Religion In The Brain

An interesting study has been done, showing some differences in how the brains of the religious work in comparison to atheist brains.  

... Dr. Newberg believes that for the brain, praying to God in the Judeo-Christian tradition is similar to talking to people. ... While observing atheists meditating or "contemplating God," Dr. Newberg did not observe any of the brain activity in the frontal lobe that he observed in religious people.

 Many theists like to claim atheists actually do believe in their god.  If the people making such claims were susceptible to facts, this study would put those claims to rest.  I would love to see the same study done on schizophrenics to see how their scans compare to the scans of believers in prayer.

I like the study, but I'm not a fan of the silly comment at the end of the clip about it:

And if God only exists inside our brains, that does not mean God is not real.

Uh . . . yeah, it does.  Things that only exist in your brain are what is commonly known as imaginary.  Unless I'm mistaken, things that are imaginary are not typically real.

(found via @Alyssa_Milano)