The difference between believing and disbelieving a proposition is one of the most potent regulators of human behavior and emotion. When one accepts a statement as true, it becomes the basis for further thought and action; rejected as false, it remains a string of words. The purpose of these studies is to differentiate belief, disbelief, and uncertainty at the level of the brain.

• Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty
• The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief
• Naïve Bayes Classification of Belief versus Disbelief using Event Related Neuroimaging Data

There were significant differences between blasphemous and non-blasphemous statements in both reigious people and atheists. These are regions that show greater signal both when Christians reject stimuli contrary to their doctrine (e.g. “The Biblical god is a myth”) and when nonbelievers affirm their belief in those same statements (pc = paracingulate gyrus; mf = middle frontal gyrus; vs = ventral striatum; ip = inferior parietal lobe; fp = frontal pole).

See Also:

• http://www.SamHarris.org
• Group Allegiance and Religious Bias