Can Our Religious Faith Be Found in a Gene?

In my experience, I would say being religious is in nurture. I truly believed in God for a long time. I prayed every night before I went to bed, I went to mass, and went to Catholic school. But my older brother and sister didn't believe, and so when I was in high school I started to question God's existence. After a long time of meditation on the subject, I decided that I didn't believe God existed. What is really interesting is the twin study. But could their linked spirituality be because they were raised in the same environment? How did this statistic show in large groups of twins?

This was really eye-opening for me. I would have never thought this could have been a possibility. I have grown up going to a Catholic church every Sunday and doing some church camps or activities here or there. However I have never been that devoted to it. I truly think that what your parents introduce you to as a child greatly affects how you view religion. For me I have always just agreed with what I was told in church and by my parents. Whether this is right or not I don't know but the fact that it is possible that how we relate to religion is in our genetic make-up is fascinating. Who knows what else could be related!

I believe religion is a nurture thing. I don't believe it can be nature. Religion is recognized when you are old enough to understand it. I don't believe anyone can be born being truly devoted to a religion without anyone telling them about it first. Their parents or mentors probably taught them about it for them to be devoted in religion. Religion is also a hard topic to talk about because it can be so controversial.

From my personal experience, I have definitely seen a similar result as was mentioned in the twin studies. I have family spread out across North America, and I have noticed that the level of spirituality in most family members is similar, yet how the religion is practiced or the degree of how religious they are differs greatly. I would not be surprised if more research support those assertions that the spirituality had something to do with genetics. Interesting post.

It fascinates me that there has been a study conducted that attempts to connect religion and genetics into one bunch, but I find it very difficult to believe that a person could have a gene that makes them more religious than someone else. Personally, religion has always been within the nurture argument, especially since my parents were very religious whereas I am not. The controversy faced with religion is hard to be placed into a psychological study when there is such a big dispute as to whether or not a God exists, on top of whether or not there is a religious gene. What a compelling topic.

I think this would tie in with the nature vs. nurture debate of whether religion plays a part in genes or environment. I don't have any proof of my claims, but I think that one's environment has a big influence on their religious views and participation. I don't really see how something like religion could be genetic, maybe genetic to the spiritual sense since you mentioned how spirituality effects different lobes, but I don't think genes have a dramatic impact on one's religious views.

Although this is a very interesting subject I don't see how something like spirituality could be genetic. Just because you can engage or disengage different parts of your brain doesn't mean that there is a gene that is doing that for you. I think it has more to with perception and how you view the concept of religion. I know many people who have pretty religious and spiritual parents but they themselves are not spiritual at all. It would make sense that if it was genetic that the offspring of spiritual people would also be spiritual but that's not always the case. I believe it has more to do with your environment and upbringing.

This concept is very interesting to me as I have had first hand experience with it myself. I grew up going to church and catholic school, yet only because my parents influenced me to do so. When i was in high school i started to question my faith and now am very certain that I do not believe in God nor am i religious at all. Therefore, I believe that religion is defiantly a nurture thing. I think that there could be a chance that some people are more "spiritual" than others, just as more people are more sensitive than others; however, that does not mean they will use that spirituality towards religion or believing in god, it may affect other aspects of their life.

Interesting article. Personally, I believe that spirituality isn't something that can be handed down to you. Sure, you can be taught to learn and possibly love the religion, but having it since you were born seems a little far-fetched for me. Now as I understand they are two completely separate things, I believe you could use the same argument for this class. If I feel that I'm deeply affected by the studies we do in this class, was it genetically in me to be affected, or was I taught these things, which happened to affect me? Obviously, the latter. Although interesting, I don't believe that our connections to spirituality can be genetic.