Is Fundamentalism Linked To Brain Dysfunction?

This new study suggests it may be. Fundamentalism could be linked to impairment of the prefrontal cortex.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/study-finds-link-between-brain-damage-and-religious-fundamentalism/

No surprise really.

 

Maybe these veterans developed fundamentalist mentalities because of the traumatic nature of their brain injuries. Like being driven to God. Also there is the folklore concept of being "Touched". This results from brain damage and produces psychic or pseudo-psychic experiences that in many cases are akin to deeply felt religious experiences. Just a possibility to consider.

 

perhaps not directly, but statistically there does appear to be considerable correlation.

 

And remember. The brain damage is all in your head.

 

fanatics lack empathy

 

Not to support fundamentalism but where do the impairments end? Is there like one perfect brain we're all supposed to have and some douchebag decides what that is?

 

But it's misleading and out of context to say that religious fundamentalists and brain damage are linked.

Since that wording implies that anybody who is strongly religious or believes in fundamentalists values regarding their religion is brain damaged.

When, in fact, the study did not imply that at all!

No.

What it said was, that once people DO endure damage to the prefrontal cortex, they are sometimes compelled to become immersed in religious zealotry.

These two dynamics are not the same thing.

Just as, any psychologist....my major, btw, will tell you that religious delusions are one of the most common disorders for this suffering from Schizophrenia.

But again, this is nowhere close to saying that religious zealots are always schizophrenic.


What you are doing here with that last false claim, as well as the OP header, is confusing causal with corrolary factors. This is a not uncommon pitfall in many studies. And the tactic is often used by those who want to support a personal agenda or opinion.

Hope this helps. There's been a lot of misinformation in this thread. I just wanted to clear up any confusion.

And no, I'm not religious. I'm an atheist in fact. But as a student of Psychology I'm pretty up to speed on various dynamics of it and how it pertains to religion.

Cheers.

 

Ugh, another op ed piece trying to justify excuses.

Maybe fundamentalists that blow people up are just self centred cunts.


Babies get born with less than 10% brain matter, still manage many functions, i.e dont even have a pre frontal cortex. But we are going to pretend we know what the prefrontal cortex does. Or least want to have faith some people do know.

Damage to the prefrontal cortex correlates in one crappy study to religous fundamentalism.

Doesnt explain why its mainly a guy thing, suicide bombers are mostly male.

Doesnt explain why there arent any Tahitian suicide bombers, im sure there exists Tahitians with brain damage

 

This study seems poorly designed, and some of the conclusions the writer/journalist is drawing for it seem unwarranted. There's a strong insinuation that fundamentalism is the product of trauma, and that seems to be the take some of you are drawing from it. That may be true. It's even arguable that fundamentalism causes trauma. But one way or another, I think it's unwarranted to draw either conclusion from the study. The sample for the study consists of 119 combat vets. with traumatic brain injuries. The study is designed to see how these vets score on cognitive flexibility and religious fundamentalism. What was the religious orientation of these patients before their injury? We don't know. I think that would be relevant in assessing the results. Were they less rigid before than after? If an atheist, agnostic, or Unitarian suddenly became a bible thumper or jihadist after said injury, that would be noteworthy. But we don't know that. If they were fundamentalists before, how do we know that rather than the brain damage was the cause of their fundamentalism. Of course there is the control group of thirty uninjured vets to consider.(How were they selected? What was their religious background? Was ti a random sample?) But without knowing anything about the subjects' religious background and practice before their injury we can easily jump to the wrong conclusion. There is also the implicit underlying assumption that firmness of religious belief is a undesirable. Is that a truth or a value judgment on the part of the investigators? And the reporter speculates beyond anything that could be validly inferred from the study when he says "perhaps" extreme religious indoctrination could produce the same effects as a physical brain trauma to the prefrontal cortex. Maybe so, maybe not. Nothing in this study would suggest that it does. The study involved physical damage to parts of the brain. And we should note that brain damage accounted for only 20% of the variance among subjects in their fundamentalism scores.

Religious fundamentalism is inflexible thinking on religious matters almost by definition, and people brought up on it and who believe it are going to think rigidly about religion regardless of brain trauma. Equating cultrual conditioning with trauma is sloppy.Sometimes, but not always, fundamentalism can be physically or emotionally abusive. Most of the atheists I know came out of extreme religious upbringings where they were constantly told they were going to hell, which is emotionally abusive. They managed to escape but most fundamentalists don't, and that's something to be concerned about. I remember a kid on these forums some time ago who was gay and had the idea that Satan must have made him because "God doesn't make junk." I remember thinking "Where is Richard Dawkins when we really need him?" On the other hand, there are folks of ordinary intellect, some coming out of recovery programs, who look to the Bible as their lifeline, and need something certain to hang on to. I'd be cautious about snatching that away from them without careful consideration of their circumstances.That could apply to some brain injured vets. Maybe simple faith in the Bible kept them going. I also had the experience of being involved with a group of men who were all Church of Christ fundamentalists--outcasts from their church because their wives left them for other men and their church held them responsible for not asserting leadership in the home (Yikes!). They were great guys, decent, not harsh, good parents, very positive about their faith, and pretty open and flexible about most things other than the inerrancy of the Bible. I suspect they'd do really well with the card sorting and probably also on the NEO flexibility test, including openness. And on general principles, I think overgeneralizing from poorly designed studies is a bad thing--especially when it promotes stereotyping.

 

When I posted the study, I did so really in a kind of tongue in cheek way. I thought it might help brighten up the day for a few of the more liberal minded people on here. To me it does seem inconclusive, and a lot more research would need to be done to establish a link.

I do think it's highly likely that psychological trauma plays a part in rigid attitudes such as displayed by fundamentalists of all persuasions - Christian, Islamic, nationalistic, even scientific. I don't think many people come through childhood and adolescence without some kind of trauma, but it varies a lot depending on different factors, including the mind set of the parents. It's possible that my saying that will get angry responses from those who say they had a 'perfectly normal' upbringing free of trauma. To me that seems like an impossibility given the nature of our culture. They are simply unconscious of their own trauma.

I don't want to take anyone's support away - but leaning on unreliable support is probably a recipe for further problems. I don't see rigid and unexamined belief as a remedy for trauma or a way of healing oneself of it. Note that I'm talking here about fundamentalist religion, not a more flexible and questioning approach.