Man Created God In His Own Image

Scientific research confirms what I've always believed and what Freud said decades ago about who created whom in the man-god relationship.

In this study, it was discovered that people's own opinions coincide more closely with what they think god would think than with what they think other people believe. Furthermore, the same areas of the brain are activated when they ponder their own opinions or god's opinions, which is not the case when they ponder other people's opinions.

(Found via The Daily Dish)

The Brain and Moral Judgments

It's all in the physiology of our bodies and it is acquired with its development with age.

The Workings of a Brain in Argument

A funny flowchart found through BuzzFeed diagramming how a man's brain and how a woman's brain works during an argument. Click the image for a larger view.

Image Source

Fusiform Gyrus, Phantom Limbs, Synesthesia

All explained through brain function for the lay man in this very entertaining video by V. S. Ramachandran. I must admit, his solution to pain from phantom limbs is ingenious.

The Opium of the Masses

This article from Newsweek considers the possibility and evidence that a human brain is not wired for supernatural beliefs, contrary to the popular belief that we are innately inclined to weigh and believe in the supernatural.

Noteworthy excerpts:

In a paper last month in the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, Gregory Paul finds that countries with the lowest rates of social dysfunction—based on 25 measures, including rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, unemployment, and poverty—have become the most secular. Those with the most dysfunction, such as Portugal and the U.S., are the most religious, as measured by self-professed belief, church attendance, habits of prayer, and the like.

...

"The ease with which large populations abandon serious theism when conditions are sufficiently benign . . . refute[s] hypotheses that religious belief and practice are the normal, deeply set human mental state." [...] rather than being wired into the brain, religion is a way to cope with stress in a dysfunctional society—the opium-of-the-people argument.