Posted on 11/13/2004 7:47:12 PM PST by Former Military Chick
Religious belief is determined by a person's genetic make-up according to a study by a leading scientist.
After comparing more than 2,000 DNA samples, an American molecular geneticist has concluded that a person's capacity to believe in God is linked to brain chemicals.
His findings were criticised last night by leading clerics, who challenge the existence of a "god gene" and say that the research undermines a fundamental tenet of faith - that spiritual enlightenment is achieved through divine transformation rather than the brain's electrical impulses.
Dr Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the National Cancer Institute in America, asked volunteers 226 questions in order to determine how spiritually connected they felt to the universe. The higher their score, the greater a person's ability to believe in a greater spiritual force and, Dr Hamer found, the more likely they were to share the gene, VMAT2.
Studies on twins showed that those with this gene, a vesicular monoamine transporter that regulates the flow of mood-altering chemicals in the brain, were more likely to develop a spiritual belief.
Growing up in a religious environment was said to have little effect on belief. Dr Hamer, who in 1993 claimed to have identified a DNA sequence linked to male homosexuality, said the existence of the "god gene" explained why some people had more aptitude for spirituality than others.
"Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus all shared a series of mystical experiences or alterations in consciousness and thus probably carried the gene," he said. "This means that the tendency to be spiritual is part of genetic make-up. This is not a thing that is strictly handed down from parents to children. It could skip a generation - it's like intelligence."
His findings, published in a book, The God Gene: How Faith Is Hard-Wired Into Our Genes, were greeted sceptically by many in the religious establishment.
The Rev Dr John Polkinghorne, a fellow of the Royal Society and a Canon Theologian at Liverpool Cathedral, said: "The idea of a god gene goes against all my personal theological convictions. You can't cut faith down to the lowest common denominator of genetic survival. It shows the poverty of reductionist thinking."
The Rev Dr Walter Houston, the chaplain of Mansfield College, Oxford, and a fellow in theology, said: "Religious belief is not just related to a person's constitution; it's related to society, tradition, character - everything's involved. Having a gene that could do all that seems pretty unlikely to me."
Dr Hamer insisted, however, that his research was not antithetical to a belief in God. He pointed out: "Religious believers can point to the existence of god genes as one more sign of the creator's ingenuity - a clever way to help humans acknowledge and embrace a divine presence."
13 October 2004: Homosexual link to fertility genes
Thank you for your post!
Does my heart good to hear the truth spoken.
You have nailed it, and quite succinctly, at that. Good job.
Here we go again...
Listen, no one forces you to be gay. Everyone has a choice to act out as a sodomite or not to.
NO one is forced!
I'm saying the vast majority of them lead lives in the same manner as everyone else -- trying to make the most of the hand dealt to them.
I don't know why people act the way they do. There is a book out there called Why They Kill (Richard Rhodes) that discusses one theory in regards to violent criminals. The brain is such a delicate instrument, who can tell what screws up the wiring or the chemistry? But it's a field well worth exploring.
"trying to make the most of the hand dealt to them."
they chose. No one forced them to be homosexuals.
I think the gene we all share to some extent is the gene that makes us ethically lazy and compels us to avoid responsability for our own actions. It's only the creativity and courage with which we strive to overcome our earthbound nature that makes us true humans. Stuff like the god gene and the gay gene and the obesity gene are just ways for setting ourselves up with an excuse to fail.
Why do people choose to rob banks when they know that will make their lives "...markedly more difficult"?
Why do some people choose to cheat on school tests when they know if they get caught it will make their lives "...markedly more difficult."?
Why do people choose to do all sorts of things that they know will eventually make their lives more difficult?
Because "A gene made me do it"? No, because they are weak and made a bad choice.
So, by that logic -- anyone can decide they want to be gay? Some guy comes home from a bad date and says, "This whole woman thing isn't working out, I think I'll turn gay." And the next day he's gay. I don't buy that.
This guy's gay gene theory is not being taken as seriously as it had been so he has to come up with something new and shocking to get his name back in the news.
Letters after one's name no longer has the credibility associated with it as it once had, and that's probably a good thing.
"Why do people choose to rob banks when they know that will make their lives "...markedly more difficult"?"
Robbing banks does NOT make the lives of the robbers more dificult, on the contray, it makes their lives much easier with the money they robbed.
This is scientific research, it's not written in stone. The guy publishes a paper about god genes or gay genes and some other guy reads the paper and does his own research. He finds it's a gene combined with specific neural pathways and he writes a paper. Some other guy reads the paper and finds, yeah, its a gene with specific neural pathways and certain kinds of conditioning, and he writes a paper...that's the way science progresses.
"So, by that logic -- anyone can decide they want to be gay?"
No. You don't choose happiness. If you look for happiness you won't find it; if you look for God you will find happiness.
OTOH, homosexuals do choose to be homos.
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