Study finds that belief in religious fundamentalism partly due to a brain impairment. Tell me something I didn't know.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia has shown that religious fundamentalism is, in part, the result of a functional impairment in a brain region known as the prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness. 

Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that consist of supernatural events and entities assumed to be real. Religious beliefs differ from empirical beliefs, which are based on how the world appears to be and are updated as new evidence accumulates or when new theories with better predictive power emerge. On the other hand, religious beliefs are not usually updated in response to new evidence or scientific explanations, and are therefore strongly associated with conservatism. They are fixed and rigid, which helps promote predictability and coherence to the rules of society among individuals within the group. 

Religious fundamentalism refers to an ideology that emphasizes traditional religious texts and rituals and discourages progressive thinking about religion and social issues. Fundamentalist groups generally oppose anything that questions or challenges their beliefs or way of life. For this reason, they are often aggressive towards anyone who does not share their specific set of supernatural beliefs, and towards science, as these things are seen as existential threats to their entire worldview.

Once again this is one of the those things which seems so blatantly obvious, and which we are supposed to be too polite to say out loud.

If you literally believed in leprechauns, unicorns, or zombies people would legitimately be concerned about your mental health, but if you wrap it in a religious shroud then suddenly your insistence that magical beings are all around us looking out for our well being is taken as a testament to your deep faith.

Remember how Joy Behar was forced to publicly apologize for suggesting that Mike Pence was mentally ill for saying that Jesus Christ talked to him?

Joy Behar of `The View’ apologizes for comments she made about Vice President Mike Pence and Christianityhttps://t.co/KF1sNAcoYJ

— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) March 13, 2018

Well obviously she was right.