God... Or Gulliblity Gene?

File under: Satscams

There's a nice little article up at Slate discussing the emergence of "neurotheology" and the folks seeking to exploit offer this new "science" for the benefit of their own financial ends all mankind.

Of particular interest is one geneticist's insistence that there is something called a "God gene," which is ostensibly responsible for a person's tendency to have mystical and spiritual experiences:

The work of Dean Hamer, a geneticist at the National Cancer Institute, raises the prospect of genetically engineered mystics. Hamer claims to have found a gene associated with "self-transcendence" or "spirituality" in a group of 1,000 subjects who filled out surveys that probed their beliefs in God, ESP, and so on. Hamer calls this gene "the spiritual allele" or, even more dramatically, the "God gene"—which is also the title of the popular book in which he describes his research. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, has called Hamer's claim "wildly overstated."

Or simply misstated. It's the opinion of this writer that the "God gene" may very well be more of an indication of a person's suggestibility; something more along the lines of a gullibility gene, if you will. It would help explain why so many fall for the grandiose flimflammers who are polluting the world with a spiritual "wisdom" that is nothing more than their own narcissistic nonsense.