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Religion and science aficionados don’t have to completely disagree on every aspect of life.
(Mirror Daily, United States) – Ever since the first scientist was burned at the stake by the Inquisition, the relationship between the members of the two communities has been tense. Both parties are arguing that they are right while none looked at the implications of both faiths. Until now, that is. It seems that religious and scientific belief alter our brain, leading to entirely different types of behavior.
According to a study that was published in the PLOS ONE journal, religious and scientific belief alter our brain in different ways. And neither one can be considered a negative influence. It all depends on how you decide to look at the problem.
Researchers at the Case Reserve Western University discovered that individuals who are more spiritual tend to show a much larger degree of empathy when interacting with other people. On the opposite side, science aficionados tend to adopt an analytical way of thinking.
Previous research in the religion versus science field showed that spiritual individuals tend to have lower intelligence coefficients than those who preferred the cold, rational reasoning of science. But things are not that simple.
It is true that religious and scientific belief alter our brain, but they both have their advantages. The lead author of the latest study in the field, Tony Jack, a Western Reserve philosophy professor, claims that both areas of interest can alter the brain in a positive manner.
The brains of the people who opt to believe in a higher being that made the world as it is and decides the faith of all individuals, aka religious ones, are less developed in the logical/critical areas but are more active in the social and emotional ones.
This means that a religious person is often more emphatic and easy going than a science buff. On the other hand, individuals who live their life asking questions and seeking answers are prone to analytic reasoning.
And saying that science enthusiasts are more intelligent than religious people is wrong. As Albert Einstein said,
“If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree then it will live his entire life thinking that it’s stupid.”
And the Nobel Prize laureate was actually a religious individual. And he was not the only one. Several great scientists and inventors were religion adepts. This comes to prove that there might be a way to create a symbiotic relationship between the two.
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