Ordinarily, I try to stay above the fray when it comes to religion.

For starters, the topic is an absolute minefield. Raw emotion, half-formed ideas and deeply held beliefs all rattle around against each other in a cocktail virtually guaranteed to kill any conversation it's brought up in.

Unless it directly affects me or it's used to justify anything from idiotic prejudices to equally idiotic wars (see: the course of human history), I really, genuinely, don't care what people believe in or what they practice, so long as it's benign.

But recently, a new study has emerged that poses an interesting question: Is faith in God, or even religion in general, a byproduct of our brain's natural wiring?

Dr. Andrew Newberg — a neuroscientist who spent the early part of his career researching how Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, depression and anxiety affect the brain — used his brain-scanning technology on Tibetan Buddhists, Franciscan nuns and Pentecostal Christians who, in deep moments of religious fervor, were speaking in tongues.

When they did, he found a pattern in his subjects. Three particular parts of the brain — the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe and the limbic system — all began to fire up and act the same.

The sections of the brain that fire are responsible for, among other things, focus during prayer and mediation, sensory information that helps in feeling like you're part of something bigger than yourself and feelings of joy and awe, respectively. What this means is that the brain seems hardwired to a belief in God or some other supreme being.

Some believers say this is proof God gave humans the innate, biological ability to communicate with the Almighty. Some atheists, on the other hand, see this as proof that all the emotion and zealotry associated with religion is simply a manifestation of the brain's firings.

If this research continues and provides similar results, however, the difference in opinion will not remain that amicable.

The conservative, evangelical religious set will bemoan the endless Pagan attack on Christianity and the steady downfall of morality that is destroying our society. The atheists will defend their position, the scientific community will enter the fray, and it'll be the same, dull, trite battle of the wills that you've seen played out across TV shows and books ad infinitum.

And, frankly, that gets old. So let's face facts, shall we?

Religion and faith, for better or worse, aren't going away anytime soon. No matter how much scientific data one throws at religion, no matter how conclusively one determines faith is just a byproduct of the brain's chemistry, people will still cling to it and, sadly (or stupidly, depending on your perspective), die for it.

Humans cannot comprehend death, or even life, fully. One is too final, and the other is too chaotic. So, to cope, we create a method of thinking that gives life order and death meaning. Humans want to believe in a higher power because it creates sense where there doesn't seem to be any.

Because of this, people who depend on religion will never give it up. It's comforting. It's an easy way to deal with the world and the problems it throws at people. So, all the arguments and debates, books and even scientific discoveries in the world aren't going change that.

If you want to debate the relative merits of faith versus atheism, don't waste your time debating about God and the creation of the universe because that's irrelevant. Any way you slice it, God didn't create religion — we did. And religion is the real issue.

Since these new scientific findings show we have a predisposition for faith, the argument should not be the validity of the faith, but rather what we've done with it. For all the good organized religion has done, and it has done some good, it also has done irreparable harm.

Wars, torture, murder, greed, genocide, the destruction of entire civilizations — all in the name of religion. Religion is, fundamentally, a good idea. But it has been so corrupted by those in charge or those willing to use it to their advantage, from Constantine to Jerry Falwell, that it has become bastardized.

You're never going to make people stop believing in God. Humans have been doing that since the dawn of civilization. You're not going to get people to renounce faith, either. But maybe if you address the practices and ignore the theological crap, you actually can change someone's mind and do some good.

After all, three separate parts of our brain are wired, essentially, to organize us into groups. We might as well do something good with that, rather than use it as an excuse to ostracize and kill people.

Pete Nichols is the State News opinion writer. Reach him at nicho261@msu.edu.