So there may be a neurological link to fundamentalism afterall:
Compared to non-believers, the religious participants showed significantly less activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a portion of the brain that helps modify behavior by signaling when attention and control are needed, usually as a result of some anxiety-producing event like making a mistake.
The stronger their religious zeal and the more they believed in God, the less their ACC fired in response to their own errors, and the fewer errors they made. “You could think of this part of the brain like a cortical alarm bell that rings when an individual has just made a mistake or experiences uncertainty,” says lead author Inzlicht, who teaches and conducts research at the University of Toronto Scarborough. “We found that religious people or even people who simply believe in the existence of God show significantly less brain activity in relation to their own errors. They’re much less anxious and feel less stressed when they have made an error.”
Is there way out of this? Perhaps, as I’ve written before, our freedom from our clinging lies in our ability to observe it:
When we continually look within to see where we “get fundamental” ourselves, we are employing the consciousness that will free us from it. But we need courage to ask ourselves difficult questions. Does hatred arise within us? That’s fundamentalism. Is the world black and white to us? That’s fundamentalism. Does a feeling of defensiveness arise about certain topics? That’s fundamentalism. Is there any blaming of others for anything? That’s fundamentalism. This doesn’t mean that any of us should give in to things our common sense sees as wrong. Rather, it means that our responses to every situation should be sourced from openness rather than spiritual closure. This openness will do all of us some good since it is exactly what will keep us from throwing gasoline on any fundamentalist flames, especially our own.
Bows, Andrew Sullivan
