Listening in on people’s conversations with God and Santa

William Atkins
Monday, 13 April 2009 20:12

Science - Biology

Dr. Schiødt stated, "It's like talking to another human. We found no evidence of anything mystical."

The New Scientist article stated that previous studies found that the prefrontal cortex is not activated when people play computer games; that is, interact with inanimate objects. As with conversations with Santa Claus, people do not expect to get a response from computer games.

Dr. Schjødt states, "The brain doesn't activate these areas because they don't expect reciprocity, nor find it necessary to think about the computer's intentions.”

They conclude in their abstract, “This finding supports our hypothesis that religious subjects, who consider their God to be ‘real’ and capable of reciprocating requests, recruit areas of social cognition when they pray. We argue that praying to God is an intersubjective experience comparable to ‘normal’ interpersonal interaction."

The New Scientist article says of Dr. Schjødt, “He says the results show people believe they are talking to someone when they pray, an outcome that pleased both atheists and Christians: "Atheists said it shows that it's all an illusion," says Schjødt, while Christians said it was evidence that God is real.”

The article concludes with a comment from Robin Dunbar, from the University of Oxford, who did not participate in the study. He states that the study "... has nothing to do with whether God exists or not, only with subjects' beliefs about whether God exists."

So, the study (as Dr. Dunbar points out) does not try to prove whether God exists or not. It only concludes that praying to God activates parts of the brain like when you talk to another person in regular conversation.

In both cases, a religious person expects to hear back from the person and from God—because they perceive both to be real.

However, when a religious person talks to Santa Claus or a computer game, they don’t expect to hear back from Jolly Old St. Nick or the computer game—because they perceive both to be fictitious or inanimate (not real).