Science is going to great lengths to disprove the existence of God. As a college student, I was given an assignment in Intro to Psychology in which I was asked to write a paper on how the so called “God gene” could prove that God doesn’t exist. The God Gene, according to Dean Hamer, author of the book “The God Gene: How Faith is Hard Wired into our Genes,” is what is responsible for driving people’s religious faith. Hamer is a molecular geneticist, who believes that when people have feelings they relate to faith or spirituality, it is actually the gene VMAT2 that is responsible, and not a connection with God. He came to this conclusion by finding the gene to be more prevalent among people who were likely to feel some sort of religious or spiritual enlightenment. He also claims that the presence of this gene is like intelligence, and that it can skip generations; meaning that growing up in a strong religious family will have little to do with whether one is a believer or not. In response to the assignment given me, I argued that it made perfect sense that there would be a hard wired mechanism in our brains that drove our belief in God because God would have put it there to ensure that we could be aware of his presence; seemed simple enough at the time. Intro to Psychology is also the class where students are likely to be introduced to concepts like moral relativism, along with operant and classical conditioning. Psychology itself is an anti God profession as it rests on premise that all human behavior can be categorized and predicted, and, that people can be conditioned to behave in predictable ways.
There have been tremendous advancements made in neuroscience, (the study of the brain and behavior) and the more progress that is made in this field, the more that is learned about controlling human behavior, based on the understanding of the brains functioning. Recently, scientists from Britain’s University of York sought to use a technique that is gaining popularity in the treating of depression to see how they could alter a person’s belief system. The technique, known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, was used to target the posterior medial frontal cortex (PMFC) of thirty nine college students to measure changes in belief systems when faced with threats. It is generally accepted that the threat of death or other physical harm will cause the brain to respond with religious beliefs in order to bring comfort. Students who were given a high dose of the magnetic stimulation that temporarily shut down the PMFC, were then given questions pertaining to their own deaths, and according to those conducting the study, more than thirty percent fewer people expressed a belief in God. These researchers deliberately set out to research how this magnetic stimulation could affect the way people view God, and that is a scary thought considering that Communists wish to destroy religion. Perhaps they are closer to destroying God in the minds of men than many realize.
In my article, “The role of media in conditioning the masses,” I discussed the effects that watching long hours of television can have on the brain. For example; television can actually shut down parts of our brain that are responsible for critical thought processes and activate the region that is more responsible for the primitive, reactionary processes. The left side of the brain is responsible for cognitive processes, and while watching television, this portion of the brain shuts down, leading to the production of opiates, (the same type of chemicals that produce the sensation of being high found in heroin) while at the same time, the part of the brain responsible for emotional response is absorbing the information from the television; thus making it impossible to discern reality from what is being watched. With all of today’s high tech gadgetry, and the number of hours typically spent consumed by it, is it possible that the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation techniques could be applied through our cell phones, computers and televisions? I would argue, given the sophistication, and rapid advancement of neuroscience, along with science’s never ending quest to disprove God, that if it isn’t happening now, the revelations discovered by the University of York scientists will soon find their way into our living rooms.
