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Atheism: reasoning, intelligence, & science are not key causes of it, in aggregate

#1
C C Offline
https://bigthink.com/the-well/atheism-rare-rational/

EXCERPTS (Will Gervais): We scientists are increasingly learning that the puzzle of faith cannot be solved without also solving the puzzle of atheism. And as we learn more and more about atheism and nonbelief, they are forcing us to rethink some of our bedrock assumptions about how both belief and disbelief work.

A commonly offered solution to the puzzle of faith is that religion just comes naturally as a sort of cognitive byproduct. A suite of specific mental adaptations helped our ancestors solve recurrent challenges, and these adaptations interact in such a way that religions are just good fits for how we think...

[...] “Some form of religious thinking seems to be the path of least resistance for our cognitive systems. By contrast, disbelief is generally the result of deliberate, effortful work against our natural cognitive dispositions — hardly the easiest ideology to propagate.

This notion that religion comes naturally has proven influential within science and has also attracted surprising support from New Atheist cheerleaders (perhaps because it situates their own rationality and cleverness as a key ingredient in their atheism)...

[...] Atheism is heavily stigmatized, not just in the U.S. but worldwide. For example, my lab has studies in which we describe a villain engaging in some sort of immoral action — they kick a puppy, or dabble in cannibalism, or experiment with incest. We then subtly gauge participants’ intuitions about the perpetrator.

In study after study, our respondents intuitively assume that people doing immoral deeds like these don’t believe in gods. In one study, we described [...] a full-blown serial killer ... Participants from 13 countries, including even atheist participants in some highly secular countries, intuited that the murderer cannot believe in god(s).

Not only do people readily infer atheism from described immorality, it turns out that they also read immorality into atheism.

[...] How about the other major claim about atheism made by the byproduct account: Does atheism require cognitive effort? Anecdotally, public atheists posit that intelligence, rationality, and science (all effortful cognitive endeavors) are the root cause of their own atheism...

Around 2009 or 2010, Ara Norenzayan and I sought to scientifically test the idea that atheism is underpinned by effortful cognitive reflection. In an initial study, we found [...] seemingly solid evidence to vindicate their central claim that atheism was all about rationality!

But the plot thickened. Rigorous follow-up studies repeatedly have been unable to produce similar results to our initial experiments. I have now accepted that the experiments in our initial Science paper were fatally flawed, the results no more than false positives. Beyond the experimental failures to replicate, the correlation between rational thinking and atheism turns out to be both weak and fickle across cultures.

Even in the U.S., my team found in a large and nationally representative sample that effortful cognitive reflection doesn’t at all predict atheism among people strongly exposed to religion as kids. [...] There is little scientific reason to believe that rationality and science are key causal contributors to atheism in the aggregate. This makes it all the more ironic that public-facing atheists who speak so reverently of science tend to be the most vocal advocates of the faulty notion that rationality is a prime driver of atheism. They’ve got the science wrong.

Religion is no less an evolutionary product [...] Through the processes of genetic evolution, we have been endowed with minds capable of imagining gods, and through the processes of cultural evolution, we have evolved intricate structures of beliefs and norms that have helped propel our species to greater and greater cooperative heights. The seemingly bizarre religious rituals that many deride as irrational may in fact be cultural evolutionary tricks that help create cooperative societies.

To me, this intricate cultural evolutionary play is infinitely more fascinating and fulfilling than the shallow, wholesale dismissal of religion offered by vocal public atheists. And to appreciate it, all you need to do is open yourself up to the possibility that over the millennia, religions may have survived and thrived in part because they served an evolutionary purpose.

[...] everyone — including atheists, which I am — can have a more mature, scientifically literate, and fulfilling relationship with religion if we are open to the possibility that it doesn’t poison everything... (MORE - missing details)
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#2
Magical Realist Offline
Quote:"Through the processes of genetic evolution, we have been endowed with minds capable of imagining gods, and through the processes of cultural evolution, we have evolved intricate structures of beliefs and norms that have helped propel our species to greater and greater cooperative heights. The seemingly bizarre religious rituals that many deride as irrational may in fact be cultural evolutionary tricks that help create cooperative societies.

To me, this intricate cultural evolutionary play is infinitely more fascinating and fulfilling than the shallow, wholesale dismissal of religion offered by vocal public atheists. And to appreciate it, all you need to do is open yourself up to the possibility that over the millennia, religions may have survived and thrived in part because they served an evolutionary purpose."

Over the past few decades I have softened in my view of religion. While I still deplore it's delusional hold on its believers, it seems to fulfill a useful purpose in consoling and motivating them. If people require such beliefs to give their life meaning, what is the harm in that? It's not like they are forcing their views on others. At least not the less fanatical ones, which are in the majority. It seems to provide a worldview template that enables one to get thru life's many miseries and disappointments. I myself miss that bolstering structure in my life, choosing instead to live in the mystery and uncertainty of what manifestly exists.
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#3
Zinjanthropos Offline
(Apr 18, 2022 10:48 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: Over the past few decades  I have softened in my view of religion. While I still deplore it's delusional hold on its believers, it seems to fulfill a useful purpose in consoling and motivating them. If people require such beliefs to give their life meaning, what is the harm in that? It's not like they are forcing their views on others. At least not the less fanatical ones. It seems to provide a worldview template that enables one to get thru life's many miseries and disappointments. I myself miss that bolstering structure in my life, choosing instead to live in the mystery and uncertainty of what is.

Excellent post MR. 

Although I still think god belief is more favourable towards men. Seems to me women follow but should they or do they really like it this way?
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#4
Yazata Offline
It's always seemed to me that agnosticism is the most intellectually justifiable position to take.

The problem with atheists is that in almost every case they go beyond admitting they don't have the answers to the big metaphysical questions. Despite their assertions that they don't have any beliefs but simply lack belief, almost all of them think that belief in God (or any other sort of religious belief) is intellectually irrational and not supported by any evidence (that they are willing to accept). There's often metaphysical belief (physicalism) implicit in what they say. They often embrace scientism and try to position themselves as the party of reason and idealized science.

Defending all the presuppositions inherent in so much atheist rhetoric will probably be just as difficult for them to justify as a theist's belief in God. (So atheists have taken to trying to evade the necessity of defending their own position by denying that they even have the beliefs that they wear on their sleeves and shout to the heavens.)

And it goes beyond that. Atheists are often just as strident moralists and evangelists as any fundie. Religion isn't just factually incorrect in their view, even more importantly it's evil, it's wrong, it's bad. In order to make the world a better place, religion needs to be silenced and stamped out.

The difficulty is that atheists' own moral intuitions are no more objective or intellectually justifiable than a religious person's religious intuitions. In each case it boils down to a matter of feelings, of intuitions... of faith.
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#5
C C Offline
(Apr 19, 2022 01:06 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote:
(Apr 18, 2022 10:48 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: Over the past few decades  I have softened in my view of religion. While I still deplore it's delusional hold on its believers, it seems to fulfill a useful purpose in consoling and motivating them. If people require such beliefs to give their life meaning, what is the harm in that? It's not like they are forcing their views on others. At least not the less fanatical ones. It seems to provide a worldview template that enables one to get thru life's many miseries and disappointments. I myself miss that bolstering structure in my life, choosing instead to live in the mystery and uncertainty of what is.

Excellent post MR. 

Although I still think god belief is more favourable towards men. Seems to me women follow but should they or do they really like it this way?

That's the case with almost the whole inventory of things cultivated in the past, though. At least with pagan religions, however, there were female deities and other supernatural entities.
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#6
Zinjanthropos Offline
Believe whatever it is you want to believe. Just don’t try and convince me to believe it also. Oh wait… I know, sounds like I want you to believe that’s best philosophy for everyone.

Is there a word for something too incomprehensible to explain, not rational enough to believe and impossible to prove?
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#7
C C Offline
(Apr 20, 2022 04:00 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [...] Is there a word for something too incomprehensible to explain, not rational enough to believe and impossible to prove?


The two old standbys, though maybe inadequate for wholly closing the door...

ineffable: Defying expression or description.

mystical: Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding.
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