V.S. Ramachandran on Brain Disorders and Religious Beliefs

A neuroscientist's look at the brain and religious beliefs

This post features a fascinating short video of Vilayanur S. (V.S.) Ramachandran talking about how religious beliefs are formed by the brain.

The Indian-born American Ramachandran is one of the world’s most renowned neurologists and neuroscientists. Distinguished Professor and the Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California at San Diego, he has an MD from Stanley Medical College in India and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Ramachandran specializes in brain disorders, including split-brain patients, and the neuroscience of religious beliefs and aesthetic perception. Brain function and belief systems is an area where I work, and I’ve written about this topic in previous posts, and in the book Brain Function and Religion.

In a lecture at Caltech, V.S. Ramachandran first explains the case of a split-brain patient with one brain hemisphere that believes in God and the other that does not. To reduce extreme seizures, some epileptic patients have severed the connection between the two hemispheres of their brain.

He then explains that, under certain neurological conditions, most human brains have the innate neurological tendency to have profound spiritual or religious experiences, including in reaction to religious symbols.

An atheist, he speculates about the evolutionary utility of this, such as that shared religious beliefs or beliefs in God have been useful for social cohesion and the survival of the species. He then idly speculates that atheists, who are percentage-wise rare, may not have this normal mechanism, and that he and fellow atheists may be the rare neurological "mutants."

He says that none of this answers the question of whether or not God exists. It is about how human brains process sensory information and form beliefs.