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College students leaving religion: It's not "the science", it's "science"

Jose Fly

Fisker of men
A common explanation for why US college students have been leaving Christianity is to attribute it to them taking biology, genetics, geology, etc., being taught information that contradicts their beliefs, realizing that much of what they were taught in church isn't true, and abandoning Christianity as a result.

However, a recent study indicates that it's not specific courses of study that's responsible, rather it's studying secular science at all and subsequently learning how to question assumptions and engage in critical thinking.

Inquiry, Not Science, as the Source of Secularization in Higher Education | Sociology of Religion | Oxford Academic (oup.com)

The traditional claim in the literature on religion and science is that exposure to science leads to secularity because the claims about the natural world in the two systems are incompatible. More recently, research has narrowed this claim and shown that conflict over knowledge in the USA is primarily limited to one religion—conservative Protestantism—and only to a few fact claims. In this paper, I test this claim using longitudinal data from matched surveys taken in students’ first and fourth year of university. I find no evidence that the science is more secularizing than nonscience. I then turn to a distinction in university majors long used by sociologists of education—between majors focused on inquiry versus those focused on applying knowledge—and find that majors focused on inquiry are more likely to secularize than those focused on application. I interpret this to mean that learning to inquire secularizes.

That makes sense to me and is consistent with my experiences. I've kind of always been a critical thinker who questions everything, and it's always been a major stumbling block between me and religious friends, family, and institutions (churches). They've always struck me as a bit put off at my asking tough questions and not taking things merely on faith.

It's also nice to see that people who are raised in religious environments where critical thinking is discouraged can not only learn to engage in it, but can also enhance the skill.

I guess there's hope for everyone! ;)

(h/t: friendly atheist)
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
Ah yes, the idea that in order to stop being religious, religious folks just need to 'educate themselves' and 'start asking hard questions'.

Most of history disagrees, as do folks like John Lennox.
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
upload_2021-5-18_7-30-44.gif
 

Jose Fly

Fisker of men
Ah yes, the idea that in order to stop being religious, religious folks just need to 'educate themselves' and 'start asking hard questions'.
I didn't see anything indicating that the purpose of the paper was to identify ways to get people to stop being religious. Rather, it's about figuring out causes behind an already existing phenomenon (college students abandoning their faith).

Most of history disagrees, as do folks like John Lennox.
I don't believe anyone said anything like "religious people can't be critical thinkers".
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Ah yes, the idea that in order to stop being religious, religious folks just need to 'educate themselves' and 'start asking hard questions'.
It only affects some that way, particularly those who
believed things like the world being only a few thousand
years old. When one's foundation isn't so rooted in
literalism regarding loopy disprovable things, one is
less vulnerable to losing one's religion.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
The article is blocked so I can't check some questions I had about it.

One big question is considering secular theology. Another way of looking at the same question is to ask if they are more "spiritual but not religious", agnostic or atheist.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Ah yes, the idea that in order to stop being religious, religious folks just need to 'educate themselves' and 'start asking hard questions'.

Most of history disagrees, as do folks like John Lennox.
I think it's more that we have reached a fundamental point in history where in the "modern world" only the dogmatic and willfully stupid are able to believe literalist interpretations of ancient beliefs. We've learned so much about the world, the solar system, the galaxy, and even the universe since most religions practiced today were born. And pagan religions, we don't just reconstruct them because so much has been lost but because we ethically know better regarding a lot of practices in the past.
Add in that it often is those who are too deeply into their religion making a public scene about things, with so many others opting to keep religion a personal matter, it starts to look worse. Religion hasn't kept up. Science has. And the religions that try are saturated with pseudoscience and historic fabrications and exaggerations.
Add in today, that while the majority have never really done much of academic/book heavy work, today we've placed authoritative figures aside and deeper, more critical readings of text in favor of believing "what I think and feel is equally valid and important." This is why so many will take a cheap shot at the Bible and claim it has pi wrong. Yes, strictly by what's there, but not actually when we realize this was before zero, before algebra was formalized, and no had a symbol for pi but the Jews borrowed from the Babylonians, who like Greeks knew 3 is an approximation.
Bret Weinstein made the comment moderating a debate between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson, stating he thought a good summary of their debate is a part of it revolving around how our traditional means of understanding the world are failing us today. And many just are not inclined to do much more than follow a self-imposed line of breadcrumbs to follow when they are given information to work with.
 

SigurdReginson

Grēne Mann
Premium Member
Though the sciences did play their role in my eventual atheism and materialist viewpoint, they aren't why I left my original religion - that was mostly due to an irreconcilable moral dilemma I had in regards to what scripture said vs. what I observed in my own personal surroundings. Had I not been a hard nosed scriptural literalist, my faith probably wouldn't have crumbled so easily in the face of inconsistency.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
More recently, research has narrowed this claim and shown that conflict over knowledge in the USA is primarily limited to one religion—conservative Protestantism—and only to a few fact claims.
In reality science only contradicts a small amount of only conservative (Biblical literalist) thinking.

I see another pattern in that exposure to secularism and science dissuades one from any old traditional religious upbringing. But that kind of upbringing is already rather weak in general in the college students of today.

I see critical thinking as in the more spiritual types today taking a different path today. After disillusionment with old-time religion comes a period of non-religion. After that for the more spiritually inclined I find many find a comfortable home in eastern and New Age type perspectives that accords with but goes beyond science.
 

Jose Fly

Fisker of men
The article is blocked so I can't check some questions I had about it.

One big question is considering secular theology. Another way of looking at the same question is to ask if they are more "spiritual but not religious", agnostic or atheist.
Not being in the office, I can't access the paper either. However, assuming that it relies on the same publicly-available surveys of people abandoning religion would mean that the majority become "nones", who basically describe themselves as simply "not religious".
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
It seems we are talking about a certain kind of religiosity usually found in the US. This is clearly a topic all its own.
Yeah ngl a lot of my Christian friends find the US version of hardcore Christianity utterly baffling. Hell some of those Christians are themselves scientists
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
A common explanation for why US college students have been leaving Christianity is to attribute it to them taking biology, genetics, geology, etc., being taught information that contradicts their beliefs, realizing that much of what they were taught in church isn't true, and abandoning Christianity as a result.

However, a recent study indicates that it's not specific courses of study that's responsible, rather it's studying secular science at all and subsequently learning how to question assumptions and engage in critical thinking.

Inquiry, Not Science, as the Source of Secularization in Higher Education | Sociology of Religion | Oxford Academic (oup.com)

The traditional claim in the literature on religion and science is that exposure to science leads to secularity because the claims about the natural world in the two systems are incompatible. More recently, research has narrowed this claim and shown that conflict over knowledge in the USA is primarily limited to one religion—conservative Protestantism—and only to a few fact claims. In this paper, I test this claim using longitudinal data from matched surveys taken in students’ first and fourth year of university. I find no evidence that the science is more secularizing than nonscience. I then turn to a distinction in university majors long used by sociologists of education—between majors focused on inquiry versus those focused on applying knowledge—and find that majors focused on inquiry are more likely to secularize than those focused on application. I interpret this to mean that learning to inquire secularizes.

That makes sense to me and is consistent with my experiences. I've kind of always been a critical thinker who questions everything, and it's always been a major stumbling block between me and religious friends, family, and institutions (churches). They've always struck me as a bit put off at my asking tough questions and not taking things merely on faith.

It's also nice to see that people who are raised in religious environments where critical thinking is discouraged can not only learn to engage in it, but can also enhance the skill.

I guess there's hope for everyone! ;)

(h/t: friendly atheist)
This also neatly accounts for all those creationist engineers and doctors we were discussing in another thread a few days ago. ;)
 

Jose Fly

Fisker of men
In reality science only contradicts a small amount of only conservative (Biblical literalist) thinking.
I think that depends on how deep into religious claims you want to go.

I see another pattern in that exposure to secularism and science dissuades one from any old traditional religious upbringing. But that kind of upbringing is already rather weak in general in the college students of today.

I see critical thinking as in the more spiritual types today taking a different path today. After disillusionment with old-time religion comes a period of non-religion. After that for the more spiritually inclined I find many find a comfortable home in eastern and New Age type perspectives that accords with but goes beyond science.
That's not surprising. Spiritual folks will eventually find something that works for them.
 

SigurdReginson

Grēne Mann
Premium Member
It seems we are talking about a certain kind of religiosity usually found in the US. This is clearly a topic all its own.

Definitely.

I've been out of that headspace for a while, so it's weird for me to kind of step back into that mode of thought and think about the way I used to perceive those things. Who I was then vs. now are truly two different people.

I'm not sure very many places in the west experience religious zeal on quite the same level as we do here in the US.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
Definitely.

I've been out of that headspace for a while, so it's weird for me to kind of step back into that mode of thought and think about the way I used to perceive those things. Who I was then vs. now are truly two different people.

I'm not sure very many places in the west experience religious zeal on quite the same level as we do here in the US.
As a Brit and more broadly as a European it is seven levels of baffling to me.
 

Jose Fly

Fisker of men
This also neatly accounts for all those creationist engineers and doctors we were discussing in another thread a few days ago. ;)
LOL....I believe the paper addresses engineering and how it's an outlier. The FA site quoted the paper as saying that "pure fields lead to more secularization than applied fields" and that that "explains the typical outlier in such studies--engineering".
 
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