

Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief - amirmc
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6080/493.abstract

======
amirmc
Found a Nature commentary (since the Science article has a paywall)

"Is rationality the enemy of religion?" [http://www.nature.com/news/is-
rationality-the-enemy-of-relig...](http://www.nature.com/news/is-rationality-
the-enemy-of-religion-1.10539)

Edit: Removed ranting about academic paywalls. Hopefully, the original authors
might add a pdf to their website e.g
<http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~ara/research.htm>

------
nextstep
Doesn't this seem obvious? I don't mean to be flippant, but central to
religion is acceptance of ideas which are: 1) illogical; and, 2) infallible,
and thus impervious to any real analysis. Any belief system that requires
faith for explanation is by definition at odds with analysis.

~~~
ars
Not really. Not all religious are illogical.

If you assume that something created "existence" then a lot of the rest
follows logically. (i.e. such a creator would want people to know about it,
would want to be acknowledged, etc.)

Math has axioms that can not be proven. Religion does too. If everything in
your religion follows logically from the axioms it's not any more illogical
than any school of thought.

Gödel proved that a logically consistent school of thought based entirely only
on the proven is impossible.

Note: Not all religions are actually structured this way. Some really do
require illogical belief. I'm just saying it's not an essential feature of
religion.

~~~
zerostar07
Name one major religion that is logical. It's not really about your personal
existential questions, religions are organized social phenomena (probably
biological adaptations one could say).

Maths and logic is a consistent system and it can even prove its
inconsistencies. Despite popular opinion, Godel's theorem does not provide
mathematical foundation to illogical truths, nor does it state that any
arbitrary argument cannot be decided. It's specific statements cannot be
decided. In short, Maths don't make metaphysical claims, and please don't use
Godel / Quantum indeterminacy / chaos theory / complexity theory as arguments
in religious discussions.

~~~
ars
All religions have as a core belief the particulars of the creation of
existence. Most require that the creation happened as a act of will by a
sentience. Not all though, some hold that it was created as reflex of sort.
But all claim to know how it happened (and agnosticism holds that we don't
know, and atheism holds that it created itself with an additional belief that
we will eventually figure out how it happened).

That belief will never go away, so if that's your criteria there is no point
in continuing further.

But religion is more than just that, there are all sorts of other things that
religions require, and that's where my argument lies. Rites, rituals,
prohibited practices, required practices, what is considered good, what is
bad, what is neutral. Some religions don't require anything at all - just the
core belief in a creator and that's it.

The question is what is the source of these things - are they dictated by
fiat, and believers just believe it without thinking about it? Or does every
single ritual and belief require rigorous explanation and analysis before
being accepted as necessary.

And you got my argument about Gödel backward. I did not argue religion from
Gödel, rather that everything also requires some belief without proof. (The
interesting arguments about what if that belief was wrong are what
differentiates science from religion.) But the need for the belief doesn't go
away.

~~~
btilly
_All religions have as a core belief the particulars of the creation of
existence._

Buddhism is a counter-example. There are many strands of Buddhism, but in
general they do not take a position on the creation of the universe, the
existence of deities, or many other things that most Westerners would think
are central to a religion.

If all that you're really familiar with are variants on one religion (Judaism,
Christianity and Islam share holy books), it is easy to believe that all
religions look the same with different texts. But in fact there is a much
wider variety of religions in the world than that.

~~~
true_religion
Um.... its not just Judiasm. It's also every animist branch that makes up the
traditional religions of Africa. It's also the religions of the Mayans,
Aztecs, Norse, and Greco-Romans.

It's also the Shintoist religion of Japan and the Hinduists of the Indian
Subcontinent.

If Buddhism lacks something that all other religions independently developed
then is Buddhism really a religion?

~~~
btilly
That is a very sweeping claim. I'm certainly not qualified to talk about every
one of those religions. I doubt that you are either.

Also the existence of a creation myth does not mean that it is particularly
important to that religion. For instance the Catholic faith has a detailed
creation myth in the Bible. However the official statements from leaders of
that faith (see, for instance, Pope John Paul's October 22, 1996 address where
he says that "evolution is more than a hypothesis") accepts the truth of the
scientific consensus on how the world came to be, even though it is in direct
and obvious conflict with their creation myth.

Yes, I know all of the logical arguments you can make for the creation myths
being central to the faith. They have been made before, including by a variety
of Catholics. However the current belief of many millions of Catholics, and
the official statements of the church, demonstrate that their creation myth is
NOT, in fact, central to the religion.

~~~
true_religion
Don't narrow this down to a discussion about creation myths when _you_ said it
was about creation myths, the existence of dieties, and many other things that
westerns consider part of a religion.

If you lack the mystical faith-based aspects of religion then are you a
religion? If so, then why isn't Confusianism a religion? Why isn't Neitzchism
a religion?

Secondly, I don't know what kind of qualifications one needs to talk about
religion, but if ordinary people can no longer do it then what you are
encouraging is a priesthood, and not a science.

~~~
btilly
Excuse me, _I_ said?

Where? Provide me a link.

Here is a hint. The point about creation myths was brought up at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3901527> by someone named ars. I
registered an objection. You then told me that virtually every religion in the
world is an example and gave an extensive list. I demonstrated that the
Catholic faith stands as an example of a religion with a creation myth that is
not really core to the religion.

As for qualifications, anyone can talk about religion, it is up to you whether
you discuss it intelligently. I would suggest that you start with developing
the skill of being able to correctly note who said what, then work up to the
skill of being able to give references backing up claims that you choose to
make. (It helps when you don't make sweeping claims.)

~~~
ars
BTW you misunderstood what I said about creation. I wasn't talking about _how_
creation happened (for example Genesis). I was talking about _that_ there was
an active creation by something (God).

I'm not talking about creation of the Earth and animals - I'm talking about
creation of existence.

------
sarbogast
That is probably one of the stupidest studies I've read about in years. Along
with the scientific confirmation that yes, the fact that penguins and hens
can't fly might have something to do with their wing size to weight ratio, and
the amazing discovery that all winners of the lottery have plaid the lottery
at least once in their life. I mean, who would have guessed?

------
Kip9000
Many of the founding fathers of modern science were religious. E.g. Isaac
Newton, Max Plank etc.. This theory flies in the face of that empirical
evidence.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science))

------
alantrrs
Here is the full article
[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=losing-
your...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=losing-your-
religion-analytic-thinking-can-undermine-belief)

------
pradocchia
I'll summarize the interesting part:

 _Analytic thought appears to suppress intuition, with religious belief as a
casualty._

Ignoring religious belief for the moment--seems like a side effect, really--
intuition is a really valuable thing. Now I'm an analytic person with an
analytic job in an analytic world. Has my intuition already gone to pot? Just
how atrophied is it? And how would I get it back? Go to church more?

~~~
ajross
I'm pretty sure they mean "intuition" to mean the thought process, not the
skill of forming hypotheses from incomplete evidence.

------
nvk
Please don't post articles behind paywalls.

------
gizzlon
Can't read the full text.. Guess I'll have to take their word for it =/

------
rollypolly
This would make an interesting HN poll. "Are you religious? Y/N?"

~~~
d503
There was actually a poll about two years ago.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1486594>

Edit: 1519 out of 2251 (or 67.5%) responded Nonreligious/Atheist/Agnostic/etc.

~~~
amirmc
Interesting but it seems odd to lump atheists and agnostics in the same bin.

------
weissguy
In other news, the sun is still pretty hot!

------
rsanchez1
It's funny how an article like this, behind a paywall no less, gets promoted,
while an article on how Obama is intimidating Romney donors gets dismissed
with an "why is this on HN?"

Well, why is THIS on HN?

