Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Scientists discover atheist gene!

I am waiting to see such a headline.

The Times (London) has a silly article, "You are born to believe in God," about the latest "research" that "shows" that people can't control their irrational tendencies and just have to believe in God..... The artilce makes dubious claims such as:
Such work is supported by other researchers who have found evidence linking religious feelings and experience to particular regions of the brain. They suggest people are programmed to get a feeling of spirituality from what is nothing more than electrical activity in these regions.
One could also say:

"Atheist thoughts are just nothing more than electrical activity in certain "rational" parts of the brain."

"William Wilberforce's passion to end slavery was really nothing more than electrical activity in certain "compassionate" parts of his brain."

"Terrorists anger and hatred is really nothing more than electrical activity in their brain".

So why don't these "scientists" make such claims?

This is reductionism and speculation run amok. Let us not consider this as real science.

2 comments:

  1. Reminds me of this video of John Cleese:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvijJTjZ8Rg

    ReplyDelete
  2. Barry,
    Thanks for that. I had not seen it before and loved it.

    ReplyDelete