for many people God is the strongest
belief they have but how does your brain
conceive of the very idea of God what
happens when you actually try to draw
the divine dr. Andrew Newberg from
Jefferson University Hospital has been
trying to figure that out we’ve asked a
few people of various ages to draw God
for the break we also asked you how do
you envision the Almighty did it look
like an old man on a cloud a beautiful
scene from nature or something more
abstract let’s take a look at what our
volunteers came up with and then we’ll
reveal what your image of God says about
your brain all right and I’m gonna ask
everyone to put their pencils crayons
brushes down hi what did you draw
I drew God in heaven
huh and like a bridge leading to happen
and the sun shining down I do a kind of
a judeo-christian kind of God looking
over our realm my home is my heaven and
you know everything else that happens
around us know what I think God means is
that it’s like it’s much more of an idea
than a person and basically all the
colors represent everyone’s different
ideas of what God is what it means to me
as their God is love and it encompasses
different colors
I drew a big question mark a few years
ago I would have just left it blank
incredibly when asked to envision God of
all the seemingly infinite possibilities
people really only draw one of three
things there are certain kind of general
categories that people think about God
from and one of them is the idea of God
as a kind of person we see a face we see
eyes we see a actual person it’s just
easier for us as human beings to relate
to something which is infinite in a very
personal kind of way
to start virtually all the younger
artists depict God with a face or some
anthropic quality now as people kind of
move away from thinking about God only
as a person we start to see more of a
symbol like the cross or perhaps clouds
and then sometimes we start to see just
nature itself and finally we start to
see people moving into a more abstract
way of thinking about God
different swirls colors a heart even a
question mark was that true in your
images at home did your picture of any
higher power look like a person or
nature or something more abstract
science shows that the shift to more
abstract thinking about God kurz around
12 years of age what might drive this
development in your brain
according to dr. Newberg the vision of
God as a human figure is often aligned
with a wrathful more authoritarian view
of God and this picture of God may cause
primitive parts of your brain to release
stress inducing neuro chemicals changing
your picture of God to something more
abstract may in fact cause you to be
more optimistic and faithful so
ultimately this tells us something about
how human beings actually perceive God
think about God thinking about God
visually which is obviously one of our
most powerful senses that we use to
understand our world maybe when it comes
to your brain the old saying is true
seeing is believing
belief they have but how does your brain
conceive of the very idea of God what
happens when you actually try to draw
the divine dr. Andrew Newberg from
Jefferson University Hospital has been
trying to figure that out we’ve asked a
few people of various ages to draw God
for the break we also asked you how do
you envision the Almighty did it look
like an old man on a cloud a beautiful
scene from nature or something more
abstract let’s take a look at what our
volunteers came up with and then we’ll
reveal what your image of God says about
your brain all right and I’m gonna ask
everyone to put their pencils crayons
brushes down hi what did you draw
I drew God in heaven
huh and like a bridge leading to happen
and the sun shining down I do a kind of
a judeo-christian kind of God looking
over our realm my home is my heaven and
you know everything else that happens
around us know what I think God means is
that it’s like it’s much more of an idea
than a person and basically all the
colors represent everyone’s different
ideas of what God is what it means to me
as their God is love and it encompasses
different colors
I drew a big question mark a few years
ago I would have just left it blank
incredibly when asked to envision God of
all the seemingly infinite possibilities
people really only draw one of three
things there are certain kind of general
categories that people think about God
from and one of them is the idea of God
as a kind of person we see a face we see
eyes we see a actual person it’s just
easier for us as human beings to relate
to something which is infinite in a very
personal kind of way
to start virtually all the younger
artists depict God with a face or some
anthropic quality now as people kind of
move away from thinking about God only
as a person we start to see more of a
symbol like the cross or perhaps clouds
and then sometimes we start to see just
nature itself and finally we start to
see people moving into a more abstract
way of thinking about God
different swirls colors a heart even a
question mark was that true in your
images at home did your picture of any
higher power look like a person or
nature or something more abstract
science shows that the shift to more
abstract thinking about God kurz around
12 years of age what might drive this
development in your brain
according to dr. Newberg the vision of
God as a human figure is often aligned
with a wrathful more authoritarian view
of God and this picture of God may cause
primitive parts of your brain to release
stress inducing neuro chemicals changing
your picture of God to something more
abstract may in fact cause you to be
more optimistic and faithful so
ultimately this tells us something about
how human beings actually perceive God
think about God thinking about God
visually which is obviously one of our
most powerful senses that we use to
understand our world maybe when it comes
to your brain the old saying is true
seeing is believing
Please follow and like us: