The Blasphemy Challenge

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I don't think so. It's just some silly competition, even if it does have an underlying agenda, and that how I think of it - as a competition. I've heard of cruder competitions, such as seeing who can hold your urine for the longest to get a Nintendo gaming console.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

That's not right. There should be an age limit. At 9, you can't know what you believe. No child can be an 'atheist child', 'Muslim child', 'Christan child', 'Mormon child' etc, because they don't have the maturity to make up their mind.The competition should have had an age limit.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

It doesn't. A-theism is the absence of theism. It doesn't acknowledge any god or non-existence of a God, but it does acknowledge theism. It acknowledges only that some people believe in a gods or gods, then indicates the absence of that belief in the atheist.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

I think it more likely that the shamans were the most gullible of the lot.The human mind has a great tendency to make Type 1 errors (see patterns where none exist), much larger than our tendancy for Type 2 errors (to miss a pattern). It would be better to run away from a possible predator or enemy than to miss the warnings...so it's better to hear voices in the wind or see faces in the rocks than to miss them.So, these shamans are probably the ones making the most errors, and telling the people about it (spreading the memes!). It would only take a few people to corroborate it and this shaman would be considered truly perceptive and wise, and given the position of healer and seer etc.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

As it so happens, I do know of one study by Peter Brugger et al (Psychopathology, Apr/May 2001 vol 34, iss. 2, pg 75: Lateralized direct and indirect semantic priming effects in subjects with paranormal experiences and beliefs).A group of 100 people were pre-screened for belief in the paranormal, and 12 strong believers and 12 strong non-believers (all women) were chosen. They were two words, a prime and a target. The first word (the prime) was a noun, and the second word (the target), was either a directly related word, an indirectly related word, an unrelated word or a pronounceable non-word (for control purposes). The relationship between the words was standardised by the use of 24 middle of the range people from the original 100.The subjects had to press a button when they recognized a word, and as suspected both groups performed equally (pressed faster) when the prime was directly related to the target, and equally slowly at detecting unrelated words. However, the believers were much faster when the words were indirectly matched than the non-believers. The believers were also slightly faster, by 6% or so, when the words were unrelated.It was also a significant finding of this study that when the words were presented to the right eye (thus the left side of the brain), all differences between believers and non-believers disappeared, but when presented to the left eye (the right side of the brain) the differences were pronounced.I'll add the graph for you to see (but only for a while...). LVF/RH means left visual field, right hemisphere, in case you're wondering.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

Probably not. I think it is more of a 'calibration' thing than a dominance thing - as far as I know there is no correlation between hemisphere dominance and religious belief. They are more likely to see patterns, and that includes patterns which may not actually be there, but seem like it when you look at it. All participants were right-handed.Generally brain lateralization is used the same for all people, and the left hand side is the dominant one (only slightly though). That said, some people (more common in left-handed people) are the other way around, or are even bilateral (no hemisphere specialization), hence why left handed people weren't involved.I know you can get a Wada test to tell which way you are, but I think I remember some psychological tests that you can do at home...I'll look for one. I'm fairly positive that it can't be taught.Left brain does math, language , logic etc.Right brain does abstract pattern perception, intuition, creativity etcEdited by Doddy, : Added a few sentences to clarifyEdited by Doddy, : Fixed spelling

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

I found a nice test: which face is happier? If you said right side, then you use your right for emotion, pattern recognition and intuition. If you said left side, then your left hemisphere does the patterns and emotions.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

Yes, the difference is between dominance and participation. Right Hemisphere dominance would mean that right brain would have taken over more of the pattern recognition, which doesn't happen. Enhanced Right Hemisphere participation though, which I'd say is the case here, is that believers take more notice of what the RH is telling them.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

Equivocate all you must. I'll quote what my friend once said when I told him about such research: "I'm going to be very annoyed if lack of oxygen to a certain part of the brain during development causes me to miss out on heaven."

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer