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God agrees with me, and so does my congregation
2010-Dec-15, Wednesday 10:51 pmWhether the occasion of life is heaven or hell for you probably depends on which social strata you inhabit. Not to fret, though, because you always have God on your side to help you in your struggle (to climb up, or to keep others down).
As it turns out, God likes and dislikes the same people that you do. Interesting coincidence, eh? Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging on the brains of test subjects to measure their neural activity as they reasoned about the beliefs of 1) themselves, 2) their deity, and 3) their neighbor. They found that reasoning about the beliefs of their deity activated the same brain pathways as reasoning about their own beliefs, not the beliefs of some third person.
In other words, the religious moral compass (liberal or conservative) merely points us where we're already facing. Our deity tends to agree with us, whatever it is that we believe. Using a sports metaphor, our deity is more of a mascot than a coach.
A different sociological study claims to have isolated the prominent feature of religiosity that causes increased life satisfaction. It has nothing to do with which flavor of deity you worship and everything to do with your ties to the other worshipers.
When human beings harness this herd instinct for wholesome purposes, it actually helps improve human lives. By encouraging healthy and compassionate activities, the presence of many worshiping congregations improves mortality rates in the region as a whole.
Increase your social/support network to increase your life satisfaction, and support your religious institutions to improve your community. Apparently, humans should join a clique to make them feel better about themselves. One wonders if similar support of government social support institutions could accomplish the same results.
When human beings harness this same instinct for divisive purposes, however, we see ardent demonization of others (certainly not themselves) used in an effort to incite group fervor and cohesion. "We are different from Them." Irreconcilable differences of opinion on these trivialities led to the enormous array of One True Religions on the planet today. Each of them has the support of the Only-God, therefore their personal opinion is not only right but also righteous.
It's a disappointing reality, but really... did you have any reason to expect more enlightened behavior from humans? Some social apes lost their fur, and they've been desperately self-conscious about it ever since. The raucous throwing of poo at each other is all a huge distraction to keep us from thinking about our own personal insecurities. Or so a casual observer could easily believe.
As it turns out, God likes and dislikes the same people that you do. Interesting coincidence, eh? Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging on the brains of test subjects to measure their neural activity as they reasoned about the beliefs of 1) themselves, 2) their deity, and 3) their neighbor. They found that reasoning about the beliefs of their deity activated the same brain pathways as reasoning about their own beliefs, not the beliefs of some third person.
"In particular, reasoning about God's beliefs activated areas associated with self-referential thinking more so than did reasoning about another person's beliefs. Believers commonly use inferences about God's beliefs as a moral compass, but that compass appears especially dependent on one's own existing beliefs."
- http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/12/01/0908374106.abstract
- http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/12/01/0908374106.abstract
In other words, the religious moral compass (liberal or conservative) merely points us where we're already facing. Our deity tends to agree with us, whatever it is that we believe. Using a sports metaphor, our deity is more of a mascot than a coach.
A different sociological study claims to have isolated the prominent feature of religiosity that causes increased life satisfaction. It has nothing to do with which flavor of deity you worship and everything to do with your ties to the other worshipers.
"Our study offers compelling evidence that it is the social aspects of religion rather than theology or spirituality that leads to life satisfaction... In particular, we find that friendships built in religious congregations are the secret ingredient in religion that makes people happier."
- http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-reveals-secret-ingredient-religion-people.html
- http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-reveals-secret-ingredient-religion-people.html
When human beings harness this herd instinct for wholesome purposes, it actually helps improve human lives. By encouraging healthy and compassionate activities, the presence of many worshiping congregations improves mortality rates in the region as a whole.
Increase your social/support network to increase your life satisfaction, and support your religious institutions to improve your community. Apparently, humans should join a clique to make them feel better about themselves. One wonders if similar support of government social support institutions could accomplish the same results.When human beings harness this same instinct for divisive purposes, however, we see ardent demonization of others (certainly not themselves) used in an effort to incite group fervor and cohesion. "We are different from Them." Irreconcilable differences of opinion on these trivialities led to the enormous array of One True Religions on the planet today. Each of them has the support of the Only-God, therefore their personal opinion is not only right but also righteous.
It's a disappointing reality, but really... did you have any reason to expect more enlightened behavior from humans? Some social apes lost their fur, and they've been desperately self-conscious about it ever since. The raucous throwing of poo at each other is all a huge distraction to keep us from thinking about our own personal insecurities. Or so a casual observer could easily believe.