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from the "number-of-the-beast"-is-natural,-whole,-rational,-real,-AND-imaginary dept.
Religious beliefs are not linked to intuition or rational thinking, according to new research by the universities of Coventry and Oxford. Previous studies have suggested people who hold strong religious beliefs are more intuitive and less analytical, and when they think more analytically their religious beliefs decrease.
But new research, by academics from Coventry University's Centre for Advances in Behavioural Science and neuroscientists and philosophers at Oxford University, suggests that is not the case, and that people are not 'born believers'. The study -- which included tests on pilgrims taking part in the famous Camino de Santiago and a brain stimulation experiment -- found no link between intuitive/analytical thinking, or cognitive inhibition (an ability to suppress unwanted thoughts and actions), and supernatural beliefs.
Instead, the academics conclude that other factors, such as upbringing and socio-cultural processes, are more likely to play a greater role in religious beliefs.
[Abstract]: Supernatural Belief Is Not Modulated by Intuitive Thinking Style or Cognitive Inhibition
Would you agree with this conclusion or do you believe that there is something else that influences people's religious beliefs ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @10:20PM (1 child)
The conclusion they make doesn't really make any sense. Considering that we use rational thinking to disprove god or gods as a reasonable possibility, I fail to see how there can be no link between rational thinking and a belief in invisible sky fairies. It's difficult to believe that somebody can be as rational that believes in such nonsense as somebody that's actually examined the issue and realized that the claim can't be proven and as a result one religious system can't be empirically better than another or even none.
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Friday November 10 2017, @12:55PM
I use rational thinking to assert that "disproving god" is a logical impossibility built upon an undefinable object, just like "proving god". So, stop being irrational. You can freely believe, not believe, or be agnostics. No problem. Just don't dress it up with empty pseudoscientific crap.
Logical impossibility because you act like the logic framework we are using is valid universally and outside the universe.
Proof that is not universally valid is left as an exercise to the reader. If it is not universally valid, the idea that it holds outside the universe is even more laughable than it is already.
Undefinable object because the hypothetical "creator of all that is" is meta wrt "all that is", by definition.