belief decreases with analytical thinking

[vkaul1]

www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/intuitive-thinking-religious-belief-analytical-research_n_1457396.html

It has a been a very controversial article.

[ash]

Yes, the more you think about stuff, the less certain you are.
It's a common experience.

[gerard]

"belief decreases with analytical thinking"

and with autism:

Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God

Ara Norenzayan, Will M. Gervais, Kali H. Trzesniewski

Abstract

Religious believers intuitively conceptualize deities as intentional agents with mental states who anticipate and respond to
human beliefs, desires and concerns. It follows that mentalizing deficits, associated with the autistic spectrum and also
commonly found in men more than in women, may undermine this intuitive support and reduce belief in a personal God.
Autistic adolescents expressed less belief in God than did matched neuro-typical controls (Study 1). In a Canadian student
sample (Study 2), and two American national samples that controlled for demographic characteristics and other correlates
of autism and religiosity (Study 3 and 4), the autism spectrum predicted reduced belief in God, and mentalizing mediated
this relationship. Systemizing (Studies 2 and 3) and two personality dimensions related to religious belief, Conscientiousness
and Agreeableness (Study 3), failed as mediators. Mentalizing also explained the robust and well-known, but theoretically
debated, gender gap in religious belief wherein men show reduced religious belief (Studies 2–4).


article (also in PDF file):

www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0036880

[gerard]

Jun 16, 2012 19:09:29 GMT -6 malati said:

Jun 11, 2012 16:50:51 GMT -6 gerard said:

"belief decreases with analytical thinking"

and with autism:

Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God

Ara Norenzayan, Will M. Gervais, Kali H. Trzesniewski

Abstract

Religious believers intuitively conceptualize deities as intentional agents with mental states who anticipate and respond to
human beliefs, desires and concerns. It follows that mentalizing deficits, associated with the autistic spectrum and also
commonly found in men more than in women, may undermine this intuitive support and reduce belief in a personal God.
Autistic adolescents expressed less belief in God than did matched neuro-typical controls (Study 1). In a Canadian student
sample (Study 2), and two American national samples that controlled for demographic characteristics and other correlates
of autism and religiosity (Study 3 and 4), the autism spectrum predicted reduced belief in God, and mentalizing mediated
this relationship. Systemizing (Studies 2 and 3) and two personality dimensions related to religious belief, Conscientiousness
and Agreeableness (Study 3), failed as mediators. Mentalizing also explained the robust and well-known, but theoretically
debated, gender gap in religious belief wherein men show reduced religious belief (Studies 2–4).


article (also in PDF file):

www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0036880

Gerard

I have heard this before. I note that autism is an illness.

Yes, as far as I know autism, like schizophrenia, is a damage of the right frontal lobe.


On the other hand, I just read an article today about atheism here in the Netherlands. It, briefly, said atheism is dead.

Nobody feels the urge anymore to refute the Christian belief in a personal God because Christianity itself has been completely marginalized (but not dead).

An atheist used to be somebody who thought God important enough not to belief in.

The new disbelief is indifference. Atheism is called a zombie-philosophy, it is dead but it doesn’t know it yet.

So although indifference can also be a symptom of autism I don’t think here in this context this indifference is related to autism.

There is a global revival of religion and a widespread interest in “spirituality” but in the intellectual discourse there is no interest in these phenomena here.