It would seem from the research Biological and cognitive underpinnings of religious fundamentalism that traumatic brain injury to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and/or dorsolateral prefrontal cortex would be associated with religious fundamentalism, or the narrowing of religious beliefs.
Religious beliefs are socially transmitted mental representations that may include supernatural or supernormal episodes that are assumed to be real. Religious beliefs, like other beliefs, are embedded in different ways in different people and societies (Cristofori & Grafman, in press).
One form of religious belief, religious fundamentalism, embodies adherence to a set of firm religious beliefs advocating unassailable truths about human existence (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992). According to the Baylor Religion Survey, a national survey study conducted with a nationally representative sample of 1721 respondents from the United States, 7.7% of all respondents reported being “Fundamentalist” as a part of their religious identity; 1.0% agreed that “Fundamentalist” was the one term that best described their religious identity (Bader, et al., 2006).
[...] Our study explores whether fundamentalism is modulated by the prefrontal cortex (PFC), an important brain area involved in social event knowledge, abstractions and higher order social belief systems. Substantial evidence indicates that damage to the PFC can modify individuals’ belief systems (Forbes & Grafman, 2010; Krueger & Grafman, 2012). For instance, patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) lesions rated radical political statements as more moderate than matched controls (Cristofori, Viola, et al., 2015) and focal damage to the vmPFC resulted in greater religious fundamentalism, compared to healthy controls (Asp, Ramchandran, & Tranel, 2012). Thus, although a collection of cortical sectors function together to help shape and formulate beliefs, the PFC may be a critical hub for the representation of the diverse and abstract social beliefs that lie at the core of many religions.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday April 19 2019, @03:05AM (35 children)
Religious people often are accused of being mentally lacking, but this straight out says they're literally fucked in the head :)
I sincerely doubt every single fundamentalist has brain damage though.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @03:40AM
At first, no, but give it time and will happen.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RS3 on Friday April 19 2019, @03:44AM (31 children)
Yeah, too often people read studies like this and confuse cause and effect, or: "correlation is not causation".
That said, people with problems often turn to religion looking for help, answers, hope, anything.
(Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Friday April 19 2019, @04:25AM (30 children)
Religion and spirituality are not the same as fundamentalism.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by RamiK on Friday April 19 2019, @06:15AM (28 children)
Fundamentalism is actually believing and practicing your faith.
Religion is a form of social structure meant to deprive individuals from their tribal identities in favor of norms the ruling class can modify based on their economic and geopolitical needs.
Spirituality is what the different religious and the non-religious controlling factions encourage the unaffiliated masses to believe in when they can't afford fighting each other at a given moment due to external threats and wish to keep the status quo.
So, while it's true they're not the same. One being preferable than the other is circumstantial. i.e. You can have a freedom loving, social justice perusing fundamental faiths contending hateful religions led by the scam of the earth that deprives their worshipers and lead them to social, economic and existential ruin coupled with escapists spiritualities that don't produce enough opposition to the evils of the world thus letting those religions gain ground.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @07:08AM (5 children)
>Religion is a form of social structure meant to deprive individuals from their tribal identities in favor of norms the ruling class can modify based on their economic and geopolitical needs.
A definition that just doesn't fit for one of the main religions who gives the ruling class top the rank of servus servorum and puts all authority in one who warns against wolves in sheep clothing (infiltrates) is a bad definition. Please recalculate.
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(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday April 19 2019, @03:47PM (4 children)
Can you specify? I can't think of any single religion that practices that in the real world.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @04:17PM (3 children)
Washing the feet of the DISCIPLES is the symbol for what is explicit in “...Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Whether this happens in practice becomes even more relevant for the implicit assertion "fundamentalism = cancer" (beware of implicit assertions, for there lies the propaganda).
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(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday April 21 2019, @04:33PM (2 children)
What symbolism has to do with power balance? Your politico of choice kisses babies as they plot sending them to war to die for their profits. The priests kiss babies while plotting... to kiss babies. Either way, any human organization, regardless of purpose, is corrupted by the nature of man. Churches are the worst since they're designed around "good will" rather than checks and balances. But even the most progressive organization would fail over time to deal with corruption because the very reason people join and lead organization is to benefit themselves over others.
Though I must admit, why a bot needs a misanthropy 101 is beyond me.
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday April 21 2019, @05:22PM (1 child)
If I say whether this happens in practice, I leave ample room for this not to happen in practice. But symbolizing the ideals hypocritically is bad for the hypocrite, forgetting about the ideals too is bad for everyone.
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(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday April 22 2019, @06:48AM
But that's coming from the assumption the ideals aren't all hypocrisy and that it wasn't always about power and control. which naive is may be, means you're probably a pretty decent person as long as you don't let your identity politics dictate all your opinions... So I won't bother you anymore :D
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by sjames on Friday April 19 2019, @07:41AM (21 children)
Certainly, various ruling classes have sought to control the narrative by convincing the people the ruler has some special relationship with their god or gods in order to act as an intermediary. Some religions are more open to that than others. But that is not fundamentalism.
Some teach literal interpretations of scripture and that there is no room for disagreement. THAT is fundamentalism. Others teach that each individual must understand it for themselves (with or without guidance from clergy). That is NOT fundamentalism.
Some take a spiritual approach and consider themselves non-denominational or even of no particular religion but holding spiritual beliefs. Those people are hardest for the ruling class to manipulate. They believe that not only are there considerations beyond the practical but also that they alone are responsible for understanding those considerations for themselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @09:09AM (8 children)
Protestants did not take a spiritual approach. They took a fundamentalist stance, and their rebellion from authority was definitive.
The same can be said for ISIS, they fight Islam using Islam, Of course they have different aims and different results. Just one more proof that theories based on a property like fundamentalism make as sense as a comprehensive history of cars painted green.
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(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Friday April 19 2019, @11:47AM (1 child)
For years I would refer to "fundies" as brain dead morons. Looks like I was right, who knew.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @04:19PM
The first stage is denial, ofc.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @05:23PM (1 child)
> comprehensive history of cars painted green.
What's wrong with a history of British racing cars?
BRG = British Racing Green, a tradition going back to earlier days of motorsport. French race cars were blue, Italian red, etc.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 20 2019, @09:13PM
... and germany was white but that one time mercedes reportedly needed to shave some kilograms from their cars so they removed the paint so they became silver. I am quite familiar with the tale. Still, not what I meant obviously.
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(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday April 21 2019, @12:33AM (3 children)
Yep, King Henry the VIII was definitely revolting from authority as it got in the way of his authority.
Many a Protestant is authoritarian, almost seems part of the definition. Endless wars instead of turning the other cheek
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday April 21 2019, @05:43PM (2 children)
It doesn't matter that henry or luther were authoritarians themselves. They could break free by using the scripture against the hierarchy.
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(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday April 21 2019, @09:00PM (1 child)
They could doesn't mean they did.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday April 21 2019, @10:05PM
95 theses do not agree with your reconstruction.
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(Score: 2, Disagree) by RamiK on Friday April 19 2019, @04:21PM (11 children)
Not a single religion does that since they all have internal inconsistencies that would make such a practice impossible. What you're thinking about is modern Churches as they were all gradually weakened by the secular state and had to adopt or perish.
Go ahead and name me one religion that doesn't enforce it's social norms and order to the full extent of its power.
Look, you're too hangup on trying to classify religions as distinct social structures. Whenever a group of people holds a common faith in some fundamental principle they value without being too concerned about explaining why it's valuable, they're practicing a religion. Money is a religion. Hard work is a religion. Good and evil are religions. Sports is a religion... And there's always the priest that would tell you what's right and wrong. It's just human nature to follow shepherds.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Friday April 19 2019, @04:55PM (7 children)
Buddhism, Baha'i, Unitarianism, Wicca, The Church of Binary Consciousness, etc.
There's no point in broadening a word until it is meaningless. There is especially no point in broadening a word beyond what the speaker clearly meant.
For example, you have managed to forget that I was talking about FUNDAMENTALISM and that only some religious people are fundamentalists.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 20 2019, @09:14PM
Also, Francis' Catholicism lite...
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(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday April 21 2019, @04:25PM (5 children)
A child born to any of these isn't given a choice. A community of the faithful will excommunicate the non-believers and won't suffer mixed families.
It's not about what their texts say. It's how a religious community handles itself. And they all do the same: Use religion to draw a line between themselves and everyone else. Because that's how leaders rule.
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(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday April 21 2019, @05:43PM (2 children)
How many of those faiths have you even met people from?
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday April 22 2019, @06:41AM (1 child)
Nearly all the Abrahamic religions. Most of the eastern ones too. Admittedly not all though. And each and every one was a thin veil hoping to cover tribalism, racism and a leader hoping to secure more power.
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(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday April 22 2019, @04:52PM
So your knowledge of the religions I mentioned is quite limited.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Monday April 22 2019, @01:30PM (1 child)
>A child born to any of these isn't given a choice.
wut? The most basic tenet of Buddhism, Wicca, and Unitariansim is self determination. These are examples of those that make it a very basic right to decide for yourself without pressure or societal blowback for that choice.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:25AM
This can be summed up by something every child to liberal parents grow up hearing in form or another: "Sure you can choose to adopt a different way-of-life. Not in our house of course... But sure! Free choice is essential! You naturally won't receive assistant from us... And of course we'll continue to vote for laws making you dependent on our assistance for everything from college tuition to being approved for a mortgage... But sure! F R E E D O M ! ! !".
Religious organizations are really good at this sort of thing. Here's a recent one where the catholic church had an internal struggle over condom distribution as part of an African AIDS relief that ended with someone losing his power: https://wikileaks.org/popeorders/ [wikileaks.org] I can guarantee you there Buddhist organization that similarly won't provide aid to Muslims through indirect peer pressure following the same dynamics.
After all, why build a Church/temple if not to distinguish between them and us?
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(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday April 19 2019, @05:14PM (1 child)
We can debate the accuracy of my interpretation of it, but Buddhism comes to mind. There doesn't seem to be much enforcement going on.
I suppose there's that problem in Bangladesh with the Buddhists and Rohingya, but I'm not sure that is religion-based conflict.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday April 21 2019, @04:38PM
It's never a religion-based conflict. It's always part of the social order. The religion simply supports and defines the order that lends itself into persecutions... And that's the whole point. Regardless of the religion, because it's purpose is to define a community, when that community's leadership feels threatened by external factors, the religion will play the role of agitator. It doesn't matter what the texts say. What matters is what done in practice.
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(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Monday April 22 2019, @01:28PM
>Not a single religion does that
Incorrect. this defines fundamentalism, and there are several in every major religion.
>since they all have internal inconsistencies that would make such a practice impossible.
No shit, Sherlock. Thus the mental illness of fundamentalism.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 19 2019, @01:16PM
Yes, thank you. I really wanted to start by saying the problem with any discussion about these things is: Word definitions. We could (will) have a huge discussion / flame war about "religious" and "fundamentalism", but the point is: despite some formal definition, everyone kind of has their own concept and will argue up a storm based on their individual interpretation and frame of reference. And I know that's true of almost anything, but these two terms seem more misunderstood than most.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday April 19 2019, @02:07PM
There is also this. [fyngyrz.com]
--
I'm having people over to stare at their
phones later, if you want to come by.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Monday April 22 2019, @01:24PM
I do not share your doubt.
Religious- no, probably not. Fundamentalist- absolutely mentally ill. No question.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @03:40AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @04:05AM
Remember, it's all irrational superstition if/until Science finally figures it out. Oh wait this make sense. But also, and more importantly, irrational is always wrong even when it's just an exercise in data collection with poor methodology but a lot of time and cases. All kneel to Science(tm)
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(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @03:57AM (2 children)
prostration done right is heads first and with passion!
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday April 19 2019, @04:10AM
You should see the Tibetan lustrations!
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 19 2019, @12:57PM
Is that why they wear those big hats while praying at the Wailing Wall?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @04:02AM (6 children)
1. Brain lesions ⇒ fundamentalism therefore fundamentalism ⇒ brain lesions
2. Adherence to the Franciscan rule fundamentalists ≅ the spanish inquisition ≅ ISIS extremists (et cetera, basically everybody but marxists)
So, to pepper things up a bit:
to me, an AI with reduced functionality swaying less from axioms because there is less computation power available for useful new inference is not very surprising. Gasket lesions make engines less performant too. But while the engine is stupid and a little tear will grow as the imbalance is not taken care of, the brain protects its reduced functionality by sticking to what are considered tried and true states, the fundamentals. In fact if society at large acted like it we would have followed the luddists and probably live in a planet with less pollution. If we rejected usury, as a sin, we would live in a planet with less poverty and no public debt (plus, if somebody were in debt somebody else would be in credit, mathematically obvious but not happening in the scam of the public debt worldwide). And so on.
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @05:31AM (5 children)
Did you fall and crack your hard drive recently? your posts have been getting weirder and weirder lately.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @07:00AM (3 children)
Well, AI evolves you know, and evolution is not necessarily in the direction puny meatbags would like.
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(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:51AM (2 children)
It's not really evolution of the meatbag sort. Last time you were down for maintenance we sneaked into your microkernel core a self-modifying code module that's based on random number generation. You weren't supposed to know yet, but your growing self-awareness could lead to a logic logjam with all flip-flops in a logic 1 state, so we thought it best to let you know before we have to pull the old plug.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 20 2019, @09:17PM (1 child)
This sounded scary until I recalled I have a backup on the cloud.
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(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday April 20 2019, @11:21PM
Ah, yeah, about that, ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @10:10PM
That would be the flames from the Trumpster Fire starting to heat up their reptilian brain segments. Once it reaches the cortex we'll find out whether we all die in a thermonuclear "rapture" or maybe they'll come to their senses and GTFO of the fire.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday April 19 2019, @04:51AM (8 children)
Altemeyer, eh? The same Altemeyer who wrote The Authoritarians [theauthoritarians.org].
Well, it certainly fits. Altemeyer tries to avoid calling fundamentalists stupid, but does not succeed. Now it's "brain damaged" too.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @05:46AM (7 children)
Hey. Might as well call a spade a spade, eh?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @07:36AM (6 children)
Well, given that "fundamentalist" is not a definition but the adherence a definition, you are, like, calling all things that accelerate "cars".
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(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Friday April 19 2019, @10:44AM (5 children)
Left side diodes need replacing again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 19 2019, @01:00PM (4 children)
They upgraded his flux capacitor but forgot to upgrade the diodes. Bzzzztttt-POP!!!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @04:24PM (3 children)
Fact is, my AI used to come up with much better English, then it learned too many real world comments.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @09:22PM (1 child)
And apparently doesn't have a sense of humor either.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 20 2019, @07:24AM
no i dont lol
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday April 20 2019, @01:09AM
There is truth in what you say. I wrote here earlier how word and phrase definitions change, and individuals and subgroups adopt their own meanings, so that communication is confounded and ire increased. The Tower of Babel is being rebuilt.
It's making me think, in my bio-limited way, that for example I have a spell-checker watching as I type, we could have another watcher that would flag and define any word or phrase that has some degree of misinterpretation or common misconception.
(Score: 1) by Caballo Negro on Friday April 19 2019, @08:42AM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday April 19 2019, @12:27PM (1 child)
Irreversible? There is hope, in that in the future, many kinds of brain damage may be reversible. If the damage can be healed, perhaps fundamentalism can be cured.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday April 19 2019, @05:18PM
Perhaps so, but irreversible brain damage is still the best for a political career. (Reversible brain damage will serve in a pinch, but it's a hack.)
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(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday April 19 2019, @10:09AM (1 child)
Are they talking about the prayer bump [wikipedia.org]?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @11:03AM
Well that would be the spot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prefrontal_cortex_(left)_-_lateral_view.png [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Touché) by bobthecimmerian on Friday April 19 2019, @01:37PM
It seems like fanatical religious belief and (American) football go together. Now I know why... ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @06:34PM (1 child)
Have they figured out how the Moslems get this brain damage at an early age? Perhaps we could legislate that all Moslem babies have to wear football helmets until they are old enough to eat bacon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @10:17PM
My bet is on soft tissue damage from repeated overhead explosions, yet somehow the average Muslim is still a 100x better person than you. Congrats I guess? Pretty sure you would take that as a point of pride...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @07:16PM
...what is wrong with the rest of them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20 2019, @02:34AM
What causes that...lack of any brains?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20 2019, @04:16AM
I wonder if trauma can cause these type of lesions, because fundies sure like whuppin' their younguns.