GOD SPOT Found in Human Brain
Posted by admin on February 15th, 2011
Has Religious Belief Been “Hardwired” Into the Human Brain?
Majority of human beings have always believed in God, a creator of them and universe. From the most ancient civilizations to the ultra modern societies, religions with God at their center have formed the foundation of human culture. In fact, the denial of God’s existence (atheism) throughout history was limited to a few individuals until the rise of communism in the 20th century. Even today, in the secular societies of the West, where modern social scientists armed with Darwinian theories have argued that God is merely a fantasy of the human imagination, the overwhelming majority of citizens, laymen and even scientists have firm belief in God.
Many archeological discoveries in support of God’s existence have led some anthropologists to conclude that belief in God must be inborn and not learnt. The Holy Quran reveals this truth in these words:
“Remember when your Lord brought forth from the children of Adam, from their loins, their seed (or from Adam’s loin his offspring) and made them testify as to themselves saying: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said: ‘Yes! We testify’ lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection:. ‘Verily we have been unaware of this’. Or lest you should say: ‘It was only our father aforetime who took others as partners in worship along with Allah and we were merely their descendants after them; will you then destroy us because of the deeds of men who practiced al batil (polytheism) and committing crimes and sins, invoking and worshipping others besides Allah?’ Thus do We explain the Ayah (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations etc) in detail so that they may turn unto the truth”. (Quran7:172-174).
Adam’s progeny declared: “Our Lord, we bear witness that You are our ord; we have no other Lord but Allah. Allah raised their father Adam, and he looked at them and saw those of them who were rich and those who were poor, and those who had good forms and those who did not. Adam said: “O Allah! I wish You to make Your servants equal.” Allah replied “I love being thanked.” Adam saw among the prophets like lamps among his progeny.
A team of neuroscientists from the University of California conducted a study in 1997 on epileptic patients who are known to have profoundly spiritual experiences. From the study, Scientists believe that they have found a “God Module” in the human brain which could be responsible for human’s evolutionary instinct to believe in religion. According to study this is a circuit of nerves in the front of the brain, which appears to become electrically active when they think about God.
The scientists located a circuit of nerves in the front of the brain, which appears electrically active when they think about God or their creator. Many epileptic patients who suffered from seizures of the brain’s frontal lobe reported that they frequently experienced intense mystical happenings during which they often obsessed with religious thinking or spirituality. The most interesting part of these seizures is that there occurs over-stimulation of nerves in the “God Module” part of the brain.
These scientists reported that there may be dedicated neural machinery in the temporal lobes concerned with religion to impose order and stability on society. The report also indicated that whether a person believes in a religion or even in God may depend on the conditions and environment in which that part of brain developed.
Under the supervision of Dr.Vilayanur Ramachandran the research team compared epileptic patients with normal people and a group of people who were intensely religious. With the help of monitors on the skin of the subjects, they conducted a standard test for activity in the brain’s temporal lobes. The results revealed that when scientists showed them words that invoke spiritual belief the epileptic patients and deeply religious people showed a similar response.
As the research conducted only on religious people and if the research is correct and there is a “God Module’ in human brain, then it might be suggested that atheists could have a differently configured neural circuit in brain.
In response of this study, the Bishop of Oxford said that whether there is a “God Module“is a question for scientists, not for theologians. “It would not be surprising if God had created us with a physical facility for belief”.
Man’s innate belief in a Supreme Being, proposes that man began as a monotheist, but in time, strayed into various forms of polytheism. This is further supported by fact that all of the so-called primitive tribes, which have been “discovered,” have been found to hold a belief in a Supreme Being. No matter what their evolutionary stage of religious development is found to have been at the time of “discovery,” most were found to believe in a Supreme God over all other gods and spirits. As such, the concept of a single Supreme Being remains in most of the religion’s as evidence that the masses strayed away from monotheism by giving some of God’s attributes to other aspects of creation, which eventually came to be regarded as lesser gods in some cases and as intercessors in others.
Nevertheless, a Supreme God, in whatever form He takes, is at the core of most religions of the world.