What does this do for the concept of free will?
Some people laugh at religion when relatively young. Then they experience a spiritual awakening and find their faith. Do their genes change?
Correlation does not equal causation. This gene that seems to correlate with spirituality, does not have anything to do with spirituality.
We only believe we have free-will.
If freewill means the ability to save myself to heaven then I will go for the God gene. My destination is heaven as determined by my maker before the world began and then God sent his Son to seal the deal on the cross of Calvary.....It is done. It is finished.
"So are we wired to believe in God?"
Sure, its all in the hair for men. Most men who believe in God have short hair, ergo short hair causes belief in God.
For women its in the shoes. Most women who believe in God wear sensible shoes, ergo sensible shoes cause belief in God.
This is all thoroughly researched scientific fact! Its true, believe me, REALLY!!!!!
Now can I have my Nobel prize, please?
I would say that this "study" has absolutely NOTHING to do with the God of the Bible, Christianity, or Christian faith. The "spirituality" Hamer measured is the spirituality of the new age/theosophy/gnostic/eastern mysticism type:
A big part of your research involved a "self-transcendence scale" to rate people's spirituality. What is this scale?
As you can imagine, its not trivial to separate spirituality from more formal aspects of religion, but some psychologists like Robert Cloninger have tried to do that. They use a scale called "self-transcendence."
Overall, it tries to measure a sense of "at-oneness" with the universe independent of formal religious beliefs. More specifically, it actually looks at three different subscales. One of them is called self-forgetfulness: a measure of peoples propensity to completely lose themselves in what theyre doing, whether its weeding the garden or meditating or whatever. People who are self-transcendent put less focus on themselves and more on everything outside of them. They see the connections to things.
A psychic component is called "transpersonal identification," a feeling of a sense of unity with everything else in the universe. Then theres a third scale called mysticism or spiritual acceptance which is more like, do you think mystical experiences have changed your life? Do you believe that science cant explain everything? Do you believe that there might be ESP, for example? Believing that there is more going on than meets the eye.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/154/story_15451_1.html
I haven't bothered to check, but I expect that this gene is concerned, in some way, with "anandamide," known as endogenous marijuana.
Anandamide (N-arachidonoylethanolamine) is a brain chemical that activates the same cell membrane receptors that are targeted by tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana and hashish.
http://www.nsi.edu/research/e008.html Again, nothing to do with Christianity. DG
INTREP
Working in my home office in Yokohama, using ordinary kitchen implements, I have discovered a gene that compels carriers to "discover genes" whenever the existence of such a gene would be convenient to their ideological agenda.
Even if there was something valid in this, it would change nothing. The Bible tells us that even the devil believes in God.
It is not belief in God, but accepting Christ's sacrifice on the cross that brings salvation. Free will is still intact.
So is the God gene at war with the Gay gene?