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The God Gene

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The notion of a genetic inclination toward religion is not new. Edward Wilson, the founder of the field of sociobiology, argued in the 1970s that a predisposition to religion may have had evolutionary advantages.

In recent years evidence has mounted that there may be something to this, and the evidence is explored in The God Gene, a fascinating book published recently by Dean Hamer, a prominent American geneticist. Hamer even identifies a particular gene, VMAT2, that he says may be involved. People with one variant of that gene tend to be more spiritual, he found, and those with another variant to be less so.

Genetic Basis for Spirituality?

Richard Evans Lee
February 17, 2005 •
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I also listened to Matthew Alper,author of The God Part of the Brain, being interviewed on the Infidel Guy. The theory makes a lot of sense, to me. Unfortunately!

Posted by: Terri | February 18, 2005 8:23 AM

God gene? maybe... It always annoys the hell (!) out of me when my religious friends tell me how sad it must be for me, not being "spiritual". I don't even know what they mean by the term actually. I think I often get quite spiritual, usually single malt spirit. When they use the word, they seem to mean a belief in fairy stories and the like. Seriously, I think the article (and possibly the research) is a load of Bull****. The correlation between church-going and longer life is nonsense, I could find a dozen similar - like the old Mormon evangelist gambit - that "90% of drug addicts started on alcohol". Indeed, so, but 99.999% started on milk....

Posted by: corevalue | March 15, 2005 5:30 PM

How do you feel?

Feel free to share your feelings about The God Gene. Please stick to the theme of the entry. Disagreement is fine. Homophobia, racism, and kindred expressions of hatred will be deleted. This site is one of my hobbies. I genuinely enjoy hearing from people and hate moderating or killing comments. Forthright disagreement is fine as long as it is civil.
My thanks,
Richard

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