Posted on 07/21/2011 7:37:56 PM PDT by Coleus
Born-again Christian who have been wondering all these years just why they are so different from the rest of the crowd may now have an answer via a new study out of Duke University Medical Center. Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Templeton Foundation found that individuals who identify themselves as “born-again” Christians tend to have smaller brains than Protestants who claim no such experience. According to USA Today, the 11-year study, “which included at least two MRI measurements on 268 adults between 1994 and 2005 … found an association between participants’ professed religious affiliation and the physical structure of their brain. Specifically, those identified as Protestant who did not have a religious conversion or born-again experience — more common among their evangelical brethren — had a bigger hippocampus.”
The research, which focused on brain shrinkage among older adults, grew out of a larger project in which participants, all 58 years of age and older, were recruited for a study to determine the effects of depression on the elderly. In the study on believers, “researchers ruled out depression or lack of social support as reasons for the smaller brain size,” reported USA Today.
The study found that those who said that they were a “born-again” Protestant or Catholic, as well as those who claimed no religious affiliation, had more brain atrophy (shrinkage) than participants who identified themselves as non-born-again Protestants.
In trying to make sense of the results of their study, researchers suggested that the stress related to embracing religious convictions not held by the majority may account in part for the smaller brain sizes of “born-again’ participants. Amy Owen, a research associate at Duke University Medical Center and the lead author of the study, said that one explanation for the finding that members of majority religious groups seem to have larger brains than minority religious groups like born-again evangelicals and Catholics “is that when you feel your beliefs and values are somewhat at odds with those of society as a whole, it may contribute to long-term stress that could have implications for the brain.”
The researchers also suggested that “life-changing religious experiences” may challenge an individual’s established convictions, leading to stress. “Other studies have led us to think that whether a new experience you consider spiritual is interpreted as comforting or stressful may depend on whether or not it fits in with your existing religious beliefs and those of the people around you,” explained David Hayward, another of the Duke research associates. “Especially for older adults, these unexpected new experiences may lead to doubts about long-held religious beliefs, or to disagreements with friends and family.”
Meanwhile, wrote Yonat Shimron of Religion News Service, sociologists who study religion remain skeptical of the study’s findings. “They say the researchers’ theory flies in the face of U.S. religious demographics,” wrote Shimron. “While it’s true that evangelicals are a minority, they’re a sizable one — 40% of the U.S. population, according to Gallup Polls — and not exactly a stressed-out minority, especially in the South.” Said David Roozen, a sociologist at Hartford Seminary, “There are probably more born-again Protestants than non-born-again Protestants, and just about as many Catholics as either born-again or non-born-again Protestants.”
Likewise, Dr. William Struthers, a psychology professor at Wheaton College, told the Christian Post that while he found the study interesting, he wanted to closely analyze the study’s statistical variables — such as age, sex, and depression status of the participants — before drawing any conclusions. “My concern is how this data is utilized, and if it is used as a way to demean people of faith,” he said. “Is it used as a way to make people feel as if they are stupid, that their brains are smaller because they are born-again Christians or they are born-again Christians because their brains are smaller? [T]hat is a place that we want to be careful not to go.”
I haven’t read the study yet, but look forward to it. The article about the study says that the hippocampus is bigger in “non-born again” protestants. Who says a bigger hippocampus is better?
If I’m not mistaken, brain size has little to do with actual intelligence anyway. It is a secondary factor. The fact is that most people don’t use the vast majority of their brain, so a person with a smaller brain, but who is more active intellectually, will be smarter than someone with a larger brain who refuses to think.
I would think that someone who calls themselves born again would have less stress in their life. They believe that they’re going to heaven and that God is in control. Maybe it’s the worry and uncertainty that someone who is not born again has that makes their brains “bigger” or bloated.
Amen to that.
Whoever wrote the title to the article has a tiny brain.
Lol...less worry and less worldly things to think about.
That's right! My wife says my hippocampus is just fine, and I shouldn't be embarrassed about it.
We don't need the extra capacity for being our own Gods and creating laws for others to follow, for rationalizing our moral relativism, immoral behavior and choices, or for coordinating hypocritical moral standards that we don't require of ourselves, but but condemn others for violating. Doing moral somersaults requires great concentration and coordination . . . hard work for a mortal brain.
It's hard work being your own God. We Christians only have to love our God and follow the wise law and precepts that he set before us. . . and libtards think that WE are stupid . . . how amusing!
WhatisthisshitIdon’teven...
Unbelievers have bigger brains because their cranial wiring is all mixed up. A big jumbled mess of goo on the shoulders. Believers are more nice and tidy with efficient compact wiring that makes sense. I made all that up BTW...
can I also be a scientific researcher publicist?
“Stupid FAT-heads!”
At first I thought you’d hit on it: Non born agains are more fat headed so their brains are larger.
Then I realized I’ve met some fat-headed folks who claim to be born again, so I guess not.
You don’t need big harddrive when you are running off of the main server....
Some attitudes in the modern evangelical church leads to stress, however. The disease of chronic pessimism has gripped many in the church. Tons of people are ready to just give up on renewing America, and refuse to apply the belief that God can turn the ship around whenever He pleases.
Deceptive article.
ONLY ONE part of the brain is slightly smaller, a part that deals with memory (and highly disputed and debated...) possibly behavioral inhibitions.
the article is poorly titled. It said that Born agains and non religous had smaller hippocampus’ than non born again protestants.
Not smaller brains, instead, a portion that is not as large as another, which also begs the question of what portions may be larger?
That is just plain stupid.
It’s not atrophy, it’s contraction into a critical mass.
The question should be, are Christians smarter than these scientists. Yes.
I am always amused at the assumption that there is a negative correlary between education (or intelligence) and faith. I have several degrees and more than one graduate degree and I’m a born again Christian.
Well whadaya know! Catholics and Protestants do have something in common: we have small brains, lol. What a joke!
Tis a puzzlement...born again and atheists both have brain atrophy. Wonder why the title didn't read "Study shows agnostics and atheists to have smaller brains."
No bias in this article...no siree!
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