Study: Born-agains have smaller brains

The study is from last year, but this just crossed my desk and I got a chuckle out of it. Philly.com:

Older adults who say they've had a life-changing religious experience are more likely to have a greater decrease in size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain critical to learning and memory, new research finds.

According to the study, people who said they were a "born-again" Protestant or Catholic, or conversely, those who had no religious affiliation, had more hippocampal shrinkage (or "atrophy") compared to people who identified themselves as Protestants, but not born-again.

Now, it's possible that this study doesn't disprove the existence of God at all. It's possible that God simply likes people with smaller brains, which goes a long ways towards explaining American politics. To wit, this wonderful clip from the movie "Defending your life," with Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep. If you haven't seen it, rent it - it's wonderful.