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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."
will burn in hell.
Well Duh.
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.
A new study finds that intelligence can decrease stupidity! Maybe the two teams could join forces.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
This hints at the key problem, which is (or ought to be) as much a quandary for religion itself as for scientific studies of it. Almost all of the questions in Gervais and Norenzayan's study related to religion as a literalist folk tradition — an aspect of lifestyle. This is how it manifests in most cultures, but that barely touches on religion as articulated by its leading intellectuals: for Christianity, say, philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Immanuel Kant and George Berkeley. The idea that the beliefs of those individuals would have vanished had they been more analytical is, if nothing else, amusing. Gervais and Norenzayan’s findings should help to combat religion as an indolent obstacle to better explanations of the natural world. But it can’t really engage with the rich tradition of religious thought.
But God and Religion are two different things. God could be interpreted many different ways, religion is a specific belief in ideas, most of which are obsolete non-sense, based on our understanding today.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Because a lot of engineers don't have an analytical mind, they have an engineering degree. I used to work with a lot of very religious engineers as well, and I found out more often than not they were good at math, not solving actual problems.
I got here through a series of tubes
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.
you just described every teabagger and right wing nut-job out there.
I think we should all go watch the south park episode about Mormons:
Gary: [to Stan] Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life. and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that.
It's quite possible for atheists to hate the religion, even if they don't hate the God. The religion is very much a real thing, with an army of believers to give it power. I used to be indifferent to religion myself, until I read of how Christians were opposing vaccination against HPV* on the grounds that it could encourage people to sin. The more I learned, the more the hate grew. But hate is not a bad thing, it can be a powerful force for reform and a drive to fight that which should be fought. *Still in the early trial stage back then
If we take the original meaning of religion, which was from a Latin root that means "binding" and could be taken as "things that bind society together"* then theologians and sociologists have actually been quite good at asking some very hard questions about this, challenging religious and non-religious hierarchies.
If we take notions of "God", again theologians have been pretty good at analysing out what is mere superstition, animism and so on, from the largely unanswerable question about why or how anything at all exists. Theologians like Hans Kung and Don Cupitt, along with any number of Episcopalians, Unitarians, Quakers, Reform Jews and other progressive groups, have tried to deal constructively with the apparent human need to believe in something and share cultural practices. This hasn't always been totally successful, but a quick fact check on whether you'd prefer to live in an area where the main religion is one of the groups I've mentioned versus one where it was, say, strongly pro-Pope Catholics, Islamists or the Bible Belt might provide a clue as to whether they're on the right track or not. The simple facts of Apple-worship, programming wars, and pseudo-religions like Libertarianism, Marxism and "Free market economics" show that atheists can show quite strong religious tendencies.
So the real question is what this study means by "decrease religious belief". After all, when Phlogiston was discredited, you could argue that this resulted in a decrease in belief in the reliability of chemists. Do they really mean "decrease acceptance of bullshit?" I'd go with that.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
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.
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71 And then the Romans laid hands on Jesus to lead him away. 72 But Peter said unto them, "This is not the Jew you are looking for." 73 And then the centurion said unto them, "This is not the Jew we are looking for."
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You might as well say that we should throw out the junk science from Harry Potter. Neither collection of stories represents a science textbook, the only difference is that large numbers of people think that the bible is an accurate record of the history of the world, whereas nobody above the age of five thinks that Harry Potter is real.
Palm trees and 8
"you should believe what it says in this book because it's true!" is pretty weak.
"you should believe the bits in this book that I say because those parts are true!" is even weaker.
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
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish"
Shouldn't the burden of proof be on you to use the Scientific Method to support your theory that the accounts of the Bible are true?
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?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This is horse shit. I've worked with plenty of religious folks that are great at solving problems. Your line of thinking simply promotes the kind of discrimination and simple minded thinking that makes religious zealots so frustrating in the first place.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
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.
The burden of proof is not on me to prove your bible wrong, but for you to go through the "scientific method process and axiomatic logic reasoning to establish your case".
Until you can do that, don't be surprised if the more scientifically minded do not accept your idea.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This is what Einstein had to say about those who call him religious:
And in particular about the rumor that a Jesuit priest had debated with Einstein and converted him from Atheism (also wrong as Einstein greatly disliked being called Atheist as well).
And this is what he has to say about the word God itself
And, to round it out
His beliefs had God not as willful force beyond the universe, but as the universe itself. He sees the laws of physics not as something that God has created, but something that God is, something beyond us that we can but hope to catch a glimpse of. Something without an anthropomorphic will or mind, something that does not care for us at all. (He viewed this as important as we therefore must care for each other instead of relying on God and ignoring each other) I think you will find that while many leading scientists may, as Einstein, reject organized religion, most of them will nevertheless regard the Universe with reverence, many (including Einstein) referring to such reverence in spiritual terms. Essentially, a small and petty God preoccupied with murdering those who use their free will wrong by eating the wrong kinds of food, wearing the wrong kinds of clothes, planting crops in the wrong way, was and is inconsistent with those scientists views of the absolute majesty of creation.
At any rate, Einstein was perhaps even more displeased at those who would call him an Athiest as part of their OWN Argument from Authority. What he had to say about (loud) atheism was
He repeated such sentiment many times. Though he dislikes the Dogma of religion he does not wish to challenge believers lest he replace a (perhaps childish) belief with emptiness, saying "such a belief seems to me preferable to th
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
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
Imagine that: if your brain starts working, you stop worrying about the the fictional man in the sky.
Color me amazed.
Everyone knows it's turtles all the way down.
The Digital Sorceress
Sure a study done by the "science" guys would say this. Now I want to see one done by the church.
would decrease belief in the methodology used in this study. Did anybody *read* the linked press release from UBC?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
That's not true. Jews are required to know that the Tanach is historically true, although they recognize that the book's emphasis is on moral education and spiritual refinement. What Jews are not required to believe is that every midrash and aggadeta in the oral law is literally true. The difference between Judaism and every other religion is that Jews are obligated to know with clarity, through rational understanding, that their religion is true. I know it's unfashionable for so-called 'reasonable people' to examine the ancient wisdom of the bible, but if you are more concerned with understanding than with fashionability, see Deut. 4:39, as well as Maimonides Mishne Torah Sefer Mada Hilchos Yesodei Hatorah, almost the entire sefer Chovos HaLevavos and many many others. The word (You shall know) in Deuteronomy there does not denote belief () but rather knowledge, which is based on rational and understandable premises. Take a look at Exodus 15-17 and Deuteronomy 4:12-14, and you'll see that unlike every other religion, Judaism is founded on the experience of an entire nation, not a single individual or a small group of people. Interestingly enough, Judaism is the only religion which teaches that non-members can gain access to the rewards of the religion. Non-Jews are capable ot observing the Seven Noahide Commandments (and their associated laws) and will thus reap the benefits in the afterlife.
could it be?
This should be of no surprise to the followers of dharmic religions, when the buddhi (intellect) is active the paramatman (God within) is inactive. This is nicely illustrated by the iconography of Kali on the body of Shiva. Here Kali (representing Language and intellect) awakes and Shiva (the God-sense) sleeps.
Giants, people living 200 years, zombies, magic, women-bashing, all the Gospels being written by people who never met Jesus, virgin birth, God being all powerful but unable to do things like forgive humanity without killing himself, God effectively killing himself but disagreeing with suicide, 6000 year old earth if you take it as literal, absolutely content-free rubbish if you do not, God supporting genocide, God killing babies, God telling a guy to burn his son alive but then saying "jk! you got punkd!", Jesus saying basically the same things most homeless guys say, Jesus calling himself God and saying that he is the holy humbleist of them all in the same sentence, the fact that the whole idea of Jesus was ripped off from other cultures like the Egyptians, 4 gospels that often contradict one another, Jesus tacitly supporting slavery by telling slaves to be good and obey their masters, God sending people to hell for their poor choices which he predestined them to make, God letting Satan use Job as a punching bag because of some weird bet, God being the perfect creator but having never created anything perfect, crazy laws like not being able to eat shrimp on pain of death, saying all men need to cut off part of their penis, God being jealous of imaginary gods, if the flood killed everyone except Noah and his family then Noah had to have thousands of children to reach known historical population levels fast enough, Noah built a boat by himself that could carry two of every land-dwelling species at once, the fact that if half these things happened in a fantasy novel you would think they were plot holes. Also, you are the one making the claim; you have the burden of proof! Please, this is pretty much Thinking 101. "For all of you that do not believe in unicorns, why don't you just prove it to me?"
The Old Testament is based largely on oral history, like the Iliad and the Odyssey. And like them, it is flawed with omissions, distortions, and additions to make a better story. There is archaeological evidence that provides support for parts of each. The I&O covers only a couple of decades, and claims only to be a history of the Trojan War, its causes and aftermath. The Old Testament claims to be the history of the universe and the ultimate explanation of everything, complete with a dictatorial moral code.
The New Testament, with its internal contradictions, is evidence of the fabrication of Christianity and the campaign to establish it as a widely accepted system.
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BINGO!!!! Sadly they cannot get passed their childhood brainwashing which is very effective. Even smart people can be lazy and not want to challenge deeply held views that make them uncomfortable. For them it is just easier to and comforting to insert a supernatural being into the blank space for "the big questions" of life. I know it has taken me quite a while to reconcile some of those thoughts in my own head and I never really ever believed in a god. But I never really considered what it might mean when I die, what came before the Big Bang, etc Obviously I don't have answers to those questions, but it is only recently that I truly contemplated the implications of those questions and accepted that I'm OK with "We Don't Know" and felt no desire to insert a supernatural force into the gaping blank space.
If you can't be good, be good at it!