I think it reflects some ideas about praying, but it's similar to the degree of connections and stimulation. Prayers could be measured using the imaging techniques. However, we could the scientists be sure that the prayers are under a scientific experiment? There is an assumption that we could measure the "degree" and "quality" of conversation with God based on testing. My question is: when people are undergoing a scientific test, is he or she praying? I am a catholic and I usually read a short piece of article for reflection. That's a prayer to me. From a cognitivist point of view, I would be comprehending the message and so it lit on the region of the brain. The tacit conversation that could not be tested is the connection with the supernatural (God) that could not be detected using the scan, I suppose, as it is "colorless" or "traceless" - the meditation that stops the recording of the signals.
ReplyDeleteRenewed thanks for this research work and findings.
Now, measure the activity in the brains of children who are writing a letter to Santa or describing what they want Santa to bring them.
ReplyDeleteThen have them address something to the spirit of a dead relative.
ReplyDeleteWhere are the "theologians, who insist that that is absolutely not what God is"? It's not clear which theologians you have in mind, and I suspect you might be misrepresenting them. People "take people like Dawkins to task for their naivety" for all sorts of reasons, but in my experience, asserting that people think of God as a conversationalist and friend is not notable among them.
ReplyDelete"In other words, these Christians (all members of a rather hardcore Danish Lutheran sect) seem to believe in a God who is like a good friend, with whom you can have a conversation, rather than a kind of disembodied, primal force...But it will probably surprise theologians, who insist that that is absolutely not what God is"This is an overextension of the actual data collected. All you can say from these data is that the same region of the brain that has increased blood flow during conversational speech also has increased blood flow during conversational prayer. When these people pray to their God, they put together words and phrases into sentence to explain abstract thoughts and ideas. Why would you expect anything other than temporo-parietal activation? No theist with even a passing understanding of cognitive neuroscience would expect otherwise. To say that a significant number of theologians would deny this is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteIf you’re going to attach theism, do it with integrity and not with straw man arguments.
Also, leave the overextension of fMRI data to local news channels. A PhD should know better.
Exactly as I was thinking Harrison. Good popular press style piece but "no cigar" from the science crowd on this total over-extension of results. Why the obsession with religion anyway? Who really cares?
ReplyDeleteSui Fai John Mak, they did ask the participants whether it felt like a normal prayer. So we can be confident that the participants really were engaging in prayer as they usually do.
ReplyDeleteMona, Yes, I think you are right that we would expect that someone making a wish to Santa Claus, if they really believed in him, would get a similar result to the Christians in this study praying.
ReplyDeleteIt would be a bit tricky to do this study using kids though! (The methodology requires quite a bit of commitment and concentration).
Outerhoard, I would be interested to hear of a theologian who doesn't describe God in impersonal terms. Theologians are difficult to pin down when it comes to defining God, but one thing they all do is reject anthropomorphic concepts.
ReplyDeleteFor example, The 20th century theologian Paul Tillich spoke of God as a person's "Ultimate Concern." What does that mean? I have no idea, but it isn't a person.
The dichotomy between popular, anthropomorphic concepts of god as an entity to be negotiated with, and theological concepts, is well known.
As a start, take Nicholas Lash, who was Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. His latest book 'Theology for pilgrims' contains just such an attack on Dawkins.
Lash provides a nice history, explaining that theologians have consistently rejected anthropomorphic concepts.
Harrison, the brain states activated are 'theory of mind' states, not simply talking or conversation. They show that the Christians praying are using the same regions that are used when people try to predict what another person will do, and try to negotiate with them.
ReplyDeleteIf you know of a theologian who defines god in those terms, I would be interested to hear!
As for extrapolating the results, no I have not. In fact, I reported the conclusions of the authors.
Theologians aside, it's an unsurprising result to anyone who's ever heard the common phrase "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ". Or even that Depeche Mode song.
ReplyDelete