39 replies to this topic

[Darkness]

Everyone please be careful.

Thinking can undermine religious faith, study finds

Those who think more analytically are less inclined to be religious believers than are those who tend to follow a gut instinct, researchers conclude.
http://www.latimes.c...0,5374010.story

[TheUnknowable]

Duh, most religion is about gut feelings. I also heard of a study that shows that people that identify themselves as "born again" have significantly more hipocampus shrinkage in old age than those that just identify themselves as "christians".

[TheHeartlessOne]

Ahh this explains my need to create [fictional] religions.

[Luzelius]

O_O this explains everything and why I'm an atheist (with out religion or god)

[Rhuen]

[Rlyeh]

Going to take this one with a grain of salt. The way the study was performed and then had conclusions drawn leads me to think this study isn't completely on the level. Newspapers/news sources often run with these surveys without properly vetting them because it creates controversy and thus gets reads. Plus it lets people that are against whatever the study claims makes people dumb feel smug and self-righteous. Like those "x political party members are dumber" or "people who use internet explorer are dumber" studies. Tends to be ulterior motives in the publishing or in the study itself.

[Skadi]

I will disagree. I am religious but definitely have an analytical mind. I would not be able to function in my field without being analytical. I do tend to actually read the bible and come to my own conclusions rather than just listen and believe what I am told.

How does this study take into account all the great mind who have also been religious?

Roger Bacon? Nicole Oresme? Copernicus? Kepler? Galileo? Descartes? Newton? Mendel? Pasteur? Planck?

Need I go on? These are all Christians who were of the greatest analytical minds.

I think the two are pretty mutually exclusive.

[Rlyeh]

Roger Bacon?

The guy that invented bacon was religious?

[Rhuen]

I will disagree. I am religious but definitely have an analytical mind. I would not be able to function in my field without being analytical. I do tend to actually read the bible and come to my own conclusions rather than just listen and believe what I am told.

How does this study take into account all the great mind who have also been religious?

Roger Bacon? Nicole Oresme? Copernicus? Kepler? Galileo? Descartes? Newton? Mendel? Pasteur? Planck?

Need I go on? These are all Christians who were of the greatest analytical minds.

I think the two are pretty mutually exclusive.

you know some of those guys knew that they couldn't share their findings while still alive because their religious peers would declare them heretics and potentially kill them.Descartes's philosophy breaks apart when he hits his "God barrier". Einstein too had this problem with his Jewish beliefs as his mathematical findings about the nature of the Universe were in contradiction to his religious beliefs and nearly drove him nuts that he couldn't reconcile them together. I wouldn't say Atheists are all analytical and intellegent, known plenty who were just as much sheeple as a great deal of those who are religious.I think people able to pick things apart will find problems with any system; even if they themselves are indoctrined or accept some aspects of that system.

[Rhuen]

Going to take this one with a grain of salt. The way the study was performed and then had conclusions drawn leads me to think this study isn't completely on the level. Newspapers/news sources often run with these surveys without properly vetting them because it creates controversy and thus gets reads. Plus it lets people that are against whatever the study claims makes people dumb feel smug and self-righteous. Like those "x political party members are dumber" or "people who use internet explorer are dumber" studies. Tends to be ulterior motives in the publishing or in the study itself.

As with any religious survey pro or con (regardless of viewpoint) just like any survey period you should take with a grain of salt.From what I learned in Statistics class there are many ways to make a survey come to conclussions you want (such as targeting demographics that you believe will be most likely to get the results you want). there is a reason many of us never hear about any of these surveys until after they are done.(The proper thing to do would be a random survey, sent to random addressess across the country) but no one really does that. Surveys can be and often are selectivly sent to certain neighborhoods, income based families, buisinesses, institutions, proxies are chosen to hand them out at certain events that coincide with the desired results, ect....

[Rlyeh]

As with any religious survey pro or con (regardless of viewpoint) just like any survey period you should take with a grain of salt.From what I learned in Statistics class there are many ways to make a survey come to conclussions you want (such as targeting demographics that you believe will be most likely to get the results you want). there is a reason many of us never hear about any of these surveys until after they are done.(The proper thing to do would be a random survey, sent to random addressess across the country) but no one really does that. Surveys can be and often are selectivly sent to certain neighborhoods, income based families, buisinesses, institutions, proxies are chosen to hand them out at certain events that coincide with the desired results, ect....

That's kind of my point.

[TheUnknowable]

you know some of those guys knew that they couldn't share their findings while still alive because their religious peers would declare them heretics and potentially kill them.Descartes's philosophy breaks apart when he hits his "God barrier". Einstein too had this problem with his Jewish beliefs as his mathematical findings about the nature of the Universe were in contradiction to his religious beliefs and nearly drove him nuts that he couldn't reconcile them together. I wouldn't say Atheists are all analytical and intellegent, known plenty who were just as much sheeple as a great deal of those who are religious.I think people able to pick things apart will find problems with any system; even if they themselves are indoctrined or accept some aspects of that system.

You mean him rejecting Hiesenburg's findings because "God doesn't play dice with the universe." ?

[Rhuen]

Yep, Einstein confirmed the math was sound. But still refused to believe it basically.
To Einstein the belief was the universe was static, not expanding, not shrinking, no chaotic or with a starting point basically.

[Roewan]

My first thought, "Wow. They have studies on everyf*cking thing now don't they?". My second is, don't we all entertain that thought at least once? The "holy shit, what if you die and that's it? You just die? Then what?" Analytical or not, most people doubt at some point. I can honestly say this, I can see where thinking analytically would drive you away from religion but not spirituality neccessarily.

[Caulfield]

As someone who came to accept his faith through analytical thinking I find the study rather strange.

For example:

"For example, students were asked this question: "A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?" The intuitive answer — 10 cents — would be wrong. A little math on the fly reveals that the correct answer would be 5 cents."

My gut instinct was "5 cents" - that's the first number I thought of. Perhaps I am the exception to the rule here, but I find the more a person analyses themselves, in particular their own thought processes, the more a person realises just how much of their analytical power rests on their intuition.

After answering three of these questions, the students were asked to rate a series of statements on belief, including, "In my life I feel the presence of the Divine," and "I just don't understand religion." Students who answered the three questions correctly — and presumably did a better job of engaging their analytical skills — were more likely to score lower on the belief scales.

I would hope that the research was actually far better than this article makes it out to be. For example, if I were to undertake it I would instinctively get the right answer, and then analyse it to be sure, and then answer the questions in favour of the religious.

In order to actually test whether or not analytical thinking is making people "less religious" you would first have to ascertain whether or not they arrived at the right and wrong question instinctively or analytically.

For example;
You have a group of five people who are poorly educated, they analyse the question and come to the [wrong] answer of "10c". These people also happen to be religious.
You also have a group of five people who are well educated, and they instinctively know the question is a trick (being used to such in exams) and on that instinct choose the (right) answer of "5c". These people also happen to be irreligious.

What you have, then, is a correlation being the religiosity of people and their ability to come to the (interestingly, instinctively) analytical answer, but their doing so actually has nothing to do with their analytical skills. This would be a case of "false causation".

So does this mean that religious faith can be undermined with just a little extra mental effort? Not really, said Nicholas Epley, a social psychologist at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the study. But it does show that belief isn't set in stone, but can respond to a person's context.

I find myself agreeing with Nichlas Epley here, with the additional "no duh".

[Beorht]

Have some Martin Luther quotes.

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God."

"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians."

"Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his Reason."

"Reason is the Devil's greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom ... Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism... She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets."

"There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason...Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed."

"Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God."

"To be a Christian, you must "pluck out the eye of reason."

http://articles.exch...ther-quotes.php

[FallingSpider]

I think critical thinking is the key, rather then an analytically mind. All of the men in my family are very analytically, none so much as my dad, and all of them are religious. Most of them are very closed minded and can not apply critical thinking to their beliefs. My dad often puts his beliefs before the safety and well being of others...So I would have to posit that being analytically doesn't necessarily free you from your own personal bias which is what prevents critical thinking in those areas.

[TheUnknowable]

true. Though the ability to draw conclusions from logic does seem to be something most "religious" people lack. I guess thats what happens when you belong to a religion because Mom and Dad were that religion, and they were that religion because grandma and grandpa were that religion, etc, back to when GGGGGGGgrandpa joe was converted in the middle ages.

[Caulfield]

As a point of interest, I am by far the most religious person to have commented in this thread and yet I'm the only one to have critically analysed the linked article rather than take the results on faith.

I think that speaks volumes to the inaccuracy of such studies.

[Beorht]

I think faith could extend to things beyond a belief in the divine or the supernatural. If you have no faith, you still might end up going with what "feels right" even if you can't prove it to be right or wrong. Of course, what feels right depends on the individual so it will lead different people down different paths. That said, when people have common feelings of right and wrong, good and evil, they might co-operate based on that. I think self-evident truths are faith-based, even if they are not necessarily theist in nature. A discomfort in the absence of objective moral certainties may compel inividuals to have faith in something greater than themselves that reveals itself to them in mysterious ways, bestowing lessons of correct and incorrect revealed internally rather than externally - the creator or architect revealing its will only to individuals, rather than everyone at the same time. People who have had this experience may find one another and communicate their experiences, finding it to be an experience common amongst them, collectively validating one another's self-evident truths.

Edited by Bright One, 08 May 2012 - 08:09 PM.