Religious Fundamentalism causes brain damage LOL

a reply to: ketsuko

They basically discovered that a certain type of brain damage in Vietnam Vets made them less open to new and different religious beliefs.

Good catch Ketsuko...

I'll gladly admit that i was headed to work when i found this... which was the reason for the lack of my own content...

Heres the summery of the study

Abstract

Beliefs profoundly affect people's lives, but their cognitive and neural pathways are poorly understood. Although previous research has identified the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) as critical to representing religious beliefs, the means by which vmPFC enables religious belief is uncertain. We hypothesized that the vmPFC represents diverse religious beliefs and that a vmPFC lesion would be associated with religious fundamentalism, or the narrowing of religious beliefs. To test this prediction, we assessed religious adherence with a widely-used religious fundamentalism scale in a large sample of 119 patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI). If the vmPFC is crucial to modulating diverse personal religious beliefs, we predicted that pTBI patients with lesions to the vmPFC would exhibit greater fundamentalism, and that this would be modulated by cognitive flexibility and trait openness. Instead, we found that participants with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) lesions have fundamentalist beliefs similar to patients with vmPFC lesions and that the effect of a dlPFC lesion on fundamentalism was significantly mediated by decreased cognitive flexibility and openness. These findings indicate that cognitive flexibility and openness are necessary for flexible and adaptive religious commitment, and that such diversity of religious thought is dependent on dlPFC functionality.

www.sciencedirect.com...

So technically... religious fundamentalism doesn't "cause" brain damage...

though perhaps the damage was already there... in fundies that is

Ye think?

originally posted by: TobyFlenderson
a reply to: mOjOm

I have a brother who has heterochromia. He's a goddamn animal. 6'6", drives a harley, covered in tatoos. But not an atheist.

LOL. Sounds like an interesting guy. Must have made for an interesting brother too. Probably makes quite an impression with people being such large and unique looking individual.

originally posted by: chr0naut

Well, the correlation is there. Hard to argue hard objective evidence.

Well, I think you need some more work showing correlation obviously. Plus labeling that as "hard objective evidence" is stretching it pretty damn far as well.

But at least you put some effort in it. I've seen much worse attempts.

originally posted by: Raggedyman

originally posted by: Ghost147
Your title is backwards.

Brain damage to a particular area can cause a person to be less likely to change deep rooted beliefs upon challenging information,

i am inclined to think the initial brain damage can be caused by religious fundamentalism or any other kinds of abuse, physical or psychological trauma. I wonder what you consider the cause of the initial brain damage that leads to fundamentalism is Ghost

Could you explain why you believe that?

The article in the OP directly states that the brain damage to the prefrontal cortex via some form of penetrating trauma could increase the likelihood of unchanging fixed deep rooted beliefs.

In this case the cause was from a war injury

a reply to: mOjOm

It was torturous growing up with him, he's 9 years my elder. As adults he's not all that bad in short doses. Interesting, yes, he's interesting. I could tell you stories that you absolutely would not believe.

originally posted by: mOjOm

originally posted by: chr0naut

Well, the correlation is there. Hard to argue hard objective evidence.

Well, I think you need some more work showing correlation obviously. Plus labeling that as "hard objective evidence" is stretching it pretty damn far as well.

But at least you put some effort in it. I've seen much worse attempts.

I was being supercilious in regard my religious belief. In truth, I hardly think that either ideological viewpoint is indicative of mental aberation.

... but of course I could point to papers suggesting various mental exceptions as being formative for the atheist position, just for balance.

a reply to: chr0naut

I gotcha. I have a problem taking everyone literally when they write stuff on here unless they point out exactly the way they meant for something to be understood.

So I most likely didn't get the joke as you meant it.

originally posted by: mOjOm
a reply to: chr0naut

I gotcha. I have a problem taking everyone literally when they write stuff on here unless they point out exactly the way they meant for something to be understood.

So I most likely didn't get the joke as you meant it.

No worries.

I usually put the icon in to indicate silliness!