Study suggests 'born-again' believers have smaller brains

Brain size does not matter. It's how your brain is wired that counts. I've got a border collie. Her brain is small, but I swear she has a vocabulary of a five year old and is amazingly smart.

www.scientificamerican.com...

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

More appeals to ridicule rather than actual argumentation? Clearly you didn't bother reading the study. Hint, I did. Try it some time. It's open-access, so you don't even have to take a penny out of the bank for it.

Granted, insulting something you don't understand is so much easier, isn't it?

Sorry, I have no idea what you just said.

Can't you dumb it down considerably, I'm born-again.

reply to post by brilab45


Metaphorical/abstract thinking does and is indicative of intelligence. By the way, would imagine fundamentalist programs, I won't even call them religions, have the same generational outcome worldwide.

The same study found that non believers tended to have smaller penises and larger vaginas.

Lets see here...

Invisible voice in the sky? .....check
Talking animals? .....check
Dinosaurs are a hoax meant to challenge belief? .....check
Zombie-worship? .....check



Seems obvious to me

This article, is sugesting Christian are lame asses stupid small brainded individual! isn't it?
GRRRRRR Graaaoooorrr!. Since the signs of true believers are: Heal the sick, Drove out demons, and Raising people from the dead. Then I will let the people with that signs answer you. Why am I angry for? I don't have the 3 Charaterictics of true christian uhu uhu uhu ....(sobs)

reply to post by tengkorak


Actually, the study is not suggesting that, but you kind of are, by not understanding the study. You have to read for comprehension.

Its not saying "all Christians." At all. Its saying "the specific type of Christians known as born again Christians."

reply to post by tengkorak


Not all, the fundamentalists are more literal thinkers. Most of the Christians are Catholic in the world. Catholics, Anglicans, United Church, presbyterian teachings are metaphorical and abstract, though there certainly are many literal thinkers attending. They are not required to take manuscripts that are questionable in origin, and even in the footnotes of the bible depicted as an epic story or fiction with a theme. Its the theme of the story we're supposed to buy. And certain credo's the Church's hand pick.

I am an ex Catholic, then Anglican and now a Quantum Physics Christian who is has finally rediscovered more Yeshua in a true way. But its metaphor, and a message of unconditional love, peace, non retaliation, forgiveness and lending a helping hand. While in the Catholic Church, I disagreed with the priest, wouldn't receive first communion as a teenager until he agreed he couldnt prove there was anyone in hell forever, for I told him outright, everyone is going to make it in the end, I knew no Loving Adult sent their children to dangerous schools. And also, read ever book in their little library I could lay my hands on and all the deep theological arguments where Catholics and Protestants differed, and knew that what they were expecting of me was this:

To take a fictional document found, and believe in the author's theme. I realized in the end, I didn't have to. I could disagree. But we were expected to believe certain credo's. I don't sorry believe all of those from any church.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


How exactlly one pin point a born again christian?

It's amazing that the same group of atheists ALWAYS show up to rant on Christians and Jews (and you know who you are). You gripe about the intolerance of Christians, yet I've never met a more intolerant group than the group of atheists on ATS who spend all their time chasing down any thread related to Christianity just so they can use their "large" brains to set the Christians straight. If you want to see a real hippocrite, get a mirror.

And, I might add, many of the greatest thinkers in history AND today wear "smaller hats" than comman folk. Besides, I always thought brain swelling was a bad thing...

reply to post by NOTurTypical


Read. Stop throwing out stupid little quips. Bother to actually examine the things you disagree with. This study shows a correlation about brain size. Please, read the study or just stop being so damn ignorant.

Grey matter is usually associated with information processing. I can understand the mindset of a born again, suppose a neurologist would become one. Before, the neurologist had no notion of God and each time it was presented with something his brain had to make a lot of complicated calculations going back and forth through all these previous notions it had gathered. But after, everything the mind cannot understand is explained by God who works in mysterious ways hence there is not much calculation going on and the person can simply enjoy life as it was intended. Same for misery, just think of God and let it go and return to a happy state again instead of dwelling on important but endless questions. So there is less and less grey matter because it gets used less often, which doesn't need to be a bad thing.

But scientists can never do that and because they have to explain everything they come across in contrast to the religious person they resent them for not having to put up with so much questioning and uncertainties as they do, some appear even jealous. Too bad only a minority of scientists rarely appear to see through their own clouded judgment when trying to analyze the brain and so their own psyche.

reply to post by mkkkay

I would think that meditation would reinforce the brain, just like any other muscle we have to use it or loose it. So why is religion different than meditation, religious people do have to use their imagination more then the ones

No, no, no! You have that all wrong.

Religious people use their brains to memorize information that is told to them by their preacher or that they read in the bible. The only task of the brain is to remember information given to it.

Meditation is completely the opposite. You are not required to memorize anything in meditation. Instead you "settle" yourself and give the mind easement from excessive intellectualization. The brain is then free to observe, attend to and process sensual and possibly ethereal input, and make sense of it. The brain is free to come to its own conclusions; rather than just remembering somebody elses.

Meditation is a much more stimulating and nurturing exercise for the brain than blindly following/accepting someone else' thoughts or ideas.

reply to post by mkkkay


HA..i think anyone who is religious has a smaller brain

nikola tesla was a christian and was one of the greatest inventors this planet has ever seen.

this study doesnt bother me whatsoever.

Originally posted by Mactire
Joking aside, I have noticed that people who follow religion blindly, which is more common in people who are "born again", seem to allow their entire lives to free float on the notion that "God has a plan", while your average person is playing life like a chess game to get ahead.

Thank you for proving my point. Blind faith implies something negative as if the believer can't see something a scientist can, which a scientist can see because of all of it's hard work trying to make sense of it all so it feels good about himself. So there are some scientists who resent believers for achieving a happy state of mind based on something imaginary, instead of knowledge about how the world works (according to the scientific dogma). Some are even jealous because they can't even imagine how to be happy because of something they consider to be imaginary.

Maybe its the slacked use of brain power which causes grey matter to decrease. If you don't use it you lose it. My father-in-law is like this, and his parents helped feed that kind of mind set. I'd wager you'd find similar results in Islamic or Israeli fundamentalists.

edit on 25-5-2011 by Mactire because: (no reason given)

If scientific concepts were like weights the scientific mind carries around and because of which the brain grows just as muscles do, then they are like the bodybuilders. Which is fine by me but that doesn't mean the skinny people are wrong or inferior in any way. Also it shouldn't really matter what the brain is filled with, wether the weights are scientific in nature or religious. For example someone studying theology all their lives should have an equal mass of brain compared to a brain filled with scientific concepts. It doesn't say which is better (or truth) at all. So why research it other than wanting to send out a message?

Originally posted by wayno
reply to post by mkkkay

 

The brain is free to come to its own conclusions; rather than just remembering somebody elses.

Meditation is a much more stimulating and nurturing exercise for the brain than blindly following/accepting someone else' thoughts or ideas.

Ofcourse, when one is born into this world it is exposed to ideas from others throughout life, a child is not born with preexisting ideas contained in the brain, it's empty ready to be filled with other people's thoughts.

So when meditating at a later age the brain is already filled with pre-existing notions drawing it's own conclusions is not correct, the brain would be simply have thoughts that interact with eachother and then whatever sounds most compelling (which is based on pre existing notions) to the brain is what is considered the ultimate truth. Which isn't and it's actually the same old blind following, in fact it's worse than thinking about a preacher's sermon as there's no thinking involved, now that is truly blind. Don't look at what's going on in the black box, don't open it and wait until some idea emerges and accept whatever that may be.

Originally posted by tengkorak

How exactlly one pin point a born again christian?

Asking them what religion they are? Getting an answer like "Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Jewish.........." etc., and then ticking off a little box, and then if the answer is just "Christian," you can always do a really miraculous and amazing thing and ask, "do you consider yourself to be born again?"

reply to post by Ophiuchus 13


My question to you the born-again movement also breeds alot of hate, so is it hate that makes them dumber? that's the real question.

No offense but anyone who is to into anything is a bit dumber to me because it narrows there range of vision and dumbs down the topics they might have an interest in. I mean come on if you read a mythology all day then except it as fact and totally disregard any sort of reasoning and actual facts then yes your going to become stupider. Just like if you lift weights all day and live in the gym your only going to be able to talk about the jersey shore, tanning, and picking things up and putting them down. Also the followers of Harold Camping have already shown us that most religious followers are idiotic and completely devoid of common sense, I mean waste another 2 billion dollars while this nut job lines his pockets, the same could be said about charles manson's following but he wasn't really after cash. The point is people that putting all your eggs in one basket is never a good idea, and commonsense/history will show you that. The studies correct but I think they should've broadened the title, because I think watching television like jersey shore also makes you dumber. So lets mail that in to USA today, new title: Born again Christians and Jersey Shore followers are stupider then your avergae bear Study Suggests.