Sam Harris worked on a study using fMRI that sought to compare the brain's behavior when it considered two kinds of topics: god and "tables and chairs." In other words, intangible vs. tangible objects. What the study found is that belief in god was functionally the same as NOT believing in god. Both were identified as "facts" by the person being studied. However, either experience was not considered by the brain as being as solid as the "facts" of physical objets. A different part of the brain is engaged when considering "tables and chairs" and the like. The conclusion is that there is room for some degree of doubt about abstract things. So a believer may reserve just a teeny bit of doubt about the existence of god, and the atheist may have a slight suspicion that god exists.
I have been trying to get in touch with the authors of this study to ask a question that pertains to my experience: what is going on when someone turns into an atheist after having been a believer? And vice-versa. What happens when a "fact" becomes seen as an error - and vice-versa. Maybe I'll find a way to ask.
I still feel the religious "twitch" even though I now am so convinced that theology is the study of fantasy, not of anything real. I suppose one doesn't unlearn twitches that were 60+ years in the making. According to Gladwell, I have way more than 100000 hours of repetition of religious concepts, beliefs and practices. And it is the one "skill" I wish I didn't have. I wonder what I might be now if I had put in even half that time into musical study. Maybe just another burnt out junkie. But maybe not.
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