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The Goodly Ungodly Will Revel In This.

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sandyRoe | 13:31 Wed 01st Jan 2014 | Religion & Spirituality
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A report in The Mail online states that people who are religious or spiritual have thicker brains. Surely this can't be so?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2531622/People-religious-spiritual-thicker-brains-Those-believe-god-deeper-outer-layer.html
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I think it's more to do with susceptibility than intelligence. The first study involved 103 people who had already been part of a depression study. You are never going to get accurate results by asking people to analyse themselves.
I have seen studies that purport to show that atheists are smarter than the religious. I have seen other studies that show religious people to be happier or more fulfilled than atheists. None of the studies are especially authoritative. Far too much chance of confounding factors and researcher bias.

What you can say, and what is proven by studies and evidence, is that the greater your scientific education, the less likely you are to believe in the notion of a god as is commonly thought- big beard in the sky, paying attention to us all through prayer and responsible for the creation of everything.Read into that what you will.
Actually, it says

//All the participants were the children or grandchildren of people who participated in an earlier study about depression. //

Notionally, since clinical depression is about having an imbalance of various neurotransmitters, it has a genetic basis and is inheritable. However, it can be hard to distinguish the inherited aspect from the reactive/adaptive: - the afflicted can have outward behaviour which their children may simply learn and copy - pessimism, lethargy etc and/or develop their own responses - such as hiding in their room or outdoors because of a parent's mood swings. Someone might become depressed in the colloquial sense, due to adverse life events. This isn't inheritable but the children will still be exposed to the behavioural fallout and react/adapt in a similar pattern.

The only way to resolve that difficulty in separating cause and effect (classic "nature versus nurture" problem) would require the offspring of a family with a history of clinical depression to be adopted by a depression-free family and see if the child becomes a sufferer because genetic reasons made it so.

I think this line of research is at too early a stage and hasn't got as far as refinements of this sort. Morally and ethically, you cannot cause such adoptions to happen and it could take decades to accumulate enough naturally occuring cases for the data to be accepted as meaningful.

Keyplus, //Some people will never believe in a scientific research if that does not suit their own belief//

True - and you still don’t recognise it in yourself.

I don’t think any of these studies really tell us much. However, it does appear that faith can have a detrimental effect on even the most intelligent in that it results in the voluntary abandonment of rationality.
Any examples spring to mind Naomi?
As a matter of fact, Jom ..... ;o)
Hypognosis, it's already known that depression can be hereditary or from ptsd. It is genetic, not learned behaviour.
Naomi, I suppose it would be tactless to say.......
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Indeed it would. No names, no pack drill.
A mention earlier of 'nature v nurture' prompted a half memory of an American psychologist who, as an experiment, raised his son to fear dogs. Does anyone know what became of the boy?
thick skinned and now thicker brains, sound about right :)
Did he become a werewolf?
More research needed.

What if you're a gay vicar?
Or a woman priest?
Or an ex-whatever?
Or a made-it-all-up-yesterday-ist?
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I don't know, Pixie. I don't suppose he became a dog trainer.
Anneasquith, I believe a thick skin would be a real advantage if you were out door to door spreading the glad news.
never mind door to door sandy, a thick skin is required to venture into this topic.. LOL
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What need we fear if we are armoured with the tin hat of faith and the breastplate of Grace? :-)
Er, logic? X
jom, ever tactful… ;o)

sandyRoe, you say the so-called ‘Goodly Ungodly’ will revel in this, but actually I would thank you not to endow them all with the spiteful mentality often encountered from those of a religious persuasion Anyone who takes pleasure in gleefully triumphing over another’s inadequacies, perceived or otherwise, is to be pitied.
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sigh My attempts at gentle, subtle, humour are both too subtle and too gentle if they slip under the radar.
As if the atheists would reveal their radar capabilities and countermeasures. We know what those big cross shaped things are really for.....

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