The Guardian has a fascinating research based article on the biological components that may predispose humans to faith in a higher power, see Tests of faith

Faith has long been a puzzle for science, and it's no surprise why. By definition, faith demands belief without a need for supporting evidence, a concept that could not be more opposed to the principles of scientific inquiry. In the eyes of the scientist, an absence of evidence reduces belief to a hunch. It places the assumptions at the heart of many religions on the rockiest of ground.

So why do so many people believe? And why has belief proved so resilient as scientific progress unravels the mysteries of plagues, floods, earthquakes and our understanding of the universe? By injecting nuns with radioactive chemicals, by scanning the brains of people with epilepsy and studying naughty children, scientists are now working out why. When the evidence is pieced together, it seems that evolution prepared what society later moulded: a brain to believe.

The article continues

Childish belief is one thing, but religious belief is embraced by people of all ages and is by no means the preserve of the uneducated. According to Boyer, the persistence of belief into adulthood is at least in part down to a presumption. "When you're in a belief system, it's not that you stop asking questions, it's that they become irrelevant. Why don't you ask yourself about the existence of gravity? It's because a lot of the stuff you do every day presupposes it and it seems to work, so where's the motivation to question it?" he says. "In belief systems, you tend to enter this strange state where you start thinking there must be something to it because everybody around you is committed to it. The general question of whether it's true is relegated."

As one who does not believe that she will ever get to the point of not questioning, I find this discussion of the biological basis of faith to be fascinating and very relevant to human communication in general. We have many kinds of faith in our lives...a belief in the unseen...might much of it be biologically based?

Posted by prolurkr at February 24, 2005 08:18 AM

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