In studying the effects of religious identification and spiritual experiences on the neuroanatomy of adults, Dr. Amy Owen, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, together with other researchers, has proved that religious types see their brain mass diminish at an advanced age. Catholics, Protestants and other believers displayed a considerable amount of atrophy when the volume of a structure central to the limbic system (the hippocampus) was measured.
The studies (published in PloS One 30/03/2011 and Scientific American 31/05/2011 and largely ignored by the world media) focus upon the volume and functioning of the brain of practicing religious people. The results are compared with those who possess no religious faith whatsoever.
Those evaluated were older persons who participated in a study of
the neurocognitive consequences of depression, who were interrogated about their religious beliefs.
The study concludes that the fight for the faith releases stress hormones that, given time, diminish the size of the hippocampus.
This is not the first study that shows the negative effects of religion and spirituality on the mental health. The obsessive sensation that God punishes, the anguish derived from committing religious transgressions, and the confirmation that religious ideas cause conflicts of conscience with society and cultural progress are highly stressful and cause a spiritual pain hard to distinguish from physical pain. This entire phenomenon has negative effects upon the brain.
It wasn’t too long ago that Sigmund Freud relegated religion to the realm of neurosis in his book “Totem and Taboo” (first published in 1913), where he thoroughly exposed methods by which the primitive men and the neurotics project inner mental life onto the external world. He explained that such imaginary constructions were typical of obsessive thinkers, and persons who suffered delusional disorders and phobias.
Considering that religion has, since the beginning of times, been used as a tool of oppression and conformity with the peoples of the Earth, it is of no surprise to us that leading world healthcare and psychological organizations paid no attention to this issue. Accepting this scientific fact would inevitably mean the effective worldwide ban on religion due to its health hazard.
Would you BAN religion? Why? Why not? Please feel free to participate by commenting below!
1 comments:
This is an information that only a few can have access to. Unfortunately, and for some obvious reason(it damages religious dogmas) it has not reached a wide audience. Maybe Nicolo Machiavelli was right when he wrote: "There are in the capacity of men three varieties:one man will understand a thing by himself; another so far as it is explained to him, a third neither of himself nor when it is put clearly before him".Oscar
Post a Comment