"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence; it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines." --Bertrand Russell
Few subjects generate as much friction among scientists as science's relation to religious belief. Many scientists take a position like Bertrand Russell's. It's a position that believers feel insults their intelligence. And between devout faith and atheistic scientism one can discern an infinite number of more conciliatory positions.
One comfoting position is the idea that science and religion are such different domains that they need never impinge on one another's territory. In Stephen Jay Gould's words they are "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). It is a position taken by many scientists who also hold religious beliefs, or simply "believe in belief" as Daniel Dennett predicts many closet unbelievers do.
Conciliatory ideas like NOMA allow everybody to carry on with business as usual: nobody calls anybody "stupid" and nobody gets burned at the stake. So science and religion can potter away in their distinct boxes, minding their own business.
At the heart of Bertrand Russell's quote, though, is a prediction. That religion will decline -- if not entirely wither -- in societies where reason and science enjoy prominence. That prediction turns out to be correct. Religious belief has slowly dwindled since the Enlightenment. Leading scientists are far more likely than the general public to identify as agnostic or atheist. They are, unsurprisingly, also much more likely to accept scientific accounts of the world, including the idea of evolution by natural selection.
And although there is considerable disagreement about whether education kills religious faith, people's chances of identifying as religious believers declines with scientific education and education in rational thinking.
Some of the most exciting progress in this sphere comes from authors who examine religion as a natural phenomenon. My favourite book on the subject is Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell," although Jesse Bering's "The Belief Instinct" and Michael Shermer's "The Believing Brain" are almost equally excellent. By examining the evolved underpinnings of religious belief, scientists are beginning to understand what compels so many people to believe.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a paper by Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan who showed experimentally that merely reminding believers of the effectiveness of the police can lessen their distrust of atheists. I see now the same authors have a paper in Science entitled "Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief."
In a series of five studies, they explored the links between thinking analytically -- as opposed to thinking intuitively -- and religious belief. They first showed that people who are good at solving analytic problems and resisting the intuitive answer to questions are also less likely to be religious, to believe in the existence of supernatural agents such as God, the devil and angels, and less likely to think intuitively about religion.
They then manipulated cues that merely suggest the use of analytic processing by priming them with:
It's a small study, limited as always by the constraints on what experimenters can achieve, but it shows not only that there is a link between belief and analytic thinking but that stimulating people to think analytically can cause a drop in belief. Or in the authors' words: "Although these findings do not speak directly to conversations about the inherent rationality, value, or truth of religious beliefs, they illuminate one cognitive factor that may influence such discussions."
As it becomes clearer that religion is, in some senses, the opposite of rational thinking, we may have to shed the comfort of "I'm OK, you're OK" ideas, including NOMA. The most fervent anti-evolutionists in the USA understand this implicitly, and their obsession with homeschooling and opposing rational thought is their way of fighting for their beliefs. The most forceful atheists, too, understand this.
We probably can't keep pottering away in our different sheds forever.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.
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The planet, and what passes for civilization is a farce. Much of the reason for that is the psuedo scientists who really are doing little but "creating" the conditions for some rather unsavory justifications. The biggest problem that these people will likely encounter now is that people already know what to expect. They will connect the dots.
Let me get this right. In the name of science you will use the inferior humans to figure out how to make the rich and elite into superhumans? That sounds lovely, and perhaps more realistic?
The argument science makes is one that would put it in a predatory role for the future.
Much like religion.
Deniers = heretics.
Truth be damned.
I looked at all of the miracles portrayed by religion and decided that they just couldn't happen. And I still wonder, because we can now see almost to the end of the universe, where is heaven and where is hell, other than in our minds.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” —Ephesians 2:8-9
The Word of God plainly teaches that eternal life is the “FREE GIFT” (Romans 5:15) of God. Ephesians 2:8-9 are clear on the matter... Man has no part in God's salvation. When Paul says, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12), he did not say to work out God's salvation. Over and over in the Psalms, 26-times, references are made to “Thy Salvation,” that is, God's salvation. It is God that saves sinners, and not man. No priest nor minister can forgive your sins. Only Jesus Who has the nail-scared hands and feet can forgive men's sins. Salvation is not something that is achieved; but rather simply received.
It's not what you're doing that gets you to Heaven, it's where you are looking. LOOK TO JESUS!
Salvation is based upon the PROMISES of God. Titus 1:2, “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, PROMISED before the world began.” Salvation is not a matter of man doing something for God; but of what God has done for man. God in His unconditional love sent His only begotten Son into the world to SAVE SINNERS!
"While it is true that science,to the extent of its grasp of causative connections,may reach important conclusions as to the compatibility and incombatibility of goals and evaluations,the independent and fundamental definitions regarding goals and values remain beyond science's reach" From IDEAS AND OPINIONS . The Enlightenment and age of Reason will never explain away one's desire to worship God and religion will never be able to explain the universe. I appreciate science and discovery , to be sure the world is better off for many reasons because of the efforts of science, but what does science gain by attempting to diminish and destroy a personal decision to believe in God?
Einstein 's comments are still true today, for science, something's are out of your reach and probably always will be.PEACE
I go to church to learn about God and love and end up confused. I know there is one I just don't understand why ....who made up this shit...I am reading a book on Babylon and they had gods whats the difference...just asking
If people wish to burn members of their own community at the stake, it's still not OK.
It's high time that we all grew out of superstition.
Evidence-based lives.
The brunt of 'deception' is "those deceived trust the deceptor, and unwittingly get deceived: with good intent they take off in the wrong direction, not knowing the harm to themselves and others.
"But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" Matt.15:9. The hypocrites need people to not reason to push their megachurch/send us your money agenda.
Of course, this does not mean that we should be equally in support of both modes of mental operation in modern life. The religiously charged irrational mindset to which we are all more or less designed to be susceptible, given our population numbers and today's crazy military-industrial-grade destructive capacities could easily lead us down paths of sudden or slow-motion apocalypse.
Dr. Paul J. Watson
Department of Biology
University of New Mexico
7 May 2012
email: pwatson at unm dot edu
My view is based, necessarily, on my “experience” of the theory and data of evolutionary neuroscience and psychology. (“Thinking” is often separated from “experience,” but that is a false distinction, usually made by somebody who is trying to turn off your own thinking, or change it, with either conscious or unconscious, good or bad intent.) I am offering an evolutionary model of the exquisitely tricky but ultimately complementary non-antagonistic coevolution of analytical thought and non- or pseudo-analytical religious faith - a responsive, cue-sensitive neurological mechanism for effective and efficient switching between these "modes."
The physical basis of "the switch" may have many components, including elements on the scale of differentiated functional roles of the left and right brain hemispheres. When I think of the switch, I sometimes metaphorically envision one of those huge lever-type electrical switches that, in the movies, “get thrown," to send massive current through electric chairs or Frankenstein’s monster. But no doubt there are many subtle mechanisms. [End P1 of 2]
Modes of thinking/emotion/sensation DO physically exist. We begin to be able to see them, via fMRI, etc., and by their behavioral and phenomenological results. Eventually, such environmentally responsive "modes" or "configurations" will be highly explicable based on measurable brain behavior. These radically different, but ultimately complimentary configurations occur on unconscious and conscious "levels." I’m an admirer of Damasio for sure.
A main thing I try to see in myself, during moments when I am a little bit less of an automaton, and the view I invite students in my human behavior classes to investigate, is that we live in massively subjective conscious worlds, largely or entirely controlled by a "thinking" and ruthlessly inclusive fitness-oriented unconscious. So, I do not think we are in disagreement (?). Cheers, PJW.
The upshot is that using a robust adaptationist approach to understanding the coevolution of capacities for critical questioning and rational investigation on the one hand, AND the ability to snap into an uncritical collectivist mode of “thinking” on the other, should NOT be seen as having been in fundamental opposition. Indeed, displaying and exercising the ability to be BOTH kind of creature, systematically, in response to social cues and circumstances, probably leads to the most effective groups, in which individual inclusive fitness, on average, is likely to be maximized.
Although I do not remember it being developed much, I think I was helped to think in this direction years ago by a comment in Scott Atran's generally non-adaptationist book on the evolution of religion, "In God's We Trust." Atran states on p.5, "The trick is in knowing how and when to suspend factual belief without countermanding the facts and compromising survival." [see part 4]
What a crazy program of selection we have been under! No?
I suspect that much pan-cultural religious ritual provides individuals a chance to display and to actually exercise (neurally wire and crystallize) one's ability to switch from being a "good and productive citizen scientist" to an "unquestioning believer" in the in-group's morals, priorities, goals and leadership system. Nothing shows one's ability to radically transform oneself from critical thinker to blind collectivist than requiring one to publicly display that one finds systematically improvable and far-fetched religious narratives emotionally compelling. [see part 3]
TI posit the existence of a discrete cognitive adaptation that allows humans to switch cleanly and quickly from (1) a mode of belief / thought / feeling centered on rationality and an appreciation of evidence to (2) a radically alternative mode in which belief is based on heartfelt faith in the truth of in-group specific supernatural pronouncements and associated claims about reality. In this second "faith" mode, rational arguments are experienced as empty or even distasteful.
In the current study, it appears to me that the experiment manipulated this hypothesized switch in a low potency manner. Moderate to mild (low stakes) stimuli requiring rationality were followed by mild stimuli to switch into the faith mode. More potent stimuli to switch to faith or irrationality mode would entail the use of religious narratives, symbols, and things like music native to (traditional within) the specific subject's social in-group.
What would be the sense of having such a potent cognitive switching mechanism from a Darwinian, evolutionary psychological point of view? To me, the adaptive significance seems obvious... (see part 2).
Personally, I will stick with a morality that can be reasoned and discussed, rather than one passed down by an unquestioned authority.
This is NOT to say that religious people cannot do good, as doing good for ANY reason is still, after all, doing good. But when discussing morality and moral worth, gods just get in the way.
On the other side of the coin we now turn to the true practitioners of Atheistic philosophy. Carl Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, PolPot, Moa se Tung, and others. None of these folks rack up points in the morality dept. Many of my friends are Atheists, and yet during our conversations they have never been able to successfully explain their intuitive disgust. An intuitive disgust of things reprehensible. An intuitive sense of right and wrong.
It is illogical and scientifically unsound to suggest that morality developed from sheer matter, and chemistry. Something cannot be created from nothing.
I don't think my mother ever was really a Unitarian. My parents reasons for choosing that church were not only about dogma. She was mystified when I told her that I didn't figure I was really a Christian and was rather agnostic about God. I obviously missed whatever the irrational part of my religious upbringing was.
It took me a long time on the sidelines having to have reasons, before I finally got it that life inside the mechanism is illogical and irrational and immaterial and it's what you want that matters and not the reasons for it. I would say that analytical thinking kept me from having a full life, although it didn't hurt the pocket book. My sympathies are no longer with the reason crowd.