It may be irrational, but not unreasonable.
Life is complex and often very difficult. Holding onto a belief, irrational though it may be, is reasonable if it helps support that person.
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Does a belief in a god show lack of education?
- Thread starter We Never Know
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It may be irrational, but not unreasonable.
Life is complex and often very difficult. Holding onto a belief, irrational though it may be, is reasonable if it helps support that person.
There are some basic issues in seeing that as informative of anything, tbh.
Education levels and intelligence aren't really the same thing though. And I know you're just responding to the OP and didn't suggest they were. Just what came to my mind when reading your post.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
And there are some non-religious beliefs that are anti-education.
There's a fair bit of selection bias there, though.
I'd guess that nearly all Hindus in the US either immigrated themselves or are children or grandchildren of immigrants.
The immigration process strongly favours people with higher education. Once a family is here, having parents with college degrees is a good predictor that the children will have college degrees - this is true across demographic groups.
... so I personally wouldn't take Hindus in the US as representative of Hindus generally.
I have known many PhDs in math and physics who also believed in some sort of deity. Clearly, these are highly educated theists.
Well, mental illness is usually diagnosed as having such symptoms in a way that the overall society does not. This is done partly to avoid saying religious beliefs are mental illness.
Not as stated. But there *is* a negative correlation between theism and educational level: more educated people are *less likely* to be theists. But it is not a causal relationship and the correlation is far from perfect. Certainly, there have been many very intelligent people, both historically and now, who believed in deities.
Another aspect is that OCD often has a religious component, so it is quite possible to have a mental illness in relation to a religious belief. And, of course, other sorts of mental illness can also have religious components to them. Some people regard religion as a stabilizing factor for mental illness.
One difficulty is that even very educated people can have strange beliefs. Once again, history is littered with examples. And highly educated people can also have mental illness. They can also simply be wrong in their beliefs.
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Sheldon
Veteran Member
Not necessarily, I have met and know people who are very well educated, and who are also religious or theists, and also very intelligent. I am not very well educated, and I am an atheist, so I think it is too facile a generalisation, and I would rather address beliefs based on their own merits. Though I have seen research, if memory serves by the Pew research group that in the US there a direct correlation between demising theism and education, especially higher education. Though there might be many variables to consider, for instance a lot of people who attend university move away from their family group for the first time, and are free to explore ideas on their own.
It is also a fact the religions and theism are growing fastest in parts of the world where people are poor and uneducated, but again this may have a number of factors behind it. Abject poverty might be a strong motivator in seeking social cohesion and drawing succour from beliefs that often suggest the unfairness of this life will be corrected by a deity in another life after we die.
One more reason to try and eradicate poverty for me, and ensure that every child has access to a formal education. I also think these should be secular, as religion can be taught elsewhere if parents want that for their children. I have no objection to a state funded education teaching about religions in a secular or historical context, but not to proselytise. That can be left to religious institutions and parents I think.
I think that depends on what sort of "support" we're talking about:
- "if I don't go to church, inquisitors will arrest and torture me" - sure, go to church.
- even "most of my sales come from people at my temple, so I'd better keep going or my business will fail" - that's reasonable in its own way.
- "I'm telling myself that grandma is just invisible and not actually dead so that I don't have to go through a normal, healthy grieving process" - not so reasonable, IMO.
Yes, I would agree.
I know someone who credits ending their addiction to alchohol to a newfound religious belief.
I also understand that many people face death (both for themselves and loved ones) easier believing they will be reunited in an afterlife.
I also find that some folks have a much easier time finding meaning in a world they believe contains a god. A kind of supernormal stimulus for innate response mechanisms related to parental figures.
epronovost
Well-Known Member
Statistically speaking, the higher the education of person, especially if its in natural sciences, the lower their religiosity. This has been confirmed several time, though there are several very highly educated religious people anyway. They are even a short majority (instead of an enormous majority), though rare are those that could be called fundamentalists or literalists. There is no connection between mental illness and religiosity though. That would just be a hateful slur (both for mentally ill people who aren't necessarily religious and religious people).
As others have noted, there is a negative correlation between education and a god belief, but there are highly educated theists, so the statement as written can't be correct.
I think that that education affects the way that they experience and live religion. There is a large and very visible distinction between our scientific theists on RF and the ones that have never learned critical thinking or the science. The latter typically allow too much religion into their lives, which is different from merely holding a god belief. By too much religion, I'm referring to the people willing to believe that gays and atheists are immoral, or who start thread after thread trying to prove the existence of God, or who disapprovingly believe that reason is an enemy to faith, or argue science that they don't understand, or believe that one should not engage with the world, or that the world is slated for destruction soon. You rarely see that kind of presence from the well educated.
There's a reason some denominations discourage university for their young adults, and why they want access to young kids in public schools. The see education as their enemy. They want to get to those kids before they develop critical thinking skills, and keep them that way by keeping them away from advanced formal education.
I assume that usually what they mean is that they have an intuition from time to time that they attribute to a deity, rather than hearing speech and words. That's not mental illness, that's just misunderstanding one's own mind. It's an ancient habit, going back to before the time when man understood what intelligence was, or that he had it and the beasts didn't, and didn't see himself as the source of new ideas. The ancient Greeks personified many mental functions. If one had a creative insight, it was a muse speaking to him, as creativity was the province of the gods. They misread their own minds and saw themselves under the influence of external agents. In Christianity, the struggle between the base urges and the higher self is described as a battle for the soul, with the Holy Spirit tugging one was and Satan the other, trying to lead a soul to perdition.
When I was a Christian, I had such an experience many times, misunderstanding the euphoria a gifted and charismatic preacher as the presence of the Holy Spirit. I don't think I was mentally ill. In fact, I was still rational enough to realize that that wasn't the Holy Spirit when I left that congregation, my first (I converted to Christianity there), after military discharge, and visited about a half dozen other congregations trying in vain to find the Spirit again. It was then that I realized that it was just misunderstanding my euphoric mental state, and assigning external agency to it.
Sam Harris said this:
"George Bush says he speaks to God every day, and Christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd."
I do. The hair dryer changes it from the typical misunderstanding of one's own silent mental states to a psychosis involving hallucinated audible voices. It implies hearing words through the device and speaking into it. That's mental illness.
Intelligence & education cannot cure mental illness.
(Let's what arguments that provokes.)
(Let's what arguments that provokes.)
Way ahead of you!
I disbelieved in them even before kindergarten.
Education had no adverse effect on this.
Note:
My undergrad level thermodynamics textbook had a very
short chapter on why there must be a supreme being due
to the 2nd Law Of Thermodynamics. Profs skip over this.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Please give some link if possible,
Ya wouldn't think it possible to find a link referring
to half century old thermo textbook, but lo!
Chapter 18 The Laws of Nature
BTW, it was such an excellent textbook that I never
found it useful to attend class....except to take tests.
No doubt, the authors were far more highly educated
in quantum & statistical mechanics than I. But their
education still didn't prevent sky fairy beliefs.
sealchan
Well-Known Member
In America, Does More Education Equal Less Religion?
It appears that there is a correlation to an extent but not a simple one.
That was my guess.
sealchan
Well-Known Member
Personally, I suspect that many people who go to college experience the following:
A broadening of their cultural horizons, especially if they are from a predominantly white conservative community
The exception being if they go to a Christian college of course which preserves, to a large extent, that community
Exposure to science and other methodologies of knowledge and ethics - this erodes simplistic literalist attitudes
What would be interesting to me would be to look at literalist beliefs, race and college selection. This should tease out some white cultural trends as far as how much college might impact one's outlook on matters of faith.
idea
Question Everything
We become educated in what we are immersed in. Those who enjoy studying, learning, reading, listening to lectures - they learn from the books and people around them. Religious people read and study - the problem comes from the reading material. Unless studying equally from a diverse set of scriptures, groups, and books, just getting one viewpoint over and over and over again becomes brainwashing instead of wisdom and enlightenment.
I trust religious people who have changed groups over and over again, who are unaffiliated. I trust those who enjoy asking questions, and are filled with wonder.
I do not trust those who believe their church is the "true" church, or their God is the "only" God, and their book the "only" inspired book. Those who only read one set of books, and only meet with one group of people, and only listen to one point of view seriously, who believe they are the only ones with "authority", the only ones "called" - that is where the trouble lies. These types of people read and read and study and study - but only to protect their own ego, their own point of view.... so only educated in a narrow field of study you could say. (I used to be one of these people haha - sooo sorry for who I used to be!!!)
I trust religious people who have changed groups over and over again, who are unaffiliated. I trust those who enjoy asking questions, and are filled with wonder.
I do not trust those who believe their church is the "true" church, or their God is the "only" God, and their book the "only" inspired book. Those who only read one set of books, and only meet with one group of people, and only listen to one point of view seriously, who believe they are the only ones with "authority", the only ones "called" - that is where the trouble lies. These types of people read and read and study and study - but only to protect their own ego, their own point of view.... so only educated in a narrow field of study you could say. (I used to be one of these people haha - sooo sorry for who I used to be!!!)