creationist/religious behavioral patterns and psychology

I seem to remember reading an article in Scientific American Mind magazine (I know, not exactly a journal to be quoting when trying to argue a point, but it proves for interesting reading) that had a similar line of thought. They were interested to find out if there is any difference between the way that religious people think about religion compared to say the way people think about secular things.Basically they used fMRI's (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to see what areas of the brain were activated during religious thought, and secular thought. They were asked a series of questions both religious and secular, and the patterns of their brain activations were scanned. Both the religious and secular subject's fMRIs were identical, which means they use the same areas of the brain when thinking about both religious and secular things. The areas which were used in the brain were the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is associated with emotions, rewards and self representation. Both groups provided completely different answers.I think this shows us that it's not what you've got, its how you use it. Two people can be completely identical as far as intellectual capacity, brain development, etc. but it is their beliefs which determine how they think. Noone is destined to be a religious person solely because of genetics or biology, it is nurture, not nature (although genetic inheritance of psychological traits has been shown to occur) which determines how we think.This article can be seen here .This isn't a definitive answer to your question, and only relates to beliefs, rather than behavioural patterns, which is a very broad area of one's psychology. Also, I don't think behaviour and belief are directly intertwined. You can behave one way, but believe something which is contradictory. Behaviour is mostly driven by motivation, which is an unconscious or subconscious driving force, whereas belief is mostly conscious, although it is formed unconsciously. You may believe in being faithful, but be unable to stop yourself from unfaithful urges, as an example.Anyway, hope that helps.