A new study has given a blogger (me) a great idea for a class action lawsuit. I’ll explain later but if you’d like to join the suit please let me know in the combox. It’s gonna’ rain cash, baby!!!

A new study PROVES(!!!!) that Mainline Protestants have bigger brains than Catholics or born again Christians. They studied something like 250 people so it’s like real science. Or something.

I’ve got to wonder if any of the “scientists” involved in the study were Catholic or born again. I’m thinking not but who cares. Like I said, we could make a mad cash grab out of this.

Here’s the details from Weasel Zippers:

For decades, mainline Protestants have been beset by bad news: declining numbers, aging membership, waning cultural influence. A new study from Duke University Medical Center, however, gives these Protestants one reason for cheer: they seem to have larger brains than born-again Christians, Roman Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated.

The study, which examined the hippocampus region of the brain, found that Protestants who did not have a “born again” experience had significantly more gray matter than either those who reported a life-changing religious experience, Catholics, or unaffiliated older adults.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Templeton Foundation, included at least twoMRI measurements of the hippocampus region of 268 adults between 1994 and 2005.

It found an association between participants’ professed religious affiliation and the physical structure of their brain. Specifically, those identified as Protestant who did not have a religious conversion or born-again experience — more common among their evangelical brethren — had a bigger hippocampus.

…The hippocampus is an area buried deep in the brain that helps regulate emotion and memory. Atrophy or shrinkage in this region of the brain has long been linked to mental health problems such as depression, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

So why would born-again Protestants, Catholics and those with no religious affiliation have a smaller hippocampus?

Researchers speculate it may have something to do with the stress of belonging to a minority group. Chronic stress floods the brain with hormones that, over time, may damage the hippocampus.

So we’re a minority, us Catholics. And our poor hippocampii are paying the price because of all the stress related to being a minority.

They always said religious people were dumb and now they proved it. But they also proved that we’re dumb from the stress of being a minority and being called dumb all the freaking time.

Aren’t we entitled to damages? I’m gonna’ walk my tiny, shriveled, and stressed hippocampus into a lawyer’s office and stake my claim. Mainline Protestants have been stressing me and my poor little hippocampus because I’m practically just a poor helpless minority. And because of them I’m more likely to be depressed and demented. That’s gotta’ be worth a few million, right?

And if they need proof I’m demented they just have to read my blog.

I found the story at Zip’s place so I’m guessing he’d want a finder’s fee of some sort. 5% sounds fair, right? And as I’m a Catholic blogger I think I should probably file on behalf of only Catholics. If an evangelical blogger is up for it, I’m willing to go halfsies on a good lawyer. Anyone know if former Presidential candidate John Edwards is up to anything. I seem to remember he was a lawyer.

Come on Catholics, it’s about time we got some payback on those mainline Protestants for shrinking our hippocampii. Let me know if you’re in.