It is sunning, but, we do switch off areas of the brain responsible for analytical thinking and switch on the parts responsible for empathy when we want to believe in god, research suggests. We do exactly the opposite when we think about the mundane things.

“When there’s a question of faith, from the analytic point of view, it may seem absurd,” mentioned Professor Tony Jack, who was the leading the research. “But, from what we understand about the brain, the leap of faith to belief in the supernatural amounts to pushing aside the critical/analytical way of thinking to help us achieve greater social and emotional insight.”

This paper was published in the journal PLOS ONE though an analysis of eight separate experiments. Researchers found out that people with faith were more empathetic than those who don’t have faith. In these experiments, the relationship between the belief in god and measures of analytic thinking and moral concern were also evaluated. Each experiment was having around 159 to 527 adult participants. It was also observed that spiritual belief and empathic concerns are directly proportional to frequency of prayer or meditation.

In an earlier research, Professor Jack’s Brain, Mind & Consciousness laboratory deployed fMRI machine to demonstrate that the brain is having an analytical network of neurons that helps us to think critically and a social network to empathise.

“Because of the tension between networks, pushing aside a naturalistic world view enables you to delve deeper into the social/emotional side,” Professor Jack mentioned. “And that may be the key to why beliefs in the supernatural exist throughout the history of cultures. It appeals to an essentially nonmaterial way of understanding the world and our place in it.”

Interestingly, our brain discovers the world using both networks. While encountering a physics problem or an ethical dilemma, a healthy brain switches on the appropriate network and suppress the other.

Such suppression has the ability to develop into a conflict between science and religion, the researchers mentioned.

“Because the networks suppress each other, they may create two extremes,” said Richard Boyatzis, professor of organisational behavior at Case Western Reserve University.

“Recognizing that this is how the brain operates, maybe we can create more reason and balance in the national conversations involving science and religion.”

Author: Technology and Beyond