Researchers have found an area of the brain that gets active when people have religious experiences.
http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=434D7C62-E7F2-99DF-37CC9814533B90D7&repost=with_catchy_title [no longer available]
I know you’re expecting me to say this proves religion is just an illusion caused by the brain. But I’m not. If God exists, it seems entirely reasonable that he’d design people with brains that can receive his transmissions. It wouldn’t be that much different from giving us eyes so we can read Bibles. So I don’t think this research says anything about the existence of God.
But it made me wonder if science could come up with a drug to minimize activity in that part of the brain, essentially removing the feeling of being close to God. And if so, could we put it in the water supply to reduce terrorism from people who think God is on their side?
Your first reaction might be that there’s no way to reach the water supply in Wazeristan where Osama is hiding. But we wouldn’t need to. We could spike our own water supply and drug the terror cells already operating on our soil. Every time they took a sip of water, they’d have a little more doubt about the afterlife.
There are already drugs that alter moods in all sorts of ways. It’s not a huge stretch to imagine a drug that could act on the religion portion of the brain. It would be easy to test. Just pick any town, add the drug to the water supply, and track church attendance.
Would it be ethical to use this drug, assuming it had no side effects? Your first reaction would probably be no. Obviously it’s evil to drug people without their consent, no matter what the purpose.
But wait, we do that already with fluoride in the water to reduce cavities. So we have a precedent. No one asked my opinion on that drug, and I take it daily.
Suppose you are a person who believes humans are moist robots with no free will. For people who hold that view, morality is considered an illusion, so they would have no ethical problem with using this drug.
On the other side of the issue, people who believe in free will would have to believe the drug wouldn’t work. You can’t believe a drug can change a person’s religion unless you think people are moist robots with no free will. Therefore, it is inconsistent for this group to think the anti-religion drug is unethical, since they would also believe it has no effect.
I think that covers everyone but the people who live in a state of perpetual uncertainty, and they tend to stay out of decision-making.
Should we fund development of this drug?