
What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God - vermaden
https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/8qjv7v/what-happens-to-your-brain-when-you-stop-believing-in-god
======
squarefoot
Religion was and still is all about making the masses believe there is a
superior entity going to punish the evil king in the afterlife so that they
won't hang him themselves in this life. And Santa Claus looks so close as a
kids version of God probably because that way it forges their mindset long
before they develop critical thinking, thus making easier the acceptance of a
divinity later on.

Losing religious faith is not just beneficial for the brain, but extremely
dangerous for corrupt ruling classes.

~~~
gamechangr
How is losing religious faith beneficial for the brain? Is that a scientific
perspective or something you just think?

~~~
Zigurd
Just a hypothesis, but we believe in magical entities for the same reason we
suck at statistics: We have evolved to be wired that way. We were made to do
some quick estimates that make us bad at statistics generally, and were were
made to tolerate otherwise intolerable conditions by believing in an afterlife
and protective spirits. Overcoming evolutionary predispositions, especially
when they make it hard to see the world objectively, is generally considered a
good thing.

------
coldtea
You find some other outlet for the same evolutionary urges, e.g. californian
ideology.

~~~
r00fus
Do you have a link? I'm Californian but I've never heard of this supposed
ideology.

~~~
coldtea
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology)

[http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-
ideol...](http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology)

------
gamechangr
Totally misleading title...not helpful from a scientific point of view.

I expected a scientific discussion.

I received a first person narrative with a handful of scientific words thrown
in to dress up their journey as scientific.

------
Zigurd
17 points and flagged dead

