The "God Gene"

[ToxicMoon]

Hey, I don't know if this has already been posted, but I found this link on www.whatdoesitmean.com that was really interesting to me and I would like to hear some opinions and debate on it.

The link is God Gene Discovered by Scientist

To sum up in my understanding, they found a gene that determines how much faith someone will end up having, and that religious upbringings have very little to do with how a person will turn out spiritually. I think it was discovered by the same scientist that discovered the "Gay Gene".

Thoughts?

[AuntieSocial]

From the article:

"Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus all shared a series of mystical experiences or alterations in consciousness and thus probably carried the gene," he said. "This means that the tendency to be spiritual is part of genetic make-up. This is not a thing that is strictly handed down from parents to children. It could skip a generation - it's like intelligence."

Or .... they are all rewrites of the same myth...

I had read a study a little while ago that determined that "religious" experience (epiphanies) were linked to a stimulation of a particular area of the brain. Those who were irreligious would have a similar, moving, experience, but would label it differently, such as euphoric. I believe the other study was out of Montréal, Quebec. (I don't seem to have the link any longer.

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I agree more with the following:

The Rev Dr Walter Houston, the chaplain of Mansfield College, Oxford, and a fellow in theology, said: "Religious belief is not just related to a person's constitution; it's related to society, tradition, character - everything's involved. Having a gene that could do all that seems pretty unlikely to me." emphasis mine

[vertigo]

"Blame it on the genes" is stupid indeed. I don't see why you can't believe you would agree with that.

[AuntieSocial]

vertigo said:

"Blame it on the genes" is stupid indeed. I don't see why you can't believe you would agree with that.

It was more the fact that I was agreeing with a theist on something that is potentially shaking their foundations ... not that I'm surprised that I agree with the statement.

[vertigo]

It was more the fact that I was agreeing with a theist on something that is potentially shaking their foundations ... not that I'm surprised that I agree with the statement.

Ah okay. I don't see anything wrong with agreeing with a theist. They aren't aliens, you know...

[solidsquid]

This isn't the first kind of study centering on inheritiblity of tendecy towards relgiousness/spirituality.

D’Onofrio, M., Eaves, L., Murrelle, L., Maes, H., Spilka, B. Journal of Personality 67:6,
December 1999:

Although the transmission of religiousness has been assumed to be purely cultural,
behavior genetic studies have demonstrated that genetic factors play a role in the individual
differences in some religious traits.

In the layman world, it is mostly assumed to be purely a product of environment whether or not
certain religious behaviors are adopted. On the most part as for: what denomination, religious or
spiritual, etc (the smaller deviance), environment showed to be the dominant determinant.

In a 1986 study of two large samples of adult twins:

...found that significant contributions to social attitudes related to observance of the
Sabbath, divine law, authority of the church, and truthfulness of the Bible were made by both
additive and genetic effects and the shared environment. Heritability estimates ranged from .22
to .35 and estimates for the influence of the shared environment ranged from .18 to .34 for the
individual items, illustrating that familial correlations in these domains are influenced by genetic
factors as well as the environment.

As for the section of religious behavior and salience:

Although slight genetic component is found in females, genetic factors do not play a role
in the church attendance of males.

and in summary:

...family resemblance in religious affiliation appears to be primarily cultural as might be
expected, whereas religious attitudes and behaviors seem to be influenced by additive genetic
effects as well as the shared and unshared environment. Sociological and behavior research on
the transmission or inheritance of religious beliefs and practices can no longer ignore genetic
influences.

So this might lead one to suppose that such religious tendencies might be part of a certain
personality, however:

The correlations with personality are all small, mostly less than 0.1. Thus there is very
little reason to suppose that church attendance reflects personality much, in so far as Eysensck’s
measures capture the essentials contours of the human personality.

Although one correlation did stand out:

...the Religious Right factor is more strongly associated with these factors – a moderate
negative correlation (-0.23 and -0.23) with “unselfish” fiscal attitudes related to issues of
taxation, a moderate positive correlation with promilitary attitudes (0.33 and 0.35), and a
moderate negative correlation with Democratic versus Republican political ideology (-0.20 and -
0.19), meaning that they are more likely to espouse those tenets associated with being
Republican

Which tells us empirically what we’ve known for a while socially.

Also, the findings see that:

...it is obvious that religion is, at most, only partly a function
of the personality dimensions..

In summation:

Religious behaviors and attitudes...such as church attendance and the tendency to espouse
more conservative religious values, including some of those normally espoused by the Religious
Right, show varying degrees of genetic inheritance beyond that provided by the family
environment and assortative mating...the largest single component of variance is that due to the
environmental differences among members of the same family...there is a larger genetic
component contributing to church attendance and Religious Right social attitudes in women,
driven mostly by the nonadditive genetic effects...the larger correlations between relatives for
religious behaviors and attitudes display a much greater nongenetic component...the correlations
between mates for religious behavior and attitudes are among the largest known, comparable to
and even exceeding those for monozygotic twins. This correlation significantly adds to the
genetic component of church attendance and the Religious Right factor.

The study was conducted utilizing a sample of 14,781 twins (in Virginia) and their family
members, including their parents, spouses, children, and siblings. Almost all were Caucasian
(99.8%). Of those, most were Protestant (65.8%) followed by Catholic, Jewish and finally by the
“unspecified”. Their personality domains were based on short scales using the Eysenck
Personality Questionnaire with the help of Dr. Eysenck.

[Sesshoumaru]

Well that is the tenth piece of bullshit I read all day

[ToxicMoon]

Why do you think it's bullshit? And what do you think is bullshit? Elaborate.

[Sesshoumaru]

*slams head against desk* The whole "God gene" is bullshit

[ToxicMoon]

Okay! And now for the next part.

WHY do you think it's bullshit? ELABORATE.

[Sesshoumaru]

A gene determines how much faith you have? yeah riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

[ToxicMoon]

Sesshoumaru said:

A gene determines how much faith you have? yeah riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

What a great reply! I see your point of view very clearly now. Thank you! ;D

[vertigo]

ToxicMoon, this one (the God gene) isn't worth arguing over. It is plainly stupid. I think it is better left alone.

[solidsquid]

It really just rattles people's cages to even have to fathom the thought that their unshakeable faith is the result of neurofunction like everthing else in our minds.

[Filter]

solidsquid said:

It really just rattles people's cages to even have to fathom the thought that their unshakeable faith is the result of neurofunction like everthing else in our minds.

God Gene or not, I can attest to this. The first time I heard someone say they saw God, and then stated that he was in his own mind, I thought oh boy - narcotics for sure!!