I know Adrian Chiles from him being a TV presenter in the UK. This guy had a top job presenting The One Show on BBC every evening at 7...he was a household name and one of the top earners. He decided it wasn’t enough money and left to go to ITV and a new startup early morning programme Daybreak, persuading his co-presenter on the One Show, Christine Bleakley, to join him. The new programme spectacularly bombed and was axed in a short space of time. His decision nearly killed off both of their careers. He fell back on his experience as a Sports commentator, but she really struggled until she married Frank Lampard the Chelsea & England footballer. I think his judgment and decision making are questionable, this may just be another bad idea of his....but at least it appears he hasn’t persuaded anyone else to go along with it this time. Best of luck stepping out of enlightenment and into superstition and darkness Adrian, I hope it works out well!

There is nothing in that story that demonstrates that he was "predisposed to god". The whole story is incredibly lacking in any kind of detail as to the "appalled" family and how this "shock" manifested. So the title was designed to get people to read it, not to speak on the subject implied. More like catholic propaganda than anything else.

Which is precisely why I consider all religious faith to be a mental illness.

Anything is possible. There are over 7 billion brains on this planet and all are unique and wired differently.

So basically fuck truth it makes me feel good to believe the woo-schtick.

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing. Religion is like a security blanket for some people. I went to a Catholic school. It did not provide me with anything I needed and I was not drawn to anything about it. As an organization, the Catholic church has committed too many sins to be forgiven such as protecting priests doing evil acts or supporting imperial/colonial practices for a long time in many countries not to mention the sexist practices. I cannot see how that can be forgotten or ignored by anyone living in the modern world.

We are (neurologically) predisposed to socialization, and the church is one of the oldest institutions. As long as you conform, you'll be welcomed and part of the family. As for "having a sense of god"- I suspect the author had a sense of being smaller than the world around him and needed something to offset that; some "higher power" that cared personally about him.
It takes a strong mind to go eyeball to eyeball with the Universe and not blink.

I do not need religion. I got into it because my parents found it and they were so lost. They put it on me and wanted me to be a preacher. It was all misguided and caused me a lot of pain. Finally I woke up.

Perhaps not so much a neurological disorder or a predisposition to religion but having been trained to seek help from a higher authority by your parents. As a child one asks for help from parents when we are being hurt or things don't seem fair so we fall back on this same pattern, but who is a higher authority when you're an adult? Hence the tendency to invent a mythical higher being who can make things fair. That's one of the reasons that most adult conversions to religion are by people who feel desperate for help.

You and many people fail to recognize the religious brainwashing constantly drilled by the media, peers and society.

I remember when David Ike joined a nutty new age group and published a lot of weird and wonderful theories it was explained by one "expert" as the pressures of being a TV presenter and being in the public eye had affected his mental state. Could be a similar condition with this guy.

Will keep him on my prayers.

Oh we most definitely are born with human brains, which are highly prone to confirmation bias and agency inference, which find their most popularly codified expression in religion.

So while it's true that no one is born believing in a particular deity or dogma -- that requires indoctrination -- it is true that we are disposed to see connections that don't exist and beings that don't exist and to pay more attention to negatives than to positives and to evidence that tends to confirm our presuppositions rather than evidence that disconfirms them. We also tend to want to believe what pleases and comforts us and helps us "fit in" and "belong" in social groups.

While specific beliefs, including religious beliefs, are a function of social / operant conditioning, the basis which makes those beliefs seem plausible to the uneducated, undisciplined mind, is inherent in us all. Some more than others of course.

We all want answers to life's big questions.

I agree that some people seem predisposed to religion because it is easier to rely on "the god of the gaps" than it is actually figure out how the real world works.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Seems to me those you say were born to believe in god are just replacing a natural curiosity with what they believe to satisfy that curiosity. They want an easy answer to not having to think for themselves. Better to say they were born intellectually lazy.

I have long felt that many people are born with a need to worship, whether it be a god or a celebrity.

I'm glad his path is giving him comfort.

I don’t see belief as a neurological disorder. People just think differently. It’s not a big deal. I don’t see why this depresses you so.

"Bobby" was the third son of the family across the street. They were observant Jews and many of their relatives had been murdered in the Holocaust. Bobby was both Bar Mitzvah'd and Confirmed before going off to college. After several years in college, Bobby met a Catholic gal. After a year, they got married. They decided to hold two ceremonies, one in the Catholic Church, and later, a Jewish ceremony at the reception (in the basement). When I saw him kneeling with his Fiancee in front of the priest, I felt that he had betrayed his family. But then, I did my best to convey my lack of beliefs to Bobby. Life is complex. But Catholicism is utter bullshit.

There's no doubt about it, to my mind. Belief in an alpha male is in our DNA. The important point here is that we evolved from pack--hunting carnivores. The alpha male ate first and lived the longest. Notice that people from the time of the onset of agriculture adored a paternal deity. It's always God the Father.
Agriculture brought on private property, rigid hierarchy, and a Mafia Don mentality. Before agriculture millions of years of a hunter/gatherer life style brought with it a female fertility deity.

Religion is the opium of the masses. Just another adult?

I'm happy that he's found a sense of identity and a community that embraces him. Doesn't mean that God exists or that the church didn't cover up rampant child abuse, but what makes one man happy is fine by me. And hopefully with an atheist family and memory of being on the outside he'll be resist the urge to consider non catholics to be his enemy.

One of my favorite authors was Graham Greene. He came from an agnostic family but converted to Catholicism at Cambridge in the 1930s, It seems odd when many of his contemporaries were becoming communists. It kind of gave him a questioning attitude. Books like "The power and the Glory" "Heart of the Matter" and "Monsieur Quixote" Did not find much favor with the Vatican.

I call it "spiritual orientation" not a "neurological disorder". There is nothing harmful about being religious as long as you don't violate the rights of anyone else.

Check out these essays:
[dalehusband.com]

If people learn to be religious without being bigoted and dishonest, so much the better.

It’s not that they are born predisposed, some people just have a need to “know” the meaning of life, no matter what and think it must have a god in it.