Positive belief changes your brain
September 6, 2009 by Michael Nugent
A book that argues that God is good for your health is based on research that suggests that it is positive belief, regardless of whether it involves gods, that can be good for you.
Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman’s book is called How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist.
Newberg’s website begins with the dramatic assertion that “God is great for your mental, physical and spiritual health”. Now, you have to start with a punch, so we can read this as shorthand for “Belief in a god can be good for your health”. But even this claim should be tempered by the next paragraph.
This states that: “Newberg, therapist Mark Robert Waldman, and their research team have concluded that active and positive spiritual belief changes the human brain for the better. What’s more, actual faith isn’t always necessary: atheists who meditate on positive imagery can obtain similar neurological benefits.”
Wait a minute! Actual faith isn’t always necessary? Atheists can obtain similar benefits? From meditating on positive imagery? But meditation need not even be spiritual, never mind theistic. It can be approached quite rationally as a potentially transformative neurological experience.
Based on this, the result of Newberg and Waldman’s research could be more accurately presented like this: “Active and positive belief, including meditating on positive imagery, can change the human brain for the better. This is the case regardless of whether you believe yourself to be spiritual or believe in gods.”
The book could be more accurately retitled as: How Positive Belief Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist.
And none of this, of course, has any bearing on whether or not the beliefs are true.
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Well, that makes sense. If a belief helps us to survive, then we evolve in such a way a to adopt that belief as truth, regardless of whether it's true or not. This of course includes the belief that God does not exist.
I agree. And the beliefs can continue, despite their usefulness for survival lessening over time.
Great post! It confirms that people's success/failure rate is independent of theistic beliefs. Positive people get good results. Some of them plan, others pray, others meditate, others visualize. The point is that it has to do with the person's attitude toward life, not with anything external.
This fits in well with the findings of positive psychologists in recent years.
Absorption in activities and relationships, and a personal sense of meaning, can all contribute to psychological well-being.
You can trigger these benefits with beliefs that are either religious or non-religious.
A belief in general will be positive for mental health as it keeps the persons mind active and fixated on a particular point. I would love to see the differences in the willingness of the person to do something for a particular belief, that is say; incredibly stupid, or life threatening and whether there is a strong difference between ones tendency towards gullibility in beliefs or rational thought. I think I shall go create a survey and find out some statistics. The IQ average IQ of people with certain beliefs would also be something well worth checking out. If we feel comfortable and at one with what we profess I suppose it is advantageous evolutionarily Lorena.
That would be an interesting survey.
At one extreme, believing in afterlife rewards can help people to decide to become suicide bombers. Religious beliefs can also help to cause parents to mutilate the genitals of their children, who they presumably love. Recently, an American couple prayed over their dying child instead of calling an ambulance.
If you sincerely believe that the creator of the universe wants you to do something, that must be likely to override whatever ethical concerns you might naturally have about it.
Indeed the fact that people are willing to do things which adversely affect their or their family's wellbeing on religious grounds is sheer idiocy. Surely if you care about someone the best thing is to keep them alive – surely you can pray for them later if you are so inclined to be stupid. Praying once while the child is dying and again at the funeral makes it seem a lot like they just wanted the child to go to their particular afterlife. Insane.
By the way Michael how do I get my hands on your book? "Dear John"
I live in Australia, and read the blurb on the net, but can't seem to find it anywhere?