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Analytic Thinking Can Decrease Religious Belief
Freshly Exhumed writes "A new University of British Columbia study finds that analytic thinking can decrease religious belief, even in devout believers. The study, which will appear in tomorrow's issue of Science (abstract), finds that thinking analytically increases disbelief among believers and skeptics alike, shedding important new light on the psychology of religious belief."
Not analytic thinking, just thinking should work
Trolling is a art,
Although I'd agree with you, I think it's necessary to point out that these aren't the normative beliefs of Christianity. As those assertions go, they're over-represented among Christians in the U.S., so it skews our sample set; but that doesn't mean that it's the definitive rebuttal of Christian belief.
Just sayin'...
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
I guess it works on global warmers then.
Well, if it works as suggested then it will cause those who believe in global warming purely because someone told them it was happening to go and look at the evidence and decide for themselves, in which case they'll keep their opinion intact but will have come to it by a more scientific approach. Win-win.
Easy. Accept that the accounts in religious texts were written by people and subject to their scope of knowledge. If there was a group of people 6000 years ago who had only covered an area of a few hundred square miles in their lives, and that few hundred square miles flooded, they would write that the world flooded. Believing that the entire Earth did not flood in no way invalidates the text.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I think it's generally caused by indoctrination when they're very young, and it's very hard to break. I think societal pressure also adds to it a lot, but that's been decreasing.
If you're right, perhaps you could persuade the people who disagree with you by talking to them and using reason. But if you start the discussion by insulting them or the number of brain cells they have, do you really expect to get anywhere?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Even orthodox Jews don't take all the stories in the bible as literal. They study them as lessons to learn. Devout religious belief is about much more than taking the religion's documents literally.
Developers: We can use your help.
Duh is right. Considering that belief is the opposite of thinking, they would have to be negatively correlated.
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Actually the article seemed rational and logical to me, and I'm a Christian. This paragraph especially:
Anaylitic thinking isn't needed to tell your mother from your sister. They should study to see if athiests are lacking an intuitive thinking. As it notes, both kinds of thinking are useful.
I'm not going to bother cleaning up the UTF errors, I wish /. coders would fix that.
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My non-scientific guess is that analytic thinking can decrease belief in anything you haven't analyzed. This doesn't just apply to religion. The same goes for politics, football teams, favorite programming languages, global warming, etc.
As for religion, I'd bet the majority/vast majority really just believe whatever makes their parents or spouse or whoever happy, or whatever makes life easier. No wonder they drop it whenever they discover something that mildly contradicts their barely conceived ideas.
I personally consider the possibility of God in light of discoveries related to quantum physics, relativity, evolution, math and statistics... I don't consider these to contradict the existence of God (since they strictly do not), but to explain how little we still know and to understand the tools God could use to work with.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
If you're against Christian teaching and you think you're an analytic thinker, I challenge you find out what's wrong about the content of the bible and find an convincing argument why people who believe in Christ are doing it in vein. If you want to show that the bible is made up, or its text is corrupt, I'm going to put you through scientific method process and axiomatic logic reasoning to establish your case.
Maybe you'll show us what you expect by working through examples with some of the religions that *you* reject.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If you want to show that the bible is made up, or its text is corrupt, I'm going to put you through scientific method process and axiomatic logic reasoning to establish your case.
The burden of proof is on you. Without any evidence that your book is not just another book of ancient mythology, why should we give it any more creedence than the works of Homer?
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Well, if you have to ask...
I'm an atheist, and am actually a big fan of word of Jesus. The ideas were revolutionary for morality and ethics in the ancient world. Whether or not Jesus was diving, or even really existed, is unimportant in this respect.
But, having said that, I'm afraid you can find all sorts of examples in the Bible that contradict each other, especially between the Old and New Testaments (e.g. stoning gays vs. loving one another). Not to mention the conflicting geneologies of Jesus in the gospels. (And I'm sure other posters will chime in soon with more examples.) Furthermore, biblical scholars worth their salt do not believe in the literal truth of the text, since it has been translated, edited, and redacted many times over. Much has been lost, forgotten, rejected (Gnostic gospels anyone?), or just plain ignored.
Finally, my biggest complaint with Christians in general is that more often than not they themselves pick and choose which portions of the Bible are true. Just look at the anti-abortion types in the States who also want to cut back on Social Security or Medicare -- a position that is clearly not "pro-life", nor follows through with Jesus' adminitions to take care of the least fortunate. If you wish to use Jesus' teachings as the basis of your ethics, fine -- but either be consistent, or be prepared to be exposed as a hypocrite.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Then would the religious folks all go to hell?
"all liars"
lol
If the scripture is false, then there is no hell to which they can go. If the scripture is true, then they are telling the truth.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Duh is right. Considering that belief is the opposite of thinking, they would have to be negatively correlated.
Just to play the fictitious Devil's Advocate: You must therefore understand everything about every currently accepted theory, as you seem to have no need to believe anything.
We all have beliefs; some are just a little (or a lot) less plausible than others.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
The love of a mother is at least potentially falsifiable. Everything we know about the mind indicates that it is entirely comprised of patterns of neural activity in the brain. With sophisticated enough technology, it's entirely possible in principle to observe those patterns and determine whether love is being experienced.
Or you could argue that emotions have no physical basis and that my mother could be a philosophical zombie. This is entirely possible, but since it's empirically indistinguishable from "actual" love the distinction is meaningless. I don't actually care wihch is true, and I'm not even sure it's cromulent to assign a truth value to either.
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Having considered the matter carefully, I've come to the conclusion that a person who has dedicated a large portion of their lives to the study of climate effects knows more about the subject than I do. In fact, on further reflection, I may have to admit that I am no longer an expert on everything in the way that I was during my teenage years.
- a (former) convenience store clerk
I personally consider the possibility of God in light of discoveries related to quantum physics, relativity, evolution, math and statistics... I don't consider these to contradict the existence of God (since they strictly do not), but to explain how little we still know and to understand the tools God could use to work with.
But, God is omnipotent right? He doesn't need tools.
See how just a little thought about physics causes you to reject one of the most fundamental claims about God, his omnipotence.
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Unfortunately that is not correct. Analytic thinking is geared towards determining whether something is true or not, and belief is simply "holding a premise to be true" (thanks wikipedia for the concise definitions!). That is, belief flows from critical thinking.
Lets examine this real fast: You (I am assuming) do not believe that religions have any merit. Presumably, you have some reasons or rationale for why you arrived at that conclusion. That is, you have a belief, because you had at some point (I hope) done some critical thinking, and your chain of reasoning resulted in a belief.
Likewise, I have religious views. I have belief in certain things. I, too, have reasons for my faith, and have several reasons for why I hold them to be true.
I suppose you may disagree with the definition of belief, but I think that that is a good one and if you disagree it would be easiest if you simply clarified your definitions.
There's a different between trust and faith. I trust scientists because I can go over their data and validate their conclusions. I could even (theoretically) perform the same experiments to see if I get the same data. Believing the Bible or my priest or my religious grandma requires blind faith, because there is no data to analyse, and there are no experiments to repeat.
how does zeus fit into this?
because, there is as much evidence of zeus being god than your view of what god is.
that's the thing that always made me wonder about religious believers: once you step outside your little belief circle and see others that have dramatically different ways - and they are VERY SURE that they are right, too; this should be the 'aha!' moment that puts doubt in your mind that your story is any more real than theirs.
you don't believe in their gods. or theirs. or theirs. and they don't believe in yours. isn't this a wake-up call to you, in any way, shape or form?
or, can you just brush off this bit of logic and still stick to your dogma, insisting fables can still be 'real' ?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Okay...
Let's say I'm going to run around the city and start randomly machine-gunning down kids whose parents don't wear a shirt that says "Zorin is awesome". I'd give plenty of warning to people to MAKE SURE THEY WEAR this shirt, then I'd carry out my threat.
How does warning people I'm going to murder their for not doing something pointless and trivial make me any less of a murderer when I go around shooting kids in the streets for something ridiculous that their parents didn't do?
This is basically the equivalent of what happened in biblical Egypt. It does not excuse the god in the bible from being a vengeful, murderous entity.
I'm a Christian, so if you need to instantly discount anything I have to say because of that, please go to the next article.
The biggest problem I have with arguments about belief is the conflation in English of "truth" and "fact". Often times when someone says "truth" they're really meaning to say "fact", as in "actual, provable occurrence". Facts can be measured, scaled, repeated, seen, felt, sensed, etc. Truth and falsity are terms related to the judgements we apply to both facts and non-facts. It is a fact that repeated blows to the head will cause an individual to die. Truth is that beating someone to death is bad. A story can be told that contains no facts, in other words, complete fiction, but the content of the story can contain truths. Fact-fiction and true-false are orthogonal axes because they describe different aspects of our experiences. We tend to want to align "fact" with "true" and "fiction" with "false", but that's a simple way of looking at it. More thought, whether strictly analytical or otherwise, and more experience can reveal the truth as more nuanced.
DYSWIDT?
Anyway, if you bothered to read this after the first sentence, flame away. If you just skipped to this sentence without reading the middle, you just want to argue at a kindergarten level, you doody-head.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
This comment is a perfect example of what this study is trying to show. You are a human, and are required to adhere to the "don't kill people" rule.
The deity of a religion can do all sorts of stuff that may not make sense to you, and you don't analyze it if you have faith.
If you have faith that the message is real, you will follow the instructions and save yourself. If you think to yourself, what silly people these are thinking blood above the door will protect them from an imaginary angel? You used analytic thinking rather than faith.
Set aside your brain, believe in a deity for a minute, and accept that anything the deity does is for the best. I bet you will come to a different conclusion. Put your brain back in, and you will change your mind again. That's what the article is all about.
The researcher quoted is not saying that atheists will have more analysis than intuition. It is hinting at a possible link between religiousness and intuition, suggesting that intuition is more dominant in religious believers.
That is completely different from intuition being missing from non-believers. Since the measurements have not been done (or at least not known to this person who was quoted), it could be possible to have far greater analytic than intuitive capacity, but suspend it long enough to maintain belief. And just as possible to have greater intuition, but fall back to analysis when given time to think about it.
I won't belabor the point with extensive citations, but you can search for yourself how religion can enter the person into a meditative state. That is, if you decide to believe (or do so out of custom), you actually turn off your brain for a little while. The analytic portions don't have the opportunity to discard information, or detect contradictions. This allows for the sort of cognitive dissonance we see from time to time. When your religion sparks up, analysis may be shutting down.
Also, you are an anecdote, you could be the statistical outlier. You could be the only intuitive atheist out there, and as soon as you say you know plenty others I can claim you may know every intuitive atheist that exists. Until this guy does more science it's all just typing.
But they were true diagnosed serious medical problems that went away immediately with prayer and haven't returned after many years.
Oh sorry I missed this bit. That's not evidence. That's coincidence. Atheists experience spontaneous remission of serious medical problems at a rate that is statistically indistinguishable from that of religious individuals.
All your post shows is that you're one of those who isn't thinking critically.
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Why does it *have* to be real?
Because making decisions based on things that are true will work out better than making decisions based on things that are not true.
Since Faith can't be proven, inherent to its very nature, then all faiths must be equal
Exactly, they're all equally irrelevant.
It's not about right or wrong, but simply a choice about what feels the best for you.
Except that religious folk seem to have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. If you choose to fantasize about a deity, and that makes you happy, that's fine. When your fantasy starts affecting those around you, that's not OK at all.
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"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." -Stephen Roberts
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
It would be similar to a hurricane bearing down on your and your house. You know 2 days in advance that it will be a level 5 hurricane. You can take precautions or not. It isn't the hurricane's fault.
If you believe in that God, he just does his things. He can't be blamed. He is "Mother Nature".
Your comparison fails though, because you're describing an indifferent god, which is emphatically not what the prevalent religions tell us. The religious representation of God is someone omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, attributes nobody attaches to a hurricane. You'd expect such a God to make a moral and loving choice. You wouldn't ask that of a hurricane.
Mutatis mutandis, it's like excusing some guy that beats his wife by saying "hey, she knew he'll beat her up if she talked to her mother, it's like sticking your hand in a candle flame. She could take precautions or not. It isn't the candle's fault." Doesn't work.
My question is this - which one, the murderer that converts or the buddhist that does not acknowledge Christ as his Lord and Savior, ends up in heaven?
As you no doubt are aware, Christian doctrine states that the murder goes to heaven and the Buddhist goes to hell. Theologians explain this twisted outcome with an even more twisted presupposition: that both men "deserved" to be tortured for eternity the moment they were created. The Christian god does not look at the good and bad each person has done to "weigh souls", and he is under no obligation to provide his creation an "out" from this predicament... in fact (and here's where it gets really weird), mainstream theology says that it would go against Yahweh's very nature to simply forgive you for having the audacity to be born. So there's this complicated workaround by which he tortures his son/an incarnation of himself and does some internal bookkeeping that then allows him to forgive you.
So to recap, you owe a debt (that cannot be verified) for your bad behavior (that cannot have been avoided) to an all powerful entity (that cannot be seen). Repayment in kind (e.g. living a good life) won't work; it must be in the form of allegiance (to a particular religion, similar in character to thousands of others) for which you will be spared eternal torment and granted eternal bliss (that also cannot be verified) upon your death (at which point you cannot report your experiences to others). That's the "good news" of the Christian message.
Us analytic types might focus on the particular logic where the "repayment" coincides with joining and supporting a human institution, instead of directly addressing the "badness" that led to the "debt". It's almost as if this is exactly what a twisted cultist would come up with to exert control over a group instead of what one would expect an all-loving, all-wise being to do. How very convenient this philosophy is... and how convincing it is to the child that hears it from everyone he loves and respects in the community. Nothing sales heavenly fire insurance like a little bit of fear.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
For me, analytical thinking has actually increased my belief in Christianity (separate from 'religion'). If you would like to check out a book that promotes analytical thinking about what Christianity claims, check out Mere Christianity which is a compliation of various radio broadcasts given during WWII by C.S. Lewis (former athiest).
I read that junk while I was a teenager in the process of figuring out that religion was bunk, and it completely failed to convince me. Lewis provides at best a surface veneer of analytical thinking. The problem is, like all religious apologists I've ever read, he depends heavily on circular arguments and other fallacies. He's good at disguising them well enough to get past the mental filters of people like you who are reading to confirm their faith rather than critique it. However, to someone who is reading with a critical eye, Lewis is transparently awful.
Consider, for example, one of Lewis' most famous contributions to Christian apologia: "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic". He claims that Jesus could only have been one of these three things, then tries to prove that Jesus was neither a liar nor a lunatic, and therefore he must have been God. This argument fails so many ways it's not even funny:
1. False trilemma. There are other possibilities which Lewis never acknowledged, perhaps because they're too challenging to his faith. For example, as we have next to no corroboration of Jesus' existence outside of the Bible (there's only one mention of him in any historical text, and that one is widely suspected to be a faith-confirming interpolation added to Josephus by a monk during the Middle Ages), one very important possibility is that Jesus didn't exist at all and is wholly mythological. Another is that he existed, was an ordinary human who tried to be a religious reformer, and the tales attributed to him by his followers grew in the telling until he was a deity. (Note that the earliest copies of Biblical texts we have date to several decades after Jesus' death, plenty of time for mythmaking.)
2. Jesus could not have been a liar -- uh, sorry, he could have been. I don't remember exactly what Lewis' arguments here were, but I do remember that they were transparently awful, relying mostly on the reflexive reverence which Christians have for Jesus.
3. Jesus could not have been a lunatic -- same kind of problem as #2. Many of the acts attributed to him in the Bible actually paint a rather good image of a religious lunatic, if you don't think he's God.
First, the important thing is that those claims are verifiable in a finite way with finite resources.
The claims of science that are verifiable are of this sort "if you do this, this happens, and if you do that, that happens as a result." Those are the things you can verify. What you cannot verify is the physicalist metaphysics that are tacitcly accepted as true by most scientists. Also what you cannot verify is that the cause effect relationship is eternal, or otherwise underpinned by an eternal rule or law. So while you can verify that if you do this, this happens today and perhaps reasonably next year, can you verify that it's what eternally happens? No, of course not. Science may well be a study of local phenomena rather than universal phenomena. And by local I mean restricted by time and not only by space.
Science is very useful in its domain. It has a pragmatic purpose. The problem with science is when its claims are stretched beyond this domain. So, universalism is not something science can claim. It's an assumption that scientists often make, sure. Science studies here and now, but it can't study what happens trillions of light years away from here or whatever is beyond the light cone (except from our viewpoint, which may not be a valid viewpoint for such study), and nor can it study the conditions that will be present in this space 100 trillion years in the future. So science doesn't give the kind of eternalistic answers that religions attempt to give. And science often tries to sneak its physicalist metaphysics through the back door, without analysis.
I am very much down on organized religion. So by no means would I defend religion overall. Most religion is crazy but for reasons that have very little to do with science. Religion is simply incoherent. It has no internal consistency and it has all kinds of purely logical and moral flaws that have nothing to do with science. But science is also flawed. Science often presents itself as the only valid way of knowing something, and that's simply not true.