(Excerpted from the new book, Triune Brain,
Triune Mind, Triune Worldview (Brighton Publishing)(available at
Amazon and Barnes and Noble).
In part 1 of this series, I explained that what one is
taught and chooses to learn about religion changes the biology of the brain.
Changing brain biology creates a change in who and what you are as a person.
This principle applies to everyone, religious or irreligious.
Here, I will explore specific ways
in which we program our brains to accept and live religious ideas. Relevant
learning principles include the self-programming by brains and neural
plasticity. There are important implications of religious learning in child
rearing and adult maturation. Religious instruction matters to who you have
become and how you will be in the future.
The Self-programming Brain
Brains self-program
—for better
or worse. Much of this programming can occur unconsciously.
Freud made his mark in history by showing how the unconscious mind
is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, and memories that we may not easily
access. Freud called this mind “subconscious,” a term that has fallen out of
favor, perhaps because so much happens during unconscious processing that this
should not be considered as inferior function. After Freud, numerous scientific
findings confirmed that a great deal of information processing occurs in the
unconscious brain, even during anesthesia. I led one such study on visual
processing in anesthetized monkeys.[1]
Since then, numerous studies have shown in humans that the brain is quite
active during sleep in consolidating the experiences of the preceding day into
memory. The dream stages of sleep obviously reflect intense brain activity, much
of which would likely exert programming influences. When we are awake, we
deliberately program our brain by the choices we make of what to read or
hear, who to hang out with, what environments we prefer, and what we do.
Even while still in the womb, the
brain of a late-stage fetus is programming itself to recognize sounds of the
mother's pulse and visceral gurgles and external sounds from voices and music.
Pressure changes in the womb are registered. Fetal brain continually programs
recognition of limbs and the ability to move limbs. At birth, the process
accelerates. I remember how astonished I was to watch my month-old great
granddaughter program herself. When awake, her eyes were open and constantly
scanning the environment. You could just imagine her brain going click, click,
click, as it detected and stored input.
All mental experience can have
programming effects. These may create a bias. In some sense, what you have
learned can hold you hostage. However, humans also have the ability to change how
they have been programmed. All this applies to religion.
Neural Plasticity
Minds can change, and when they do, brains can change. We
know that brain structure and function change in young people as they mature
through childhood into adults. Even adult brains change in response to sensory
and cognitive experiences. Your brain cannot form memories without changing the
synaptic structure and biochemistry needed to store the memory. Learning
experiences stimulate growth of microscopically measurable dendritic spines
that enable new synapse formation. The information learned at the synapse level
exists in the form of a stored propensity to regenerate the nerve impulse
pattern representation of the learned information. The changes in the synapse
in response to new information are enzyme systems that synthesize and degrade
neurotransmitters, storage of neurotransmitters in presynaptic vesicles,
up-regulation of postsynaptic molecular receptors, and biochemical cascades
triggered by the receptor binding.
The brain’s greatest capacity for
change occurs in childhood. As the learning of childhood progresses, many
synaptic connections form to help store the new learning. In fact, in the fetus,
far more neurons and connections form than needed, and the development process
dismantles the surplus. This seems to be a competitive selection process,
called “neural Darwinism.” Neurons and connections that survive are the ones
that seem most useful to the brain.
Adults generally seem to be
constrained by their earlier learning, as described in the old saw, “You can’t
teach old dogs new tricks.” Actually, you can. It is just harder and may take
longer to develop the new connections.
Because of the hard wiring that
occurs in childhood, an “inner-child” persists as a memory throughout life.
This fact formed the basis for the ideas in the famous book, I’m O.K. Your O.K., which emphasized
that adults may be held hostage to their inner childhood. That is a burden if
the childhood experiences were troubling.
The religious teachings of children
likewise can have a powerful lasting effect. For example, a study of ministers
revealed that what they learned as children markedly affected their adult
perceptions of God. If they had vague or limited teaching about God as a child,
they tended as adults to view God as remote. If they had in-depth exposure to
God ideas as a child, their adult view was of a more personal God.
[2]
The brain’s ability to change
itself allows it to be responsive to outside influence aimed at alleviating
mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, obsessions, and distorted
self-image. One clinical method of treatment, known as cognitive behavioral
therapy (CBT), attempts to change undesired thinking patterns into more
positive ones and preserve them as new memories. Studies involving religiously
oriented CBT use scripture, prayer, and other religious practices to overcome
negative thoughts and perceptions. One study improved patient coping skills by
both religious and secular CBT approaches, but quicker results resulted from
the religious approach.
[3]
Religious upbringing helps children develop
value systems, thinking styles, emotional development, and pro-social
behaviors.[4] In
all religions, education about the faith focuses on children, and the effects
tend to be lasting. Religious parents often go to great expense to have their
children educated in religious schools, because this ensures proper religious
instruction, inculcation of moral values, and presumably fewer sinful
temptations. In modern American culture, where perhaps a majority of children
grows up without a father in the home, religious education might help
compensate for the absence of a normal family environment. Government education
has fewer mechanisms than religion for compensating for absentee fathers.
The more religious parents are, the more
creative and persistent their children are in schoolwork. These children tend
to be more motivated to learn and more attentive. Religious conflict between
parents or within the family may produce negative effects on children. The
common lament about poor academic performance by U.S. schoolchildren might be
due at least in part to the general decline of religious commitment by the parents
and by school policies that keep religion out of the curriculum.
A problem with religious education of
children is that a child's brain is not yet developed, and certain limitations
of emotion, language, and intellect limit what you can teach a child about
religion or anything else. Typically, most religions teach their doctrines
differently to children than to adults. Moreover, all religions recognize that
children usually are unable to have an adult understanding of religious faith.
Saint Paul explained this in the famous quote, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a
child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish
things" (1 Corinthians 13:11).
Whatever one's religion,
religion tends to create a partially closed mindset that prevents learning
positive things about another religion. This is a special problem with young
people. A study of fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students (half Catholic,
half Jewish) revealed strong cultural bias. The middle- to upper-class students
lived in the same city. Teachers judged them to be average or above average in
reading ability. Yet, when the students read a straightforward passage about
the religion to which they did not belong, their cultural bias frequently
caused them to misunderstand the reading and make memory errors. This was
religion-specific in that they showed no such confusion or memory errors when
asked to read non-religious passages at the same fourth-grade level.[5] Why the confusion and memory errors? I suspect they were less
motivated to be sufficiently attentive to reading about a religion they did not
believe in.
Age 13 (12 for girls) is often
considered the transition point, as is expressed in Jewish tradition of Bar
Mitzvah, where children are expected to be able to follow religious
commandments. Christian groups also often set 12 or 13 as ages when children
become sufficiently adult, as expressed in "confirmation" ceremonies.
Such age markers fail to
accommodate what neuroscience has revealed about the biology of childhood
maturation. A child’s brain is poorly developed, even at 13. Multiple ways of
measuring maturation indicate that the brain does not reach biological maturity
until the mid-twenties. Moreover, beyond that, we can all mature still further
through learning and life experience.
A variety of evidence confirms
that many teenagers are rebellious and pursue high-risk, ill-advised behaviors.
Scientific experiments support the conclusion that the teenage brain is not
"normal"—no surprise to parents.
For example, teenagers and adults have spatiotemporal differences in brain
electrical activity in the prefrontal cortex. Teenagers are less able to use
their prefrontal cortex to control behavior, especially to inhibit a desired
action.[6]
The real-world consequence is often poor judgment and self-defeating behavior.
These limitations of brain function surely affect how a teenager deals with
religious beliefs and behavior.
Parents and teachers try to
prevent and correct bad behavior in one of two ways: reward or punishment,
carrot or stick. An interesting comparison of these options for young children
revealed that reward for proper behavior is usually more effective. In
particular, food rewards seem to be the most effective in children.[7]
There may also be an effect of religious outlook. If a child thinks of God as
harsh and punishing over sin, their sense of self-worth may be threatened, and
their motive for repentance is mind-crippling fear, guilt, or shame. However,
if they think of God as loving and forgiving, they may be more likely to
respect themselves enough to want to become a better person.
Neural Development and Aging
Influences
The best markers for brain maturation seem to be age-related
changes in amounts of cortical white matter (fiber tracts) and grey matter
(cells and their processes). One kind of MRI (diffusion tensor imaging)
noninvasively measures the amounts of both white and gray matter. An extensive
study of 387 subjects from age 3 to 27 reveal that male brains are up to 10%
larger than females. That may simply reflect that males usually have larger
bodies than females. Total brain volume peaks earlier in females (10.5 years)
than in males (14.5 years). White matter increases progressively over the
years, but with a steeper rate of increase in males. At all ages, males have
more white matter than females. However, females have more white matter in the
fiber tracts that connect the two hemispheres. Grey matter increases early on
in both sexes, and then decreases,
[8]
presumably reflecting the pruning of neural processes and synapses that
normally occurs with learning.
Brain size usually shrinks in the
elderly. Most of this shrinkage probably occurs from shriveling the extent of
dendritic trees. Staying mentally active in old age seems to arrest this
shrinkage. Mental activity, especially learning, promotes the proliferation of
dendritic trees even in the elderly. A negative factor is likely the cumulative
effects of a lifetime of stress. Stress releases cortisol, which in continuous
large amounts disrupts synaptogenesis and formation of dendritic proliferation.
All these factors affect all aspects of our lives, no doubt including
religiosity.
Religious Instruction
Teaching
of religious doctrines may be explicit or presented less obviously in the form
of environmental conditioning. There are two kinds of conditioning, “classical,”
as with Pavlov’s salivating dogs, and “operant,” a positive reinforcement
technique used to train animals.
As
a religious example of classical conditioning, kneeling is a natural reaction
of submission, but when coupled with a cue of "let us pray," can
trigger the impulse to kneel. Church bells or well-known hymns make you think
of God and church.
Such
cues are not involved in operant conditioning, where repeated reward for a
given action causes a person to repeat that behavior. A religious example is
that churchgoers attend faithfully because past participation was rewarding for
them. If you believe that confessed sins are forgiven, then it is positively
reinforcing to confess sin.
In typical religious environments,
conditioning tends to be informal, and perhaps thereby less effective than it
would be with the more systematic formal methods of conditioning. Religions do
repeat their doctrines of heaven and hell, and, when paired with religious
ritual, constitutes a kind of classical conditioning. Operant conditioning
might be involved in the positive reinforcement that comes from thinking
repeatedly about the joys of heaven, while negative reinforcement comes from
thinking about the horrors of hell.
Operant
conditioning occurs when people participating in worship service perceive a net
positive.[9] C. S. Lewis, the famous Christian advocate,
made it a point upon his religious conversion to attend worship service
regularly because he found spiritual support, even though he did not like most
of the hymns, and the preaching was done by intellectual inferiors.[10] In order to sustain attendance at worship
service, a believer may need to gain increasing amounts of positive
reinforcement. Akin to drug addiction, one can develop a tolerance to the same
dose of positive reinforcement. If worship does not provide the reinforcement
of growing spirituality, the religion may eventually be abandoned. The current
state of decline of Christianity in Europe and the U.S. may testify to this
phenomenon,
At
what point does teaching morph into "brainwashing?" We might say that
teaching becomes brainwashing when it occurs in a closed environment that does
not include alternative views. Learning, and certainly brainwashing, creates
measurable changes in brain, and the differences vary by gender. For example,
memory of emotionally charged information caused distinctive brain-scan changes
in the right amygdala of males, while in women the changes occur in the left
amygdala.[11]
Some
believers deliberately place themselves in environments designed for
brainwashing, where there is minimal exposure to secular matters and maximal
exposure to religious thinking and practice. Examples include Catholic
monasteries and nunneries or Muslim madrassas. People who commit to such
environments may do so for different reasons, but a common denominator may be
the desire to reduce secular temptations and gain some measure of
"insurance" for God's favor. However, that insurance may be
jeopardized if those people remain cloistered and do not reach out to the
suffering masses.
The
best way to avoid sin is to avoid the temptation in the first place. As a
child, I remember my uncle Bob, who chose never to drink alcohol. When I asked
him why, he said, "I am afraid I might become an alcoholic, and the one
sure way to avoid that is to not start drinking in the first place." Many
people today, knowing that cigarette smoking is highly addictive and unhealthy,
pledge to avoid the addiction by never taking that first smoke.
If
our positive reinforcement system promotes sinful behavior, why do we have such
a system? Religious people might answer that God gave us such a system to test
our faith, an idea as old as Adam and Eve. Other religious people might say we
have the system because we can learn to avoid the negative reinforcers that are
bad for us and seek out the happiness that positive reinforcers can produce.
Another
advantage of the reinforcement systems comes from the motivation those systems
provide. The reward system drives the brain to do beneficial things rather than
reside as a passive recipient of whatever comes its way.
People
tend to avoid religious practices or experiences that they find negatively
reinforcing and seek to repeat those that are positively reinforcing. Thus,
religion hooks everyone in the sense that the experiences compel a reaction.
Atheists wiggle off the hook by rejecting spirituality. Believers find that the
hook drags them into a positively reinforcing world. They may become hooked on religion.
Motivation
is central to learning, and motivation is affected by personality type: people
may fall into categories of those who “see the glass as half empty” and those
who “see the glass as half full.” Each of us has an inherent predilection to be
pessimistic or optimistic. The psychologist Martin Seligman pioneered the
concept of learned optimism and learned pessimism. He argued that learning
could adjust where a person is on this scale. In the case of learned pessimism,
a person adds to a pessimistic mind set with every instance of bad life
experiences if they are viewed as pervasive, personal, and permanent. Thus, a
bad situation becomes much worse in the mind’s evaluation if it goes beyond the
immediately obvious, is demeaning to one’s sense of confidence and self-worth,
and will be long lasting. So, for example, if your religion teaches that you are
fatally flawed by “original sin,” you are learning to be pessimistic and that
there is nothing you can do to prevent more of the same in the future. Learned
optimism is the attitude of mind that sin need not be typical of what you
usually do, and that with God’s help you can prevent it from occurring again.
Religious
implications have been explored in a study that compared fundamentalists (Orthodox
Jews, Muslims, and Calvinists), moderates (Catholics, Conservative Jews, Lutherans,
and Methodists), and liberals (Reform Jews and Unitarians).[12] Surveys reflected their degree of optimism
vs. pessimism. The religious conservatives were the most optimistic, whereas
the least optimistic were liberals. Variables such as income, sex, and
education were irrelevant.
More
optimistic people have more control over their emotions. Even a brain structure
difference may account for this. Brain scans show that more optimistic people
have larger volumes of the parahippocampus gyrus, a key structure in the limbic
system of structures that controls emotions.[13]
Scripture
calls for an optimistic outlook. The Christian Bible reads, “We
know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those
who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). The Hindi teaching of
Swami Vivekananda asserts that the essential features of Hinduism are its
universality, its impersonality, its rationality, catholicity―and optimism.[14] The Qur’an states, “Hoping for
good is also an act of worship of Allah.”[15] All these religions try to
promote optimism in the form of hope.
Adolescence
is a time of special responsivity to memories of religious experience. Church
camps and mission trips can have life-long impact. Similar effects result from
certain ceremonies, like confirmation in Christian churches or Jewish bar
mitzvahs. In adolescents, brain scans indicate that the nucleus accumbens
reward center is more sensitive to positive reinforcements.[16] This could have the effect of augmenting
emotional responses to religious experience at the expense of reasoned
examination of the implications and ramifications.
Repeatedly
participating in positive religious experiences should strengthen religious
memories, including all associated emotions. Self-control and discipline is at
issue here, a fact long understood by ascetic religious groups such as monks
and nuns.[17] In
the brain, one study using transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt
function in the left, but not right, lateral prefrontal cortex, lessened
self-control, in that immediate reward became more preferred over delayed
rewards.[18]
It
is one thing to forget, and quite another to remember falsely. In the context
of religion, we may have false memories about our transgressions or those who
transgressed against us. We may misremember scripture. In the face of
temptation, we may forget our moral standards.
We
should also consider a possible role for false memory in the creation of
scripture, especially the oldest of scripture that was handed down from
generation to generation by oral tradition. We have all perhaps seen this first
hand in the parlor game where one person tells a story secretly to another, who
then repeats the story privately to another, who in turn does likewise. After
going through a chain of five to 10 people, for example, the story told by the
last person in the chain is quite different from the original. Because most
scripture originated and was repeated orally for centuries, this kind of
corruption seems likely.
All
religions expect the believers to remember the tenets of the faith. This is
commonly manifest in the expectation to memorize significant portions of the
scripture. Certain Islamic sects require children to memorize all 6,236 ayats
(verses) of the Qur’an. The memory encoding stage involves a small group
setting where the student memorizes half a page and recites it to the other
students before reciting again to the teacher. The procedure repeats for the
second half of the page and finally learners recite the whole page. The consolidation
stage, involves five rehearsals of the previous memorized pages within 30 days
so that the verses stay in the mind.[19]
"Memory
athletes" use powerful mnemonic techniques, but these are not appropriate
for the word-for-word memorization required of the Qur’an.[20] Here, the youngsters must use the tedious
and inefficient rote method, where they repeat sections repeatedly and then
move on to memorize the next section. They use chanting and rhythmic rocking
movements to make the memorization easier.
Muslims
and fundamentalist Christians regard their scripture as the literal "word
of God," but Christians don’t require memorization of the entire Bible.
The emphasis on memorizing scripture has two main problems. First, it reduces
the necessity for thinking about the underlying truths and implications of
scripture. Second, memorization keeps one from thinking about discrepancies in
scripture, which are obvious upon analysis of both the Qur’an and the Bible.
Fundamentalists often fail to recognize the possibility that they have confused worshiping scripture with worshiping God.
Memories shape who we have become.
Long-term memory storage resides in the synaptic junctions among neurons. Repeated
memory recall can cause changes in brain anatomy and chemistry that outlast the
memory itself. Depending on experiences and on our health, new synapses may
increase or decrease in number, and existing ones grow or shrivel. Thus memories
of religious experience can make us more spiritual, even when we forget certain
specific religious memories.
What we have become can predict our future. Our past religious
experiences, good or bad, create yearnings, attitudes, beliefs, and hopes about
religion that affect how we act and react to religious ideas and experiences in
the future.
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[3]Koenig, H. G., et al. (2015). Effects of religious vs. standard
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[6] Julie Vidal, Julie, et al. (2012). Response inhibition in
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[11] Barweger, L (2013). Neuroscience and education: The importance
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[14] Aiyar, R. (1965). An introduction to Hinduism. Retrieved
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[17] Rounding, K., Lee, A., Jacobson, J.A., & Ji, L.J. (2012).
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