Do we understand religion and science the same way?
Some people view religious beliefs and scientific facts as derived from distinct mental processes. Facts are derived from some sort of cognitive, rational evaluative process, while beliefs are based on faith or revelation.
As with most questions about our minds, I’m interested in what neuroscience has to say about the question. Coincidentally, there’s a new study in PLoS one comparing the neural correlates of religious belief with those of non-religious belief.
Under one interpretation, these results show that people experience religious beliefs on the same mental level as non-religious ones. If that’s true, then we should expect Religious beliefs to affect our behavior just as much as beliefs about, say, a round earth.
Religious people do seem a bit more altruistic and nice than non-religious ones, and some have suggested part of the explanation might be that religious people believe God is watching all of the time.
Two other comments:
First, this should undercut the arguments of people who wish to argue that religion and science are completely compatible because they’re simply different ways of understanding the world (looking at you, Joe).
Second, this research displays, once again, the power of the fMRI to answer important questions that used to be left to philosophical rumination.
