How Critical Thinkers Lose Their Faith in God

[Sunstone]

How Critical Thinkers Lose Their Faith in God

An old, but thought-provoking, article. Please discuss.

 

[BSM1]

I think critical thinkers may lose their faith in the 'God du jour' that is usually presented by the current religions. However, I don't think they would necessarily become atheistic (although I'm sure some do).

edit:
I went back and re-read the article and it seems that the writer was very careful in not using the term atheist.

 

[SabahTheLoner]

Interesting they only use the term "God" to equate belief. I wonder what could be said of other non-monotheistic beliefs.

 

[Dennis Kean]

The reason for why critical thinking appears to lead people into less belief in God may well be because science is designed to exclude notions about God in seeking for solutions.

My point is that the "Nouveaux" wannabe "Critical thinking" is the old "ad hock thinking to impress". Critical thinking depends on knowledge of original ideas, laws, rules, metrics and precision. To elicit a modality of self reliance for reward by fame many will sell their mother and most certainly their God, since they never really met him. But it is a different thing to encourage someone to recognize that they are just a library of great ideas and whose knowledge is allowed to be gleaned from whatever source the person desires. All men are politicians, by nature. You ask them something and they will first want to know why you are asking that question. The answer depends on the carrot. So, the carrot on the stick contaminates the test in this article. Take away the carrot/motivations and you will find a better thinker in the person you are testing. Of course, being that communication between people may include an intense exchange of vocal intonations, bodily movements (Kinesics) and shared security tests and validations, it is only infinitesimally significant to claim a conclusion of the sort given in that article.

 

[Skwim]

Hey, great article. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

What I found interesting was that

"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."​

Which appears to mean analytical thinking is preferable to thinking intuitively, so much so that it's best to reduce intuitive think in favor of analytical thinking.

Also, it was interesting that the researchers found that

"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."

"Since System 2 thinking requires a lot of effort, the majority of us tend to rely on our System 1 thinking processes when possible. Evidence suggests that the majority of us are more prone to believing than being skeptical."

​

In short, System 1 thinking is a lazy approach to issues whereas System 2 thinking is an active approach.

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[Revoltingest]

I went back and re-read the article and it seems that the writer was very careful in not using the term atheist.

Doesn't want to scare people, eh.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

The article ends with:

"Gervais and Norenzayan point out that analytic thinking is just one reason out of many why people may or may not hold religious beliefs. In addition, these findings do not say anything about the inherent value or truth of religious beliefs—they simply speak to the psychology of when and why we are prone to believe."

Therefore I think it would be wrong to draw any firm conclusions about why some people are religious and others are not. It is true in my experience of reality that we use intuition to navigate our way through life, otherwise we'd die of old age before deciding what hat to wear. Most the time our intuition is great for getting us through the day, but of course it can be wrong, scientific discovery tells us that, which is why critical thinking has value. Critical thinking is a discipline, it definitely taxes the grey matter more than intuition. However, the benefits are self evident, we'd still be wondering what the gods are angry about during a lightning storm without it.

I'm a middle aged man, but I'm still learning new things about myself and the world I live in every day with critical thinking and intellectual honesty (those last two words don't get anything like enough attention in religious debates for my money). Long live critical thinking I say!

 

[Unveiled Artist]

How Critical Thinkers Lose Their Faith in God

An old, but thought-provoking, article. Please discuss.

It was hard reading the article. My brain isn't wired for thick subjects; but, I think the reason why critical thinkers lose their faith in god is that they begin to find other reasons why events happen before attributing the causes as from a supernatural source.

It's a process of elimination game, I guess. If one experiences a coincidence that happens in sequences on a given day always after church and related to a prayer, the believer will almost always attribute it to god (for example). A Critical thinker would process and eliminate the causes of such strange conclusions and probably because there are always a non supernatural cause, there isn't a reason to believe god is the answer.

What I find interesting is that some critical thinkers don't take into account that what believers call the supernatural is just a part of life. The only think the critical thinker is doing to a believer is belittling the event while the believer us seeing the positive in it. How they attribute it and the terms to who and what shouldn't change the fact that their view of the world gives more meaning than they would think of someone who doesn't see the blessings of god.

It's an unnecessary attribution of events to god to make life less mundane and more with purpose as opposed to just making the cause god and pushing away all other non-supernatural causes.

I honestly can't find a way to really study this. Belief is pretty much a psychological and cultural thing. I just find many people are more apt to believe in god because they are naturally gullible and open to experiences so strong they don't want to analyze.

It's like if someone hit me in the head and I didn't see them, I would not think about who hit me at the moment but the pain I felt. Most likely, I'd immediately attribute it to a cause (person or thing for example). No one would question my logic on that but if I was raised or believed in god and attribute my pain on the devil, him being supernatural shouldn't change my natural logic to blame someone or something for the pain I experience. Just, when we can't find a natural cause, a lot of people, rather than dealing with "I don't know" psychologically shut down. They need a cause.

Critical thinkers lose their faith because after awhile, some of us find we do not need a cause. Life happens when it happens. If we want to attribute things we can't experience to a cause, that's on us. At least it's something we want to do not something we need to do. We can live without god/a cause. Maybe critical thinkers are spliting life between natural and supernatural so much as to thinking if there is a natural cause, it no longer has any supernatural application or meaning to it. In other words, if there is a natural cause, we know everything about it. We don't.

Anyway, I would have to break up the article to understand it. It was interesting on the first read, I just dont find it necessary and actually irritating to analyze such a broad subject.

 

[sun rise]

The article itself seemed good as far as it went. The article does not make a value judgement between intuition and critical thinking.

But, as usual with a certain kind of article, vagueness makes the conclusion less, um, conclusive. Religious dogma is one thing. Belief in God or a higher power is another. And the nature of God could be deistic or involved with the world. A bit for precision here would be helpful.

 

[omega2xx]

How Critical Thinkers Lose Their Faith in God

An old, but thought-provoking, article. Please discuss.

There sample was not large enough to make their conclusions statistically valid. WE don't know if they had a good cross section of Christians and I don't remember them defining "critical thinking."

They also had no way of knowing if the person who lost their faith, was a Christian.

 

[Augustus]

Which appears to mean analytical thinking is preferable to thinking intuitively, so much so that it's best to reduce intuitive think in favor of analytical thinking.

Not necessarily.

System 1 can be based on expertise that has been internalised to the extent that it is instinctive. When person A solves a problem with 1, and Person B solves it with 2 it might be because A is far more skilled.

 

[Sunstone]

Which appears to mean analytical thinking is preferable to thinking intuitively, so much so that it's best to reduce intuitive think in favor of analytical thinking.

I think most evolutionary psychologists would point out that "System 1" thinking had evolutionary advantages. Cognitive biases, and the like, were cognitive shortcuts that worked more often than not, so to speak, and that allowed our ancestors to make rapid, timely decisions, especially in the face of danger.

 

[icehorse]

Cognitive scientists who study expertise (expertise experts), mostly agree that most expertise is implicit, i.e. it's reliable but cannot be explained. For example, a chess master can't really tell you the process by which she made her last move. These scientists use the phrase "expert intuition" or just "intuition" to label implicit skill and knowledge. But you don't have to be an expert to have a lot of implicit knowledge and skills, we all do.

With all that said, the conclusion of the article strikes me as intuitive.

 

[Skwim]

Not necessarily.

System 1 can be based on expertise that has been internalised to the extent that it is instinctive. When person A solves a problem with 1, and Person B solves it with 2 it might be because A is far more skilled.

You're missing the point, which is the fact that psychologists are seeking to override System 1 thinking in favor of System 2 thinking.

I think most evolutionary psychologists would point out that "System 1" thinking had evolutionary advantages. Cognitive biases, and the like, were cognitive shortcuts that worked more often than not, so to speak, and that allowed our ancestors to make rapid, timely decisions, especially in the face of danger.

Very possibly.

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[Augustus]

You're missing the point, which is the fact that psychologists are seeking to override System 1 thinking in favor of System 2 thinking.

Your statement didn't take into account that whether or not solving a problem by s1 or s2 is preferable depends on the problem and the person solving it.

The psychologists did.

 

[LuisDantas]

The reason for why critical thinking appears to lead people into less belief in God may well be because science is designed to exclude notions about God in seeking for solutions.

That is an odd way of putting it. It is not science's fault that God as an idea has no value in actually explaining how things work and how they can be handled.

Science was not nearly so much designed to exclude notions about God as it was designed to have practical value.

The god-idea is often valued for needing no further elaboration, but in situations beyond the furthering of belief for belief's sake that is a flaw rather than a feature.

 

[LuisDantas]

Doesn't want to scare people, eh.

Actually, the article goes out of its way in order to mention what it calls "paranormal beliefs", explicitly mentioning ESP and ghosts among them, so it seems to me to be attempting to address beliefs in a more general sense, as opposed to theism-centered ones.

I found the article interesting and enlightening, albeit a bit too short for my tastes. It hints that refuge in belief (I would rather not call such a behavior "religion", which is a word that I value) is a primal, instinctive trait that most people will overcome if given sufficient incentive. Sounds just about right.

 

[LuisDantas]

There sample was not large enough to make their conclusions statistically valid. WE don't know if they had a good cross section of Christians and I don't remember them defining "critical thinking."

They also had no way of knowing if the person who lost their faith, was a Christian.

A careful reading of the article challenges your statements.

 

[LuisDantas]

I think most evolutionary psychologists would point out that "System 1" thinking had evolutionary advantages. Cognitive biases, and the like, were cognitive shortcuts that worked more often than not, so to speak, and that allowed our ancestors to make rapid, timely decisions, especially in the face of danger.

Indeed.

The downside - and a very significant one it is - is that evolutionary advantages work for the benefit of the survival of the species. Those do not necessarily or even often translate into well-being at the individual level, and certainly not in a culture that changed so much since those traits were favored by the evolutionary selective pressure.

 

[Valjean]

Interesting they only use the term "God" to equate belief. I wonder what could be said of other non-monotheistic beliefs.

It seems to apply to"conclusions jumped to," as opposed to those based on analysis of evidence.
Our psychology was forged in the Pleistocene, when we were living as small bands of hunter-gatherers. There was little actual data to analyze, and long term planning was not a possibility. What was really valuable were snap judgements (is that rustle in the grass a mouse, a rival tribesman, or a saber-tooth cat?) There was no time for evidence gathering and analysis. We erred on the side of caution -- and survived.
We are not good at type 2, analytic reasoning. It's a learned skill. Jumping to conclusions is easy and natural, and leads to beliefs founded on emotion, without regard for evidence.

The reason for why critical thinking appears to lead people into less belief in God may well be because science is designed to exclude notions about God in seeking for solutions.

It's not designed so much to exclude notions of God, as to exclude notions not based on evidence and analysis thereof.

My point is that the "Nouveaux" wannabe "Critical thinking" is the old "ad hock thinking to impress". Critical thinking depends on knowledge of original ideas, laws, rules, metrics and precision. To elicit a modality of self reliance for reward by fame many will sell their mother and most certainly their God, since they never really met him.

I doubt many scientists are motivated by fame, and it's certainly not a discipline of self-reliance.
It strikes me that it's the religious/intuitives who are motivated by conformity and social acceptance.
"many will sell their mother and most certainly their God, since they never really met him." Quick - cover yourself! Your bias is showing.

Which appears to mean analytical thinking is preferable to thinking intuitively, so much so that it's best to reduce intuitive think in favor of analytical thinking.

Preferable to some applications -- engineering, literary analysis, science, construction, meteorology, philosophy, nuclear physics -- all disciplines useful today but useless during the period our brains were evolving.
It's the intuitive, magical, jumping-to-conclusions mode of thinking that got us through the Pleistocene. This mode is why we even exist as a species.

"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."

"Since System 2 thinking requires a lot of effort, the majority of us tend to rely on our System 1 thinking processes when possible. Evidence suggests that the majority of us are more prone to believing than being skeptical."

In short, System 1 thinking is a lazy approach to issues whereas System 2 thinking is an active approach​

They have different applications.
System 1 is a survival modality, and deeply ingrained in our psyche. System 2 is an artificial construct, and the reason we're no longer living in caves.​

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