New Research Says That Analytic Thinking Decreases Religious Beliefe

[p0intman]

Originally Posted by Warborn

Well, I guess it helped these guys reconcile their belief that human religions are obviously horseshit with the inherent wonder and mystery that is existence and, especially for Einstein, the universe and its inner workings.

Religions are infact, horseshit.

[Sirisian]

I was reading this article today about doomsday prophecies. Reminded me of this thread in regards to how people analyze information. Interesting view into the psychology of steadfast believers who can fabricate anything to hold onto a belief.

[Exmortius]

i consider myself to be very much analytical since i work in IT and work with a lot of troubleshooting/logic etc.... but i think it would be foolish to also think that there are some things that are not able to be explained. maybe living in a haunted house for a year woke me up to that lol. there is some stuff out there that we cannot explain or understand yet. but that is the kind of stuff i think i find most interesting overall. we are learning quite a lot it seems in this age where science slowly seems to be ramping up and computing power gets better.

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

I was reading this article today about doomsday prophecies. Reminded me of this thread in regards to how people analyze information. Interesting view into the psychology of steadfast believers who can fabricate anything to hold onto a belief.

This is the best companion to that news article. People are so, so, so fucking dumb. It's impossible for me to read that article and then see that list of doomsdays come-and-gone and not laugh at the stupid motherfuckers who comprise(d) Harold Camping menagerie of imbeciles. I'm sure it sucks for the ones who threw away their livelihoods and no doubt embarrassed their families quite a bit and otherwise now have to live life with everyone around them seeing them as clowns lead around by the nose by a crazy old man, but still. Stupid, stupid.

Originally Posted by Exmortius

there is some stuff out there that we cannot explain or understand yet.

No doubt, but the issue isn't that people who don't accept the existence of God(s) or ghosts or whatever believe everything is known in the universe, it's just that those are unsatisfactory answers on account of their relative lack of evidence. Being properly analytic means not being content with an answer to a problem which is only paper-thin, and "God did it" is about as paper-thin as it gets. And not even construction paper, but, like, that really thin paper they use to make Bible pages with.