Faith healers and mind stealers

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was the window Uffe Schjødt used to peer into the brains of 20 Pentecostalists and 20 non-believers listening to 18 different recorded prayers.

Andy Coghlan of New Scientist writes:

The volunteers were told that six of the prayers were read by a non-Christian, six by an ordinary Christian and six by a healer. In fact, all were read by ordinary Christians.

Among the devout, parts of the brain which play important roles in vigilance and skepticism tended to be markedly less active when they were listening to prayers by someone identified as [but who was not] a Christian with healing powers.

Asked about the speakers, Pentacostalists verified the fMRI findings by giving their highest rankings to speakers identified as Christians with healing powers [note the graph at right]. Thus suggesting, as Schjødt observed, that Pentacostalists effectively handed themselves over to those merely identified as Christian healers.

Schjoedt is not suggesting, and it is unreasonable to apply this and related research to suggest, that the apparent phenomenon is somehow confined to people of faith:

These observations point to an important mechanism of authority that may facilitate charismatic influence, a mechanism which is likely to be present in other interpersonal interactions as well.

Simply that we imperil ourselves and others when we allow our protective vigilance and skepticism to be turned off.

Skeptical cautions for the faithful

British skeptic David Flint cautions the faithful that some religious explanations are not benign. No one's faith need be shaken by contemplating the points he raises. For example:

I accept that such words may bring comfort to some people and seem to do no harm. There are other religious "meanings" that certainly do, however. It's little more than 150 years since Dr Robert Brown declared in the Lancet that women should suffer in childbirth; painless delivery was, he thought, an invention of the devil. It's only nine years since prominent American evangelicals blamed "the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians" for 9/11 [The Rev. Jerry Falwell apologized]. And it's only four years since Australia's leading Muslim cleric blamed rape victims for rape – on the grounds that they wouldn't have been raped had they stayed home. These stories (Karen Armstrong's word) try to reconcile us to evil. They matter.

Unexpected/backhanded support for Christianity

Ruth Gledhill writes:

It comes to something when even [atheist, secular humanists, skeptic and scientific rationalist] Richard Dawkins is defending Christianity. He told me yesterday why he had mixed feelings about a putative end to Christianity:

"There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death. I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse."