“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”
- Romans 1:21-23
If you believe in God, its all in your head. At least that is what some scientists are trying to prove. Rather than actually considering that they may be some justification for faith, scientists are trying to isolate certain chemicals in the brain that effect why people seek God and how the concept of God is perceived.
This study was noted recently in an article in USA Today placed oddly enough in the opinion section. The article highlights the research of Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman. According to their findings, how a person perceives God can cause positive or negative neurological and emotional consequences. People who tend to see God as benevolent and caring and non-judgemental tend to have a positive outlook on life, while those who see Him as a God of wrath and judgement tend to have a negative outlook on life. Essentially what the scientists are saying is that people who believe in a Holy God who hates sin and will judge it accordingly are being guided by an evolutionary neuro-chemical creation that causes them to be negative.
Commenting on this article on his own site, Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary wrote:
Let’s be clear: If religious belief is nothing more than a biological process and if God is nothing more than a concept originating inside the neurobiological process of the brain, then we should simply wish for more persons to hold to what might be considered healthy understandings of God as compared to those which might be considered unhealthy. Of course, it is at this very point that the logic breaks down. Thinking in purely conceptual terms, virtually any sane person would take greater comfort in a God who is both benevolent and judgmental. After all, do we not all yearn for God to bring judgment upon mass murderers, child molesters, and the perpetrators of vast economic fraud?
The functional view of religion reduces belief in God to its potential personal and social utility. According to Andrew Newberg, certain forms of religion can indeed offer positive benefits, while other forms of belief bring both personal and social harms. Newberg and Waldman are at least honest in acknowledging that their understanding of religion is completely independent of the question of God’s existence or nonexistence.
No amount of laboratory research can isolate the origin of God. This is especially true if the hypothesis is predicated on the workings of the human brain. The good scientists would have just as easy a time searching for an aircraft carrier in cupboard. I hate to break it to the good gentlemen but their hypothesis is all in their heads.
HT: Dr. Al Mohler
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