Researchers: Religion Deserves More Scientific Study

Two scientists who have met with would-be terrorists and cruel dictators in some of the world's hottest trouble spots have issued an unusual challenge to their colleagues: Focus your labs and your brain scanners and your cognitive skills on religion.

They aren't trying to convert anyone. They just think it's high time for scientists to stop ignoring something that plays a critical role in the lives of billions of people around the world.

"Religion is not something that scientists study very deeply," anthropologist Scott Atran, lead author of a study published in this week's issue of the journal Science, said in a telephone interview. "There is sort of an agreement between science and religion to remain separate, and I think that has not been a good thing."

Here's the problem, as seen by Atran, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and his coauthor, social psychologist Jeremy Ginges of the New School for Social Research in New York City:

Religion can shape a society in which it flourishes, bringing about mutual trust and solidarity and sacred rituals that are so powerful that citizens are willing to kill or die for the good of the community.

Continue reading at abcnews.go.com

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eVERMYRTLE

Science begins with: "In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth!"
- millergroup2
  
  http://absolutivity.us
millergroup2

Everyone please read this, http://absolutivity.us/ The account of creation unrefuted!
- keyboardshark
  
  millergroup2 says: "Everyone please read this, http://absolutivity.us/ The account of creation unrefuted!"
  
  While the article is indeed interesting, if a bit technical, I would not necessarily say it "proves" the creation account, but rather it offers an explanation of how it unfolded.
  
  "The first event of creation was the creation of all the mass of the Universe in the form of the elemental particles, each particle imbued with a power of attraction. The Universe was apparently filled uniformly with these invisible particles and they began attracting each other. The particulate matter that was to become the earth was scattered over the Universe with the other particles."
  
  While I wholeheartedly believe 100% in the Biblical account of creation, I get a little uneasy when explanations of how it occurred are proposed which seem to appeal to physical processes in an attempt to theorize just how it occurred ("The Universe was apparently filled uniformly with these invisible particles and they began attracting each other").
  
  While what the author says could be true, I do not believe the Bible gives us enough information to fill in the details of how Creation was actually accomplished. Instead of trying to understand the Creation in terms of processes that we as finite humans can understand, my opinion is that we only need know that it was a totally miraculous event which is beyond human understanding.
  
  I know you are sincerely trying to validate the truthfulness of the Bible's account of creation, my brother, and I am with you 100% on the truthfulness of that account. I'm not trying to invalidate your source, because it could have happened just as the author says. However, I believe it requires a bit too much of 'reading between the lines' in my opinion. No offense intended, just my 2 cents FWIW.
  - millergroup2
    
    keyboardshark
    
    Thank you for your thoughtful feedback. The author of these writings is still alive. I have forwarded your feedback to him. If you get a chance, please leave a comment for him at the bottom of his pages, to help create a dialog. Thanks
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22306708/Jn6.37.png Despeville

Scientia cum religione
- millergroup2
  
  Very well said! Hopefully folks will understand that God is in fact "The Great I AM"!
- Mary Wood
  
  That would be revolutionary
ajfrench

Unfortunately, until they actually believe, they will have no opportunity to create test results. You have to believe first. Then anything you ask in faith I will give to you. We are not allowed to test God. We believe first, then ask in love as we would our own earthly mother or father. Then He will supply, or not, as He sees fit for the strength and consistency of your faith. But someone who loves this world, money, lust, will not find this way appealing to them. You really have to want eternal life. God knows who you are.
- msjallen
  
  Yes, ajfrench, you are absolutely right…
  1 Corinthians 2:14….But the natural man (unbeliever) receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Ruth Walker

While few religionists will probably accept the finding, somebody's not paying attention to science (as usual). Read the book, "The Neuroscience of Religious Experience," by Patrick McNamara, Ph.D. Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine.

Patrick McNamara, Ph.D., is Director of the Evolutionary Neurobehavior Laboratory in the Department of Neurology at the BU School of Medicine and the VA New England HealthCare System. Upon graduating from the Behavioral Neuroscience Program at Boston University in 1991, he trained at the Aphasia Research Center at the Boston VA Medical Center in neurolinguistics and brain-cognitive correlation techniques. He then began developing an evolutionary approach to problems of brain and behavior and currently is studying the evolution of the frontal lobes, the evolution of the two mammalian sleep states (REM and NREM) and the evolution of religion in human cultures. He has published numerous articles and chapters on these topics pioneering the investigation of the role of the frontal lobes in the mediation of religious experience.
- msjallen
  
  God created man perfect without sin. When the man and woman chose to sin everything went downhill from there. Man has not gotten better through so called evolutionary means but worse. There is more sin in this world today than there ever has been before and as a believer it takes a lot of Bible knowledge and dependency on God to overcome it. I appreciate all the knowledge scientist have come up with; especially in medicine and science can do all the studying they want but the Bible is still the greatest knowledge we need because it leads us to our savior.
  - Mary Wood
    
    Mormon doctrine teaches we are all born perfect without sin. Once in this world we are challenged by satan and his emissaries. Then and only then, do we chose the direction we take in our lives. It is not prejudiced by an ancestor who made a wrong choice. If God exists, He would not permit His innocent child to carry such a burden.
Betz

Bravo…someone who is actually searching for truth.
Mary Wood

Science = Reason! Religion seeks reason.