Do the brains of believers and non-believers work differently?

By Sophy Robinson

Sophy is a former trustee of Humanists UK and she has worked for many years as a performance coach in large global corporate and UK public sector organisations. In this article she reviews research into the link between information processing in the brain and religious belief.

Twenty years ago, research on the brain started to link the expansion of dopaminergic systems in humans, brought about by changes in diet and other physiological inﬂuences, to the emergence and development of religion. Investigations using Magnetic Resonance Imagery (MRI) scans suggested that religious behaviour involved the ventral cortical axis – primarily the ventromedial temporal and frontal regions. And neuropharmacological studies generally pointed to dopaminergic activation as the leading neurochemical feature associated with religious activity. They also found that the pathways associated with dreaming and hallucinations are aligned with those involved in religious behaviour.

“Evolution seems to have selected for a brain that has the ability to accept a logically absurd world of supernatural causes and beings... religious believers are more likely to use more intuitive and heuristic reasoning, and non-believers are more likely to use more deliberative and analytic reasoning.”

Anthropologists estimate that at least 18,000 different gods, goddesses, and various animals or objects have been worshipped by humans since our species first appeared. Indeed, humans have been termed Homo religiosus because of the near-universal belief in God. Evolution seems to have selected for a brain that has the ability to accept a logically absurd world of supernatural causes and beings. Spirituality must once have offered something tangible that enhanced survival. However, in the past few decades the number of people who express an interest in religion has declined, and there has been a sharp drop in church attendance.

In an article in Psychology Today entitled ‘The brains of believers and non-believers work differently’ (2022), Professor Gary Wenk cited recent research using EEG and MRI technology which tested this claim. He wrote: “A recent study investigated which resting-state brain circuits are utilized by religious non-believers, as compared to religious believers. Previous studies have demonstrated that a resting state analysis is objective, stable, and capable of revealing individual differences in how the brain functions. Essentially, the analysis provides a kind of ‘neural fingerprint’ of which brain regions are involved in the processing of emotions, memories, and thoughts.”

“Not believing in a God is due to the activation of distinct higher-order brain networks. The results demonstrated that religious believers are more likely to use more intuitive and heuristic reasoning, and that religious non-believers are more likely to use more deliberative and analytic reasoning. For example, non-believers are more likely to process sensory information, such as something they see, in a more deliberative manner that involves higher cortical areas, called top-down processing, involved in reasoning. In contrast, religious believers are more likely to interpret visual information in a more emotional or intuitive manner, called bottom-up processing, that involves more ancient brain systems. Religious believers share this bottom-up processing bias with people who believe in the supernatural or paranormal activity, such as telekinesis or clairvoyance.”

Since the development of Darwin’s evolutionary theories, our understanding of human origins has changed dramatically. Because scientific explanations for natural phenomena and medical advances have made such a dramatic impact on our lives, our brains now to make much greater use of what the article calls “higher order brain networks”– the more deliberative and analytical reasoning pathways. And maybe this has been accompanied by, or even led to, a loss of religious belief.

Do the brains of believers and non-believers work differently?

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