Do animals display religious behavior?

[carolinayellowdog]

9. Brain research might help illuminate this question

Last edited Sun Feb 1, 2015, 12:02 PM - Edit history (3)

Humans were behaving-- and possibly behaving ritualistically-- for a very long time before religious language appeared. My guess is that if we hook up electrodes to people "thinking" in religious terms, we will find that it involves different and "deeper" brain structures than thinking about e.g. a math question. Worth doing some digging to see what has already been established on this front.

OK-- the limbic system is activated and the parietal lobe inhibited in religious experience according to this recent article. Animals could certainly have comparable experiences based on the brain activity involved. Excerpt:

During brain scans of those involved in various types of meditation and prayer, Newberg noticed increased activity in the limbic system, which regulates emotion. He also noted decreased activity in the parietal lobe, the part of the brain responsible for orienting oneself in space and time.

“When this happens, you lose your sense of self,” he says. “You have a notion of a great interconnectedness of things. It could be a sense where the self dissolves into nothingness, or dissolves into God or the universe.”

Such “mystical”, self-blurring experiences are central to almost all religions – from the unio mystica experienced by Carmelite nuns during prayer, when they claim their soul has mingled with the godhead, to Buddhists striving for unity with the universe through focusing on sacred objects. But if Newberg and his colleagues are correct, such experiences are not proof of being touched by a supreme being, but mere blips in brain chemistry.

“It seems that the brain is built in such a way that allows us as human beings to have transcendent experiences extremely easily, furthering our belief in a greater power,” Newberg says. This would explain why some type of religion exists in every culture, arguably making spirituality one of the defining characteristics of our species.

The "mere blips" line seems like a casual dismissal by the article author rather than a remark made by the neuroscientist. Every human experience could be described as a "mere blip." As for the species-defining characteristic, in the absence of discussing other species' brains this seems likely to be a casual interpolation by the journalist rather than an opinion of the scientist. Worth reading about some more!