[cschwarm]

I would say you're mixing two different things: (1) irrational beliefs, and (2) worship. Belief in homeopathy, psychic powers, alien abductions are examples for (1), but lack (2).

There is good evidence that we're predisposed for (1): Our brains seem to have "interpreters", located mostly in the left brain hemisphere, that are trying to make "sense" from the input (Gazzaniga, M.S.: The Ethical Brain, 2005).

There are two situations when this gets more obvious:

1. When the brain input (or the brain connections) is partially broken. For instance, if one shows split-brain patients the word "Walk" so that only right brain hemisphere notes it, they stand up and walk. When asked why they did what they just did, they often come up with an ad hoc explanation: "I just wanted go get a coke." This is the interpreter working, trying to make sense from the fact that the person just stood up although the interpreter had no signal from other parts of the brain about possible reasons.

2. When the brain input is "unexpected". In psychology, so-called "non-deterministic" (or non-contingent) experiments make the participant believe she can influence the results or reactions of a setting, although, in fact, she can not. In such situations, humans also come up with explanations even if there's nothing to explain. In other words, they are trying to make sense out of non-sense input. These experiments go back to B.F. Skinner who was able to induce superstitious behavior in pigeons. [1]

What's interesting is how resistant some of these beliefs are. Generally speaking, the more effort is put into an explanation, the more resistant to change.

Worship, on the other hand, seems to be a more complex and special kind of belief. It's not just trust without doubt or unreasonable admiration, but also magical thinking: the idea to be able to influence reality by appealing to a powerful being.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Superstition_in_t...

[bluekeybox]

Thanks for the response, that was interesting, especially the superstition in pigeons link. When I wrote about magical thinking, I was more concerned about worship than the kind of superstition you describe; I wasn't very clear about that (I'm not a neuroscientist). What you were trying to describe seems to be how brain generates rationalizations for events. My opinion is that the these rationalizations you describe as "magical thinking" are in fact the same type of thought process that also occurs on much higher levels, when scientists generate hypotheses for example -- except that expert scientists have far more experience to "ground" these rationalizations correctly (i.e. on evidence that is empirical and can be replicated and validated).

Although the rationalizations you describe are probably the origin for many magical beliefs, my opinion is that those beliefs don't perpetuate/last very long unless they are also associated with worship of some type. My observation was that most forms of religion and mysticism are concerned about "soul" or some other supposedly magical property of humans. Homeopathy is probably one of the few types of magical thinking that doesn't really concern itself with human beings as being special, but I think that most other types do.

I don't consider worship to be a very complex phenomenon -- I think that it is simply an innate or readily acquired (at early stages of development) mechanism that triggers intense pleasure when confronted with individuals or objects that possess many desired characteristics (above a certain threshold). When combined with rationalizing magical thinking you describe, worship results in us placing unreasonable trust in the individuals/objects possessing those characteristics.