Is Spirituality Hard Wired or Something Else?

Is God in there somewhere?

Scientists have been trying for decades to answer the question of whether spirituality or religious belief arises among humans solely in the brain or both in and out of the brain. Either way, there is a postulated role for hard wiring or neural pathways as a necessary component. It is therefore reasonable to think that spiritual and religious experiences are hard wired to some extent, but that culture and life experiences can affect those perceptions. 

The nature vs nurture contribution is unknown and probably very hard to assess. Studies with twins indicate some role for nature (genes and inherited innate hard wiring). What culture and life experience can do is alter hard wiring to some unknown extent. The brain partially rewires itself all the time in response to life experiences.

The following shows some of the struggles that science is having in dealing with spirituality and how to describe it and do research on it.

A 2009 review article comments:

To figure out whether the main empirical question “Is our brain hardwired to believe in and produce God [the producing point of view], or is our brain hardwired to perceive and experience God? [the perceiving point of view]” is answered, this paper presents systematic critical review of the positions, arguments and controversies .... allowing consciousness/mind/spirit and brain/body/matter to be seen as different sides of the same phenomenon, neither reducible to each other. .... A methodological shift from “explanation” to “description” of religious experience is suggested.

Thus, based on the reasoning set out above, we can construct the following definition of religious experience: religious experience is the very moment of experiencing of ultimate divine reality or ultimate divine truth, a transcendence of events or universe, timelessness, spacelessness, and divine being and/or union with it in any combination with an accompanied memorable feeling of reality, emotions and thoughts with a religious content. We use the word “religious” instead of “mystic” or “spiritual”, because “religious” in our opinion is a narrower concept and also adds a cultural dimension.

It seems that religious experience was and is a world-wide phenomenon. According to Burkert (1996) in prehistoric times no groups of people lived which had no religious experience (judging by the existence of religion). At the same time, groups existed which have no demonstrated such attributes of human culture as agriculture, clothing, money, laws and writing.

Arguments for a “producing” point of view

A “producing” point of view (sometimes it is referred as neuroscientific and/or cognitive) is a reductionistic one and can be summarised as follows: our brain is structured so as to provide us with experiences that make us believe there is a God, but this belief may merely be the result of internal brain activity and our interpretation of it.

Argument 1: It has been reported that the intense activation of the frontal and temporal cortices and limbic system, as well as (de)activation of the parietal cortex give rise to religious experience (for the full list of brain areas and structures and for the references, see Table 4). .... The formulation of argument 1 is weak because the findings on which it is based are correlative in nature, and as such, they tell us nothing about the cause-consequence relationships. .... It follows from this brief critical review of the arguments for a “producing” point of view that observed neuroscientific arguments tell us nothing about the true nature of religious experience or God.

Arguments for a “perceiving” point of view

The “perceiving” position (sometimes it is referred as theological) can be summarised as follows: our brains have the capacity to perceive God, and since our brain is designed to attune us to reality, this points to the likelihood that there is a God.

Argument 1: If the human brain enables humans to have religious experience, to perceive and believe in God, then it should be a reason for this experience (Joseph 2001). .... Religious experience may co-evolve with any other human phenomenon (for example, deactivation-mediated abstract reasoning, Previc 2006) which increases the survival of the organism. On the other hand, religious experience and practice themselves may have a protective effect on human communities and thus may also increase their survival. However, this reasoning tries to explain how religious experience has been preserved in human evolution but not the reason for the origin of religious experience. 

As it follows from critical review of the arguments for both the “producing” and “perceiving” points of view the main empirical question “Is our brain hardwired to believe in and produce God, or is our brain hardwired to perceive God?” remains unanswered.

A 2016 assessment of the state of the art indicates that spirituality is both hard wired and an adaptation. The Brain Blogger wrote:

The question of whether religion has been “hardwired” into our brains or an evolutionary adaptation has been debated for decades, however, more recently we have uncovered scientific underpinning for both possibilities.

Barrett equates religion to language acquisition where “we come into this world cognitively prepared for language; our culture and upbringing merely dictate which languages we will be exposed to.” Brain Blogger’s own Dr. Jennifer Gibson discussed how “the brain seems predisposed to a belief in all things spiritual” back in 2008.

As the original question remains unanswered, we are early… the neuroscientific study of religious and spiritual phenomena remains in its infancy. There is mounting evidence of a biological correlate to these phenomena, however, this does not necessarily negate an actual spiritual component.

A 2020 review article comments:

Neurotheology originated from brain-scan studies that revealed specific correlations between certain religious thoughts and localized activated brain areas known as “God Spots.” This relatively young scholarly discipline lacks clear consensus on its definition, ideology, purpose, or prospects for future research. .... God Spot research is poised to move beyond observation to robust hypothesis generation and testing.

The field of neurotheology emerged from metabolic brain-scan discoveries, made in a few pioneering laboratories, showing that specific areas of the brain become more metabolically active when people have religious experiences (d’Aquili and Newberg 1999; Newberg et al. 2002; McNamara 2009; Newberg 2010, 2018). Scholars have responded to these findings in various ways, ranging from intrigue, to indifference, and to dismissive labeling of these areas as “God Spots” in the brain.

The field is unsettled. Physical structures in the brain, neural pathways or hard wiring, are believed to be necessary for religious or spiritual experience, but those concepts that are hard to define and pin down. One can be doubtful that a spiritual component outside the brain is involved. But that belief is probably subject to the criticism that it is too reductionist and/or contradicted by sufficient evidence. Maybe so, but I continue to doubt it. 

RINO Hunts, McConnell's Calculations and Fox News vs Democracy & Consumers

These short pieces clearly indicate the future path of American politics for the foreseeable future. They also reveal a lot about the moral basis on which mainstream conservative politics and most of the business community operate.

After RINO hunts, only the left is left

Moderate republican - extinct

Disloyal republican - nearing extinction

Bloomberg Businessweek writes:

The start of Donald Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial is the latest reminder that although he’s left the White House, the former president hasn’t vacated his role as the dominant figure in the Republican Party—and the most divisive one. Republicans had hoped to spend the Biden era stoking tensions between moderate Democrats like the new president and the rising faction to his left. Instead, it’s the GOP that’s quickly fractured over the question of whether its members should remain in thrall to Trump or seek to move on from him.

“Many of you are hacked off that I condemned his lies,” Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, whose state party plans to censure him, said in a video defending his criticism of Trump. “Let’s be clear: The anger in this state party has never been about me violating principle or abandoning conservative policy. I’m one of the most conservative voters in the Senate. The anger’s always been simply about me not bending the knee to … one guy.”

Make no mistake, when Sasse says he is one of the most conservative voters in the Senate he means it, He is a radical right authoritarian or maybe something worse, e.g., a semi-fascist. He is not close to moderate by any reasonable definition. GOP voter loyalty to the party has shifted to the ex-president. Even radical conservatives people like Sasse are facing extinction unless they join the fascist cult.[1] That is where mainstream American conservatism has moved. 

Biden has no GOP moderate wing to try to work with. All that remains is a few tribal radical right authoritarians like Sasse and the majority fascist personality cult. Biden has no choice but to act without GOP support or do nothing. 

What McConnell wants

NPR's Michele Martin interviewed investigative journalist Jane Mayer, chief Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, about his ambitions.

Martin: So how closely tied to whatever victories Trump did achieve was Mitch McConnell?

Mayer: Oh, McConnell has been incredibly important to Trump. He's made Trump's administration look like it was competent because they got legislative victories and these judges through. .... And so this turn against Trump is really dramatic in the final day just before Biden was to be inaugurated.

Martin: So what do you think was the cause of that shift?

Mayer: Well, if you look at McConnell's career, there's really one theme running through it from start to finish, and it's always his self-interest. He doesn't act out of sort of moral principle, particularly. He's always calculating what the angles are for him and for his party. And so he's got his eye on 2022. He wants to get back into being the majority leader. That's what he lives for, really. And he's now come to think of Trump as standing in the way.  

What Trump has done is split the coalition that has kept the Republican Party in power for many of the past few decades. It's a coalition between big-business Republicans, sort of the establishment wing, and the social conservatives that are in the evangelical wing of the party and sort of white reactionaries. And Trump is taking those in one direction, and McConnell is getting heat from the business community and the other because after the Capitol mob rebellion and insurrection, the business world said, forget it, we're not supporting these people anymore.

Again, there is no hope of bipartisanship on the horizon anywhere in the fascist GOP. McConnell was not acting out of constitutional principle or public interest in breaking from the ex-president. He was, as always, acting in self-interest and party interest in the name of personal political power. That came at the expense of all other interests. The GOP has rotted to its core. For the time being, it appears that the business community that had been supporting the GOP even while it morphed into demagogic radical right authoritarianism seems to have stopped short of supporting full-blown fascist cultism.

Fox is invincible, really!

To faze the Fox, you have to unFox your box

https://unfoxmycablebox.com/

Some sources have reported that Fox News ratings have dropped in the wake of the Nov. 3 election and the 1/6 coup attempt. Consumers are angry and agitating to boycott advertisers, but that is futile. An NPR broadcast of On the Media reports that unless Fox is deplatformed, consumer backlash will not faze Fox. OTM points out that Fox became more extreme over the last year or so. It downplayed COVID and supported election fraud conspiracy theories. Fox was busy bringing dangerous previously far-right fringe lies to the mainstream. In recent weeks activists and journalists have called on advertisers and cable providers to pressure Fox to moderate or get kicked off the air.

Well over 90% of Fox revenues come from cable providers who pay Fox to be in their lineup of cable channels. The only way to faze the Fox is to get it deplatformed and booted off cable. Us consumers are the ones who financially support Fox and the poison it routinely injects into American society and politics. 

That is galling, to say the least. It shows exactly what the morals of the business community and especially the cable news industry are. Specifically, their morals are profit. Social and political poison is of no significant concern, i.e., lip service does not count.

Footnote: 

1. A blog post at Patheos, Kinzinger’s Family Letter: God, the GOP and Conservative Media, describes just how vicious, reality-detached and incoherent at least some of the fascist GOP cult is. This is both sad and terrifying:

There are three legs to the stool upon which public opinion over Trump and the impeachment sits: God, the GOP as a tribal entity, and conservative media in its incurably rabid form. Nothing exemplifies this more acutely than the letter that Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican House Representative who voted to impeach Trump, received from his own family. It’s a pretty torrid and shameful affair.

Kinzinger voted with his conscience, he did the correct moral thing, and he has been disowned by his family and claimed to be possessed by the devil for doing so.

In the two-page letter, Kinzinger’s family said he embarrassed their name by breaking with Trump, called Democrats the “devil’s army,” and rebuked him for losing the respect of several conservative talk show hosts. They also accused him of falling for the Democratic party’s alleged “socialism ideals.”

“Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” the letter dated January 8 read. “We were once so proud of your accomplishments.”  

“You should be very proud that you have lost the respect of Lou Dobbs, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Greg Kelly, etc., and most importantly in our book, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh and us!”

Honestly, we have got to unFox our box. 

Biden Restarts White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives

Source

The Hill writes:

The White House announced on Sunday that President Biden would be relaunching the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

“As our country grapples with a global pandemic, a severe economic downturn, the scourge of systemic racism, an escalating climate crisis and profound polarization, President Biden knows that civil society partnerships are essential to meeting such challenges,” the White House said in a release.

The office was established 20 years ago by former President George W. Bush, the White House noted, and continued on through the Obama administration. Former President Trump did not appoint a director to the faith-based office during his tenure and its website remained blank during the four years he was in the Oval Office. Trump instead created the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives, which served as the Health and Human Services Department's "liaison to the faith community and to grassroots organizations" and sought to "champion religious liberty in all HHS programs" according to its website.

Melissa Rogers will reassume the position she held in the Obama administration as executive director of the office and as senior director for faith and public policy as part of the White House Domestic Policy Council. White House Senior Adviser for Public Engagement John Dickson will serve as deputy director of the office. He previously served as national faith engagement director for the Biden campaign.

“At a time of great challenge and opportunity, the Biden-Harris administration is re-launching this bipartisan initiative,” the White House said. “The Partnerships Office’s initial work will include collaborating with civil society to: address the COVID-19 pandemic and boost economic recovery; combat systemic racism; increase opportunity and mobility for historically disadvantaged communities; and strengthen pluralism.” 

“That is not who we are. That is not what faith calls us to be. That is why I’m reestablishing the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to work with leaders of different faiths and backgrounds who are the frontlines of their communities in crisis and who can help us heal, unite, and rebuild," he added.

What does that mean?

There is no way to know what that means. There can be multiple ways to see it. One is that it's a good way to start trying to tamp down the belief in the Christian Persecution myth by showing Christians that Biden and liberals are not trying to do evil things like forcing them to convert them to pedophilic cannibal atheists or turning them into lizard people via microchips in COVID vaccines. This is a chance to bring anti-Christian Nationalist Christians into more prominence. That would be a very good thing. 

I'm a rock solid atheist and intensely oppose mixing secular government with religion. But, right now most conservative Christians in America seem to believe that democrats and Biden are agents of Satan. Just look at the lies and hate gushing out of fascist radical right sources like Breitbart, Fox News, Gateway Pundit and the rest of the multitudes of vicious lying beasts the right has unleashed. If this is a means to try to dispel the toxic hold that decades of radical conservative dark free speech has on their minds, then maybe on balance this is a good thing. Maybe.

Of course, people can see this as much more bad than good precisely because it mixes secular government with religion. That is entirely possible. Maybe more likely than not.

I'm inclined to wait and see what, if anything, this will amount to. I'm willing to give Biden the benefit of a doubt. Of course, maybe people who know Biden and his religious beliefs better than I can articulate reasons why this is more detrimental than helpful.

Regarding the Morality of Opacity, Lies and Deceit

Kant was an absolutist

Regarding lies and deceit,[1] there are two basic choices. A person, group, party, political leader and anyone else can play their cards close, or semi-close, with blunt honesty when it is called for. Given the human condition, some things need to be left unsaid, e.g., because truth causes more harm than good. It's usually, or more likely almost always, not only black and white. Some harm and some good are both there. The issue is how one sees the balance. Opinions will differ. 

I have a powerful personal bias against unwarranted opacity in politics, including truth withholding for the alleged benefit of me, anyone else, any group, the nation or society. IMO, opacity is where (i) crime and corruption, (ii) authoritarianism, (iii) social and personal abuse, (iv) incompetence and (v) contempt for truth and the rule of law hide and flourish. Lies and deceit of omission are no more moral or justifiable than lies or deceit of commission. 

Re authoritarianism: I now firmly believe it is an absolute necessity for the rise of out-of-power demagogues to the status of tyrant or kleptocrat. If there are exceptions to that personal rule, I am unaware of them. Hate of unwarranted opacity has long been my bias. On the matter of lying and deceit, I am persuaded by the reasoning of moral philosopher Sissela Bok, who brilliantly capsulized the issue for democracies: 

“[Johnson repeatedly told the American people] ‘the first responsibility, the only real issue in this campaign, the only thing you ought to be concerned about at all, is: Who can best keep the peace?’ The stratagem succeeded; the election was won; the war escalated. .... President Johnson thus denied the electorate of any chance to give or refuse consent to the escalation of the war in Vietnam. Believing they had voted for the candidate of peace, American citizens were, within months, deeply embroiled in one of the cruelest wars in their history. Deception of this kind strikes at the very essence of democratic government. 

When political representatives or entire governments arrogate to themselves the right to lie, they take power from the public that would not have been given up voluntarily. .... But such cases [that justify lying] are so rare that they hardly exist for practical purposes. .... The consequences of spreading deception, alienation and lack of trust could not have been documented for us more concretely than they have in the past decades. We have had a very vivid illustration of how lies undermine our political system. .... Those in government and other positions of trust should be held to the highest standards. Their lies are not ennobled by their positions; quite the contrary. .... only those deceptive practices which can be openly debated and consented to in advance are justifiable in a democracy.” 

If that reasoning is good for a national government and democracy, why isn't it good for a political party or a person? IMO, the logic flows like water just about everywhere, including to deceptive demagogues and tyrants. Or is that reasoning flawed or wrong?

Footnote: 

1. My definition of deceit includes unwarranted emotional manipulation, which usually arises when irrational or unwarranted fear, anger, hate, distrust, bigotry, etc., are fomented by speech or behavior. That's usually done intentionally to divide people and dehumanize allegedly threatening people or groups. Deceit also includes application of motivated reasoning to facts and truths (especially inconvenient ones) to distort real reality into a false reality. In my opinion, lies, unwarranted emotional manipulation and motivated reasoning are all forms of deceit.

Motivated reasoning: a cognitive biology phenomenon where personal biased reasoning produces justifications or make decisions that are most desired rather than those that accurately reflect the evidence and/or unbiased reasoning; it is an evolved personal defense mechanism against cognitive dissonance that arises when personal beliefs or desires conflict with reality or reason-logic; it is a tendency to find arguments in favor of conclusions a person, group or tribe wants to believe despite contrary evidence and/or less biased reasoning that would lead to a different conclusion or belief

Profiles in Mendacity & Moral Cowardice

Mitch McConnell: A mendacious moral coward

After he voted yesterday to acquit the ex-president of guilt for inciting the Jan.6 coup attempt, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell made a short speech attacking Donald Trump as “practically and morally responsible.” McConnell said Jan. 6 attack happened because the mob “had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth, because he was angry he had lost an election.” Despite that, McConnell acquitted the ex-president on a false legal argument that a former president cannot be impeached. The Senate itself voted that it had the power to impeach the ex-president and legal scholars all believe that is constitutionally sound.

In his speech, McConnell lied by blaming Pelosi for delaying the Senate impeachment process. Immediately after his speech, Pelosi stated in public that the timing of the Senate impeachment trial was entirely due to McConnell. It is clear that McConnell always intended to protect the ex-president from impeachment. His delay in starting the Senate trial until one hour after Biden was sworn in helped solidify the bogus legal loophole he cited as his excuse to protect the ex-president.

McConnell's little speech was a propaganda masterpiece grounded in mendacity, moral cowardice and party self-interest.[1] He did not have to make any public comments at all. He did not have to lie and try to blame Pelosi for the timing of a proceeding he had complete control over. Attacking the ex-president now, was far too little and too late. There is no moral courage in truth telling when it no longer matters.

So why did he make that speech? A few commentators yesterday suggested a plausible explanation: Money, power and party loyalty. It had nothing to do with trying to set the record straight for the public. McConnell could have been doing that shortly after the Nov. 3 election when the ex-president was lying about an illegitimate election. What McConnell was doing was speaking to major republican donors. Some rich republicans had been making noises that they were considering stopping all cash flows to the fascist GOP in view of the 1/6 coup attempt and the ex-president's toxic effects on republican power and wealth. 

What McConnell was doing in that speech was a necessary attempt to save the party by keeping the cash flowing in. The fact that there was a violent coup attempt fomented by the ex-president was not McConnell's concern. Money and power for the republican party and politicians was his concern.

McConnell will not face the wrath of the ex-president's rabid supporters in the next election because he was just re-elected on Nov. 3 for another six years. He is 79 years old now and unlikely to run again. Even if he does run in 2026, GOP voters won't remember yesterday's attack on the ex-president. There was neither honesty nor moral courage in his speech. 

What is the GOP?

Since 44 GOP senators voted not guilty, one can believe that they are actual fascists, regardless of the excuse they may point to as the reason for their vote. Seven voted guilty, maybe leaving them as the radical right authoritarian wing of the GOP in the Senate. Or, maybe it just masks quiet fascism. None of the seven complain about the dozens of voter suppression laws that red states have passed since the Nov. 3 election.[2] That is tacit support for fascist single party rule.

What the party leadership is after the impeachment is the same as what it was before. A self-interested group of incredibly arrogant elites lusting for power and wealth. They work in service to powerful and wealthy people and interests. That policy and ideology comes at the expense of the public interest. The fascist GOP opposes free and fair elections. It's leaders lie whenever they deem it useful, even if their lies can be easily denied by evidence. These elites could not care less about democracy, truth, honest governance, competence or the well-being of the American people.

Footnotes: 

1. It is interesting that during the impeachment Schumer asked for and got Senate permission to read aloud George Washington's 1796 farewell address to the American people. I think that will happen when the Senate reconvenes after the impeachment. In retrospect, the reason for that makes a lot of sense. Washington's letter contains blunt, urgent warnings about the deadly danger to democracy of a vindictive, demagogic, authoritarian political party in power. Schumer probably foresaw how this would play out and what it meant in terms of power and politics. At least, that's how I see it now. At the time, I was baffled as to why Schumer mentioned the letter at all.

2. From a Jan. 24, 2021 article: 

Republican legislators across the country are preparing a slew of new voting restrictions in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s defeat.

Georgia will be the focal point of the GOP push to change state election laws, after Democrats narrowly took both Senate seats there and President Joe Biden carried the state by an even smaller margin. But state Republicans in deep-red states and battlegrounds alike are citing Trump’s meritless claims of voter fraud in 2020 — and the declining trust in election integrity Trump helped drive — as an excuse to tighten access to the polls.  

Some Republican officials have been blunt about their motivations: They don’t believe they can win unless the rules change. “They don’t have to change all of them, but they’ve got to change the major parts of them so that we at least have a shot at winning,” Alice O’Lenick, a Republican on the Gwinnett County, Ga., board of elections in suburban Atlanta, told the Gwinnett Daily Post last week. She has since resisted calls to resign.

The chair of the Texas Republican Party has called on the legislature there to make “election integrity” the top legislative priority in 2021, calling, among other things, for a reduction in the number of days of early voting. .... Trump plans to remain involved in “voting integrity” efforts, keeping the issue at the top of Republicans' minds.

How Close the 2020 Election Really Was

On Feb. 9, the Washington Post published this analysis of how close the election was. It was very close. WaPo writes:

Republicans came within 90,000 votes of controlling all of Washington

In fact, Republicans came, at most, 43,000 votes from winning each of the three levers of power. And that will surely temper any move toward drastic corrective action vis-a-vis former president Donald Trump.

The Democrats’ narrow retention of the House is surely one of the biggest surprises of 2020. In an election in which most analysts expected the Democrats to gain seats, they wound up losing 14, including virtually all of the “toss-ups.” While the GOP lost the presidential race and control of the Senate, we very nearly had a much different outcome.  

Biden won the three decisive states — Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin — by 0.6 percentage points or less, which was similar to Trump’s 2016 victory. If you flip fewer than 43,000 votes across those three states, the electoral college is tied 269 to 269. In that case, Trump would probably have won, given that the race would be decided by one vote for each House delegation, of which Republicans control more. 

So, 43,000 votes for president, 32,000 votes for the House and 14,000 votes for the Senate.[1] Shifts of 0.6 percent for president, 2.2 percent for the House, and 0.3 percent for the Senate.

That is how close it was. That result came despite the ex-president's shocking incompetence, corruption, harsh divisiveness, cruelty, tens of thousands of lies, his racism and his clear anti-democratic authoritarianism. An overwhelming majority of republicans in congress support him and so does an overwhelming majority of rank and file republicans.

That says something about American democracy, politics and society. They are all seriously poisoned.

Footnote: 

1. The Senate vote was based on the margin of Ossoff's win in the primary election, not the general election.