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https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... faith-god/

From the article:

Why are some people more religious than others? Answers to this question often focus on the role of culture or upbringing. While these influences are important, new research suggests that whether we believe may also have to do with how much we rely on intuition versus analytical thinking. In 2011 Amitai Shenhav, David Rand and Joshua Greene of Harvard University published a paper showing that people who have a tendency to rely on their intuition are more likely to believe in God. They also showed that encouraging people to think intuitively increased people’s belief in God. Building on these findings, in a recent paper published in Science, Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan of the University of British Columbia found that encouraging people to think analytically reduced their tendency to believe in God. Together these findings suggest that belief may at least partly stem from our thinking styles.

Gervais and Norenzayan’s research is based on the idea that we possess two different ways of thinking that are distinct yet related. Understanding these two ways, which are often referred to as System 1 and System 2, may be important for understanding our tendency towards having religious faith. System 1 thinking relies on shortcuts and other rules-of-thumb while System 2 relies on analytic thinking and tends to be slower and require more effort. Solving logical and analytical problems may require that we override our System 1 thinking processes in order to engage System 2. Psychologists have developed a number of clever techniques that encourage us to do this. Using some of these techniques, Gervais and Norenzayan examined whether engaging System 2 leads people away from believing in God and religion.

I don't buy it. There are plenty of mathematicians programmers scientist who think analytically who belief in God. Artist who are generally known not to be analytical yet there are plenty of examples in that area who are atheist.

bomgeography wrote:I don't buy it. There are plenty of mathematicians programmers scientist who think analytically who belief in God. Artist who are generally known not to be analytical yet there are plenty of examples in that area who are atheist.

My experience is that those who think more intuitively or with their feelings tend to be more religious. I also see those who are more analytical to be less religious. Your mistake is assuming people only do one or the other. What they are seeing does not mean their cannot be plenty of analytical thinkers that are still religious, or very intuitive thinkers who are not. It's just that analytical thinkers tend to be less religious then the other group.

Themis wrote:
My experience is that those who think more intuitively or with their feelings tend to be more religious. I also see those who are more analytical to be less religious. Your mistake is assuming people only do one or the other. What they are seeing does not mean their cannot be plenty of analytical thinkers that are still religious, or very intuitive thinkers who are not.

I read the article and found it a bit interesting but tried to be a bit analytical toward it and found it discouragingly mushy. The catagories are vague. Themis your comment makes a general intuitive sense but creates a question. What is the connection between thinking with intuition and thinking with feelings. I think they are very different things but I suspect the study was about feelings not intuition. It spoke of moving past short cuts and assumptions to start thinking analytically. Hm, is that even moving past thinking with feelings? Or is there even such a thing? I must be analytical because I can consider thinking about feelings . I can try to analyze what import they may have but how does one think with feelings?

There was no discussion about how to measure more or less religious belief. ( is willingness to go to priest before doctor or insisting on young earth necessarily more religious?)

What I was most puzzled by was the disregard of what intuitional thinking can mean.It is not just emotional short cuts, it may be inventive indepth perception of relationships. I was reminded of comments by a few people I have known l who are quite good at chess. I have discussed analytical reasoning and intuitive reasoning in chess strategy with them. Both are seen as valuable. When chess playing computers were fairly new I remember one player observing that beating the machine was helped by relying more on intuition, sometimes helped by stepping outside of analytic expectations.

The article mentioned showing picture of Rodins thinker to associate someone with their analytic mind. Why would the thinker not be approaching an intuitive realization? Probably because such are slower to arrive and do not always arrive right away.

huckelberry wrote:I read the article and found it a bit interesting but tried to be a bit analytical toward it and found it discouragingly mushy. The catagories are vague. Themis your comment makes a general intuitive sense but creates a question. What is the connection between thinking with intuition and thinking with feelings. I think they are very different things but I suspect the study was about feelings not intuition. It spoke of moving past short cuts and assumptions to start thinking analytically. Hm, is that even moving past thinking with feelings? Or is there even such a thing? I must be analytical because I can consider thinking about feelings . I can try to analyze what import they may have but how does one think with feelings?

There was no discussion about how to measure more or less religious belief. ( is willingness to go to priest before doctor or insisting on young earth necessarily more religious?)

What I was most puzzled by was the disregard of what intuitional thinking can mean.It is not just emotional short cuts, it may be inventive indepth perception of relationships. I was reminded of comments by a few people I have known l who are quite good at chess. I have discussed analytical reasoning and intuitive reasoning in chess strategy with them. Both are seen as valuable. When chess playing computers were fairly new I remember one player observing that beating the machine was helped by relying more on intuition, sometimes helped by stepping outside of analytic expectations.

The article mentioned showing picture of Rodins thinker to associate someone with their analytic mind. Why would the thinker not be approaching an intuitive realization? Probably because such are slower to arrive and do not always arrive right away.

The article is short and doesn't give much detail on what they we doing.

What is the connection between thinking with intuition and thinking with feelings.

I know people who tend to think with their feelings as apposed to others who think more analytically. Take people who may disagree about whether Eddie Murphy was the star in Brewsters Millions. I see these kind of arguments all the time where people are thinking with their feelings about how right they are that Eddie Murphy was the actor in the movie. Some won't even admit they are wrong when shown. Analytical thinking is more open to physical facts, while intuitive thinking is highly influenced by how we feel or were taught. I think everyone uses both, but we all use more one kind of thinking then another. I think they have there uses, but analytical thinking can really be lacking by some.

themis, I think that intuitive thinking may be a phrase that could refer to a variety of things. I suppose it could be used for the sort of emotional attachment or assumption argument you refer to. I have some reservations as to that being the usual meaning. I think it more properly refers to things very different and very much based upon the receipt and processing of information. That is why I brought up chess, an activity where assumptions can receive punishment.

I have lived my life overly attached to analytic thinking. don't get me wrong I think it is valuable, if I didn't I would not be so attached to it.

Intuitive thinking is what differentiates Mozart from musical hacks.

IHMO, (yeah, right.)

Having do a little reading on this, and I agree, mostly intuition is about what we might call the "primary brain." Is the cerebral cortex, the "firmware" of the body. The higher cortices take time process information. For example, the eyes don't really see color. In the cases, we much like animal. But there is a section of our brain that processes the information into color. Sort of like having a real time color tech processor.

What many might call intuition is primary brain sending information up to the higher cortices. Like when people train their bodies to react faster then can be seen, like Kung Fu fighers, concert pianists, gun fighters, etc. There is a lot of information the primary brain picks up but we never get because it might not be relevant. One example is: Once I was driving down the freeway when I felt something come through the driver window, (closed at the time.) I had just enough time to react and turn my back to the window as it exploded sending glass through out the car.

We have senses that are old, like the wolves and other survival senses. We can smell things like wolves can, but our brain doesn't give us that information. It ignores it. For example: We have discovered that dogs can smell a criminal. They have a particular scent of guilt and wrong doing that dogs can pick up and pick them out of a crowd. We have the ability to but we are not trained to understand it. However, we might have a bad feeling about someone, or a sense of danger. We can pick up micro movements or signs of things happening that higher cortices don't process.

On top of that, I believe that primary brain is connected to an even deeper sense of consciousness. Like primary needs and drives. This is one of the reasons I support the church. A church can protect family's identity, even a give a family identity. And family is a primary need. And so the deeper consciousness might give feelings of support to staying in the church, or beliefs that cause someone to stay in the church.

For example: I have been looking into my family genealogy. We have been in the church from very beginning. We were religious even before that. But what will happened to me and my family? Will we just drop off the map? Will we lose our identity and history forget us? Being part something is a part of who we are. But anyway, those feelings, if listened too, etc, has a interesting story to tell.

huckelberry wrote:themis, I think that intuitive thinking may be a phrase that could refer to a variety of things. I suppose it could be used for the sort of emotional attachment or assumption argument you refer to. I have some reservations as to that being the usual meaning. I think it more properly refers to things very different and very much based upon the receipt and processing of information. That is why I brought up chess, an activity where assumptions can receive punishment.

I have lived my life overly attached to analytic thinking. don't get me wrong I think it is valuable, if I didn't I would not be so attached to it.

Intuitive thinking is what differentiates Mozart from musical hacks.

Our minds have processed a lot of information in our life times. In chess, if we have learned the game really well, our minds have gone through analytical thinking about a lot of scenarios such that our unconscious brains may recognize certain scenarios giving us feelings certain moves are the right ones. This is how intuitive thinking can help us, but the brain is processing all information right or wrong. It tends to give us feelings/thoughts. Intuitive thinking can be wrong a lot, but can also make us look like genius's at times. I suspect Mozart had natural ability combined with good analytical skills in music allowing his intuitive thinking to make him look like a genius at times. Like all good genius's they have to come up with a lot of non-genius ideas as well.

This is the problem of Religion. It is information given to people with little to no analytical thinking involved. It's true because someone you trust says it is, and that's good enough for the brain. Analytical thinkers tend to question those assertions more, and since many religious beliefs cannot survive analytical questioning, analytical thinkers are going to have less of these religious beliefs. Literal floods and a young earth are good examples of beliefs that don't last long with analytical thinking.

Themis wrote:

This is the problem of Religion. It is information given to people with little to no analytical thinking involved. It's true because someone you trust says it is, and that's good enough for the brain. Analytical thinkers tend to question those assertions more, and since many religious beliefs cannot survive analytical questioning, analytical thinkers are going to have less of these religious beliefs. Literal floods and a young earth are good examples of beliefs that don't last long with analytical thinking.

Themis , If religion is primarily believing stuff like literal floods and young earth then analytic thinking is certainly an enemy. If religion is junk like that best be far away from it.

huckelberry wrote:

Themis wrote:

This is the problem of Religion. It is information given to people with little to no analytical thinking involved. It's true because someone you trust says it is, and that's good enough for the brain. Analytical thinkers tend to question those assertions more, and since many religious beliefs cannot survive analytical questioning, analytical thinkers are going to have less of these religious beliefs. Literal floods and a young earth are good examples of beliefs that don't last long with analytical thinking.

Themis , If religion is primarily believing stuff like literal floods and young earth then analytic thinking is certainly an enemy. If religion is junk like that best be far away from it.

Religion and it's beliefs can be quite diverse. Can an atheist be religious? I would be happy if we could at least get rid of some of the more obvious false beliefs. Most people lack good critical thinking skills important to analytical thinking. So many think faith(the blind kind) is a virtue and doubt or questioning a vice. Question everything.