The God Gene
Monday, February 18th, 2008
Is there a part of us as human beings that leads us to believe in a higher power? Are we biologically set up to interpret certain events as religious revelations?
In Dr. Dean Hamer’s book, The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into Our Genes, Hamer argues his hypothesis that human beings have a gene that might answer yes to those questions.
It’s important to point out that that The God Gene is not a theory that we have something in us that leads us to believe in God/dess – in whatever that title means for you. What Dr. Hamer is proposing is that events we interpret as a spiritual frame of mind, the ‘presence’ of God/dess, and other mystical or spiritual experiences.
I haven’t had the chance to read the book, but I found it yesterday while exploring in the library and thought it brought up an interesting subject.
The connection (or lack thereof) between religion/belief and science has always been one filled with arguments and disagreement. Dr. Hamer has been criticized for poorly presenting a potentially fascinating subject.
Even so, it is something that likely will be explored further in the future as we explore genes and their role in our lives.
A lot of very loud voices in the world would have you believe this sort of science exploration is evil and should not be continued despite the fact that humans are just barely scratching the surface when it comes to discovering what genes mean in our lives.
All I would like to say is that the less knowledge you have, the easier you are you are to control. Surely a creator or creators, if there are any, who endowed their creations with such curiosity would expect such studies…
