Does religion impair vital critical thinking skills?

[Storm]

Hatred is not blinding it it does not exist. I am not a hateful person

>ahem<

I was generally repulsed by god and specifically the Christian god because my mother was always a beacon of stupidity. She raised me Christian but refuted her own religion when I was very young. I pretty much stopped believing in one god because I was afraid it created stupidity. From there I went with the Muslim god.

Go to dictionary.com and look up 'hate,' 'hatred,' and 'hateful.'

Once you show us you can grasp that much and be honest about it, we can move on to all those logical fallacies you like to throw out at random.

 

[sojourner]

You always were so much more charitable than I. It's that whole Christianity thing, isn't it? LOL

Good to see ya, dude.

Well... I quit being a Christian here some time ago, but it's good to see you, too!!

 

[icehorse]

Too bad. It's not your place to govern anyone else's expression of spirituality.

I wasn't attempting to "govern" anything. "Religion" and "spirituality" are two different words and they have different meanings. My experience is that religious people often claim that spirituality is in the domain of religion. Now I'm kind of joking (as the smiling face indicated), but I'm kind of not. From my perspective most *religion* besmirches spirituality.

"Oh no!", I hear you say, "you can't generalize about all religion!"

Storm (et. al.), you might have some unusually froward thinking religion you relate to, and as I've said in the past, that's great. But *religion* in general carries with it some common definitions and common characteristics. It is the prevalent implementations of religion that trouble me.

 

[Storm]

I wasn't attempting to "govern" anything.

Then it wasn't a good idea to call it was offensive.

"Religion" and "spirituality" are two different words and they have different meanings.

Uh huh. And "spirituality" is an exceedingly vague word with nebulous meaning. It has, however, been acknowledged as a crucial component of religion since before the English language developed, so you really haven't got a leg to stand on trying to force your dissociation on the rest of us.

My experience is that religious people often claim that spirituality is in the domain of religion.

That's backwards, actually, but the fact remains that they are deeply linked, whether you like it or not.

Now I'm kind of joking (as the smiling face indicated), but I'm kind of not.

Either way, you're entirely wrong.

From my perspective most *religion* besmirches spirituality.

Fine. You still don't get to plant your flag like Columbus and have the word all to yourself. You don't have to like religious spirituality, but it's still spirituality. Deal.

"Oh no!", I hear you say, "you can't generalize about all religion!"

Of course you can. It's a very stupid thing to do, but clearly, you're quite capable of doing it.

You seem to have me confused with someone interested in placating you.

Storm (et. al.), you might have some unusually froward thinking religion you relate to, and as I've said in the past, that's great. But *religion* in general carries with it some common definitions and common characteristics. It is the prevalent implementations of religion that trouble me.

Then you might want to learn wtf those commonalities actually are, instead of just assuming that religion is defined by everything you dislike about pop fundamentalism. Because the only real point you've made so far is that you don't like fundies, and you're not interested in learning anything that might threaten your sense of superiority as an atheist.

I realize that you've hade some bad experiences with religious people, but that's irrelevant. The plural of anecdote is not data, and you refuse to even acknowledge the difference between religions and religious people. You're too intelligent not to understand that distinctions, so I'mforced to conclude that you deliberately ignore it, being inconvenient to your bias.

 

[icehorse]

storm:

Then you might want to learn wtf those commonalities actually are, instead of just assuming that religion is defined by everything you dislike about pop fundamentalism. Because the only real point you've made so far is that you don't like fundies, and you're not interested in learning anything that might threaten your sense of superiority as an atheist.

I realize that you've hade some bad experiences with religious people, but that's irrelevant. The plural of anecdote is not data, and you refuse to even acknowledge the difference between religions and religious people. You're too intelligent not to understand that distinctions, so I'mforced to conclude that you deliberately ignore it, being inconvenient to your bias.

You're putting words in my mouth and you've guessed badly.

First off, I don't really even know what you mean with the phrase "pop fundamentalism", so it's unlikely that you could foresee how I'd feel about it before I'm even aware of what you're talking about. Second, what bad experiences have I had with religious people? Perhaps you have me confused with someone else?

For now, I can focus on just one aspect of *religion* that troubles me. For *most* religious people in the world, their faith includes a belief in the supernatural. The world is in too precarious a position for us to put into power, leaders who pray to some daddy figure in the sky for guidance - that's just plain scary. Belief in fairy tales is problematic on many levels, but for now, just one more issue is that belief in the supernatural is unfalsifiable, and has been divisive from day one.

What a horrible scheme - people who cannot hold honest discussions and who are convinced that they have the correct answers and that every other religious doctrine is damned.

 

[Storm]

You're putting words in my mouth and you've guessed badly.

No, actually. I'm telling you how you sound to someone educated in the field. I don't blame you for not liking it, but I can't force you to educate yourself, either.

First off, I don't really even know what you mean with the phrase "pop fundamentalism", so it's unlikely that you could foresee how I'd feel about it before I'm even aware of what you're talking about.

Precisely what you mean when you say "religion," only I know the difference. So sorry, but it's not at all unlikely that I'd know how you feel, since it's Right there in the OP, every subsequent post, and a few other threads besides.

Second, what bad experiences have I had with religious people? Perhaps you have me confused with someone else?

No, you are indeed the one who was complaining about how hard it was to find relgigious people capable of good reasoning and so forth. Or were those experiences precisely what you wanted?

For now, I can focus on just one aspect of *religion* that troubles me. For *most* religious people in the world, their faith includes a belief in the supernatural.

Yes. However, since you're not interested in learning what that means to those people, no criticism you can muster is meaningful.

The world is in too precarious a position for us to put into power, leaders who pray to some daddy figure in the sky for guidance - that's just plain scary. Belief in fairy tales is problematic on many levels, but for now, just one more issue is that belief in the supernatural is unfalsifiable, and has been divisive from day one.

Quod erat demonstratum. This isn't critique,and makes no meaningful point it's just bloviating about how religious people are stupid.

[/quote]What a horrible scheme - people who cannot hold honest discussions and who are convinced that they have the correct answers and that every other religious doctrine is damned.[/QUOTE]
Now, this is a legitimate critique. Too bad you undermine it by refusing to realize you're describing yourself as much as anyone else.

 

[sojourner]

For now, I can focus on just one aspect of *religion* that troubles me. For *most* religious people in the world, their faith includes a belief in the supernatural. The world is in too precarious a position for us to put into power, leaders who pray to some daddy figure in the sky for guidance - that's just plain scary. Belief in fairy tales is problematic on many levels, but for now, just one more issue is that belief in the supernatural is unfalsifiable, and has been divisive from day one.

Spirituality is a holistic endeavor, yet you seem to promote a spirituality that does not address the whole of human experience. Human experience -- part of what makes us human -- is the capacity, not only to reason, but to imagine and to be intuitive -- to "think big." IOW, the mythic is as much part of human experience as is reason. The metaphors we employ, the symbols, the avatars and icons, the shapes and colors -- the supernatural -- these are the language of human intuition and imagination. Why would you want to disparage or dismiss them? Belief in the supernatural as something other than mythic, and relegating it to some dusty corner of inferiority is problematic as well.

What a horrible scheme - people who cannot hold honest discussions and who are convinced that they have the correct answers and that every other religious doctrine is damned.

What do you define as "honest?" Being allowed to only discuss the empirical and the rational? We can't discuss the intuitive, for the intuitive isn't "honest?"

What's scary is a leadership who has no grounding in the imaginative, who does not think creatively or intuitively, who cannot envision the broader picture of a whole human family united under something bigger than her or himself.

 

[1robin]

What I think the world needs now is for people to be better educated and have better critical thinking skills. Populations that can think critically are harder to manipulate and control by oppressive leaders. Populations that can think critically are harder for big business and corrupt politicians* to hoodwink. Better educated people will make better choices in regards to being good stewards of the planet. And so on.

Cognitive scientists have learned that all cognitive activity uses the same supply of glucose. Everything you do with your brain, drains the same "fuel tank". Even something as simple as exercising willpower uses brain glucose.

As an anti-theist, I see the mental energy the "faithful" put into keeping their religion plausible. I have to think that religion overall (even moderate religion), works in opposition to increasing critical thinking.

Perhaps religion does have some benefits (I'm not convinced), but whatever benefits religion might claim, it strikes me that these benefits could be provided without the need for cognitively draining, supernatural explanations that fly in the face of an otherwise honest view of the world.

Since 78% of those who received the Nobel have been Christians and since Christianity created modern science then I becoming one would be the best way to advance your critical thinking.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Religion is a fundamental crutch for so many people.

It’s mostly a modern invention:

“Since the nineteenth century, the idea of doctrinally identified ‘world religions’ has become commonplace...in the twentieth-century ecumenical movement, we find the idea that all religions are ultimately one, something possible only if they are all homogenized into merely varying doctrines.

In fact, Christianity is quite unique in its construal of the identity of a religion in terms of its beliefs or doctrines. Insofar as it is a question of distinguishing Christianity from other religions, as well as from paganism, from atheism, or from non-Christian forms of deism, for Christianity, it is necessary and sufficient to be a Christian that one have particular beliefs. Moreover, it was assumed...that this criterion was shared with the other world religions. But it was not shared.”


Gaukroger, S. (2014). The Early Modern Idea of Scientific Doctrine and Its Early Christian Origins. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 44(1), 95-112.


Although not intended to characterize religion outside of ancient Greek traditions, Bremmer’s description fits most religious traditions throughout history than our modern conception:


“Was there ever such a thing as “Greek Religion”? It may be an odd question to start this survey with, but it should be absolutely clear from the start that Greek religion as a monolithic entity never existed…Every city had its own pantheon in which some gods were more important than others and some gods not even worshipped at all. Every city had its own mythology, its own religious calendar and festivals...

Whereas most Western countries have gradually separated church and state, the example of other societies, such as Iran and Saudi-Arabia, shows that this is not so everywhere. In ancient Greece, too, religion was totally embedded in society- no sphere of life lacked a religious aspect. Birth, maturity, and death, war and peace, agriculture, commerce and politics- all these events and activities were accompanied by religious rituals or subject to religious rules…Indeed, religion was such an integrated part of Greek life that the Greeks lacked a separate word for ‘religion’. When Herodotus wants to describe religions of the neighboring peoples of Greece, he uses the term “to worship the gods”, sebesthai tous theous…for Herodotus, the problem of describing foreign religions could be reduced to the question “which (other) gods do they worship and how…”


Bremmer, J. N. (1994). Greek religion (Greece & Rome: New Surveys in the Classics Vol. 24). Cambridge University Press.


Unfortunately, the defining feature of the modern concept of religion, i.e., as centrally a system of beliefs (or ideology, doctrine, dogma, orthodoxy, etc.) that is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of personal and social psychology to society. Whether one accepts as a valid the notion of a “political religion”, there is no doubt that ideologies similar to religious doctrine were largely responsible for the untold millions upon millions who died in various wars, genocides, etc., in the 20th century. It is, actually, this distinction between religion vs. doctrine/ideology that motivates much of the argument in e.g.,

Cavanaugh, W. T. (2009). The myth of religious violence: Secular ideology and the roots of modern conflict. Oxford University Press.

Both types of these countries rank amongst the lowest educated and worst of all nations in the world.

Ignoring the multifaceted nature of education policies and prevalence within a nation, the relationship between religion and education itself is already far from simple. On the one hand this is because of the difficulties defining “religion” already mentioned. On the other, we need only to look to the founding of the sciences and the university system, as well as the reasons no scientific endeavor nor such institutions were ever developed outside of early modern Europe, to see the problems when it comes to simplistic comparisons. The Roman Catholic Church founded the university system, and it was Christianity that continued it for a long time. And while after the decline of the Roman empire it took the increasingly Christianized West nearly 2,000 years to reach the state of intellectual achievement of classical Greece (and this itself depended heavily on the incorporation of Aristotle and Greek philosophy, not to mention intellectual developments of the Arab empire), Christianity provided the impetus to go beyond the natural philosophy of the Greeks. The belief in a rational world and a rational creator who could be known by “His” works provided the necessary conditions for a systematic framework consisting both of empiricism and the logico-deductive approach to understanding the cosmos.


The Greeks were possibly the closest any culture came to science before the early modern period, as within certain echelons of Greek society their flourished a systematic approach to argumentation, logic, reason, etc. However, the idea of formulating hypotheses rather than premises and testing arguments via experimentation wasn’t just lacking but would have been considered largely meaningless, pointless, even problematic: Plato’s world of Forms meant accepting any investigation into the natural world doomed, Aristotle’s logic was so analytical as to make empirical tests either impossible, pointless, or minimally helpful for e.g., inspiration, and as for technological developments the Greeks were nothing compared to the Chinese. The sciences require the kind of systematic reasoning found in Greek culture, but this is incredibly rare. Too many cultures have possessed worldviews in which no such framework could develop. Pre-scholastic Christianity and the Islamic empire were both hampered by worldviews in which physics was seen as diminishing god’s powers, much Eastern thought involved a thoroughly negative view of the material world, and perhaps most importantly humans do not naturally think logically nor analytically to begin with.

On the other hand Islamic and Christian nations( non-European) are feeling the stench of religious tyranny and dogmatic thinking.

Again, ideology and doctrine come in many forms. Stalinism didn’t exactly encourage open mindedness, Mao wasn’t really known for fostering critical minds, and North Korea isn’t really paving the way in scholarly achievement.


On the other hand, so ingrained is “the Judeo-Christian God” within Western culture that we continue to find physicists who don’t believe in god refer to god (much like Einstein) in a tradition stretching back before Newton. Thus Susskind, whose preference for the anthropic multiverse is partially because he views it as an anti-theistic cosmology, still uses god as the omniscient entity whose potential interference with a given system serves as a useful pedagogical tool.


The sciences (and higher learning in general), though, are no longer in their infancy, and while our brains are no more innately capable of formal logic and analytical reasoning than before, the importance of education, learning, and academic progress do not require motivation from religion and have not for well over a century. What was once a motivating factor (a particular religious worldview) is not needed and thus is far more likely to hinder than help.

Religion is outdated and no longer needed and has been around for so long because it offers so much hope.

Most religions were pretty bleak, lacking any afterlife and consisting of trying not to **** of one or other of the gods. I suppose monastic/ascetic life provided meaning for those Christians, Buddhists, etc., who engaged in it but I still wouldn’t characterize such lives by “hope”. Also, it seems to me that with or without religion most humans will continue to have worldviews characterized by dogmatic thinking, prejudice, and hostility to those who think differently.

2 biggest evils against cognition

The Riemann integral and Dirac notation?

 

[Cephus]

By whom? Who's in charge of "religious practice validation?" I can tell you that, at the very least, these practices can initiate a placebo effect, which is "valid." If people think it makes them feel better, and then they feel better, the practice is validated.

A placebo effect is not actually true and you know it. It comes about when a person, knowingly or unknowingly, is tricked into acting as if something was real when it actually isn't. It might be useful for medical or psychological purposes but it isn't actually real.

I'd bet my left nut that the psychiatric community would disagree with you (you know -- the people who are the experts in delusional thinking?). You're holding mythic meaning to a false and arbitrary standard. There is the rational and there is also the intuitive. Both are valid cognitive exercises. The mythic falls in the intuitive category.

You mean the people who define the terms and have to be careful not to cast their net too wide or it will cost them customers? You keep twisting and turning things, trying desperately to justify irrational beliefs because you can get some "benefit" from them. I'm not interested in benefits, I'm not interested in emotions, I'm interested in factual truth.

 

[Nakosis]

I suppose I find attachments to material things impede critical thinking. Any kind of bias for or against a particular belief. Any kind of prejudicial position or desire to promote a specific universal world view.

The objective thinking needed for critical thinking is difficult for any human being. It is usually much easier to think critically about someone else's view of reality. Something one has no vested interest in.

So yes, any particular view of reality one has a vested interest in is likely to impair one's critical thinking ability.

Doesn't particularly have to be religious.

To be as critical as possible one would have to detach themselves from whatever they view as truth.

Say a Christian for example, a vested interest, more difficult to critically examine what they accept as truth. Something they have no vested interest in, they can be as critical as anybody else.

 

[sojourner]

A placebo effect is not actually true and you know it. It comes about when a person, knowingly or unknowingly, is tricked into acting as if something was real when it actually isn't. It might be useful for medical or psychological purposes but it isn't actually real.

Placebo taken -- patient feels better. It's as real as it gets. You're really stretching it to try to assert that there's such a thing as "real 'feeling better'" and "fake 'feeling better.'" Feeling better is... well... feeling better.

But I'm not saying that spiritual engagement is all about placebo effect. I said that at the very least there's the placebo effect aspect. Spiritual engagement is beneficial in many ways, beyond the placebo effect.

You mean the people who define the terms and have to be careful not to cast their net too wide or it will cost them customers?

No, I mean the professional medical community who know best what can be classified as "delusion," and what cannot. Just because you're biased, have an axe to grind, and have some investment in proving your point, doesn't mean that your fondest wishes or poisoning of the well can change the reality of the best medical opinion.

You want the factual truth? The factual truth is that intuition and imagination are just as valuable to the whole human being as are sensory observation and reason. Spirituality deals more with the former than the latter, through the tools of mythicism, metaphor, and symbol. Those things are ideas, which are just as "real" in human experience, as anything else.

 

[Cephus]

Placebo taken -- patient feels better. It's as real as it gets. You're really stretching it to try to assert that there's such a thing as "real 'feeling better'" and "fake 'feeling better.'" Feeling better is... well... feeling better.

But it isn't necessarily being better. There are plenty of cases where religious people believe that God is going to heal them and they die anyhow. Placebos aren't very good at curing serious illnesses.

But I'm not saying that spiritual engagement is all about placebo effect. I said that at the very least there's the placebo effect aspect. Spiritual engagement is beneficial in many ways, beyond the placebo effect.

Such as?

No, I mean the professional medical community who know best what can be classified as "delusion," and what cannot. Just because you're biased, have an axe to grind, and have some investment in proving your point, doesn't mean that your fondest wishes or poisoning of the well can change the reality of the best medical opinion.

These classifications change regularly, there are plenty of differences between the DSM-IV and the DSM-V.

You want the factual truth? The factual truth is that intuition and imagination are just as valuable to the whole human being as are sensory observation and reason. Spirituality deals more with the former than the latter, through the tools of mythicism, metaphor, and symbol. Those things are ideas, which are just as "real" in human experience, as anything else.

There's a difference between ideas and facts. A healthy person understands that ideas and concepts are not the same as facts. When one starts to assert that ideas and concepts actually exist in reality, a line has been crossed, whether you like it or not.

 

[icehorse]

No, actually. I'm telling you how you sound to someone educated in the field. I don't blame you for not liking it, but I can't force you to educate yourself, either.

Precisely what you mean when you say "religion," only I know the difference. So sorry, but it's not at all unlikely that I'd know how you feel, since it's Right there in the OP, every subsequent post, and a few other threads besides.

No, you are indeed the one who was complaining about how hard it was to find relgigious people capable of good reasoning and so forth. Or were those experiences precisely what you wanted?

Yes. However, since you're not interested in learning what that means to those people, no criticism you can muster is meaningful.

Quod erat demonstratum. This isn't critique,and makes no meaningful point it's just bloviating about how religious people are stupid.

What a horrible scheme - people who cannot hold honest discussions and who are convinced that they have the correct answers and that every other religious doctrine is damned.[/QUOTE]
Now, this is a legitimate critique. Too bad you undermine it by refusing to realize you're describing yourself as much as anyone else.[/QUOTE]

Hey Storm,

First off your post is littered with strawman arguments with a few ad hominems sprinkled in - those approaches undermine your cre.

Now, for the sake of discussion I'll grant your claim that you're "educated in the field". That doesn't make your strawman arguments any more accurate.

As far as whether it's likely that you know how I feel, you might think you do, but again, your strawmans hurt your credibility.

I'm totally interested in learning. And I've had many, many conversations with religious folks, and there are only so many ways that a person can defend pretending to know what they don't know.

I don't think religious people are stupid - yet another strawman from Storm!

In what way do you think I think I have all the answers? The only claims I'm making here are that:

- believing in the supernatural often shuts down conversations, because defenses of those beliefs are unfalsifiable.
- most of the world's most popular religions are divisive.

 

[icehorse]

Spirituality is a holistic endeavor, yet you seem to promote a spirituality that does not address the whole of human experience. Human experience -- part of what makes us human -- is the capacity, not only to reason, but to imagine and to be intuitive -- to "think big." IOW, the mythic is as much part of human experience as is reason. The metaphors we employ, the symbols, the avatars and icons, the shapes and colors -- the supernatural -- these are the language of human intuition and imagination. Why would you want to disparage or dismiss them? Belief in the supernatural as something other than mythic, and relegating it to some dusty corner of inferiority is problematic as well.

What do you define as "honest?" Being allowed to only discuss the empirical and the rational? We can't discuss the intuitive, for the intuitive isn't "honest?"

What's scary is a leadership who has no grounding in the imaginative, who does not think creatively or intuitively, who cannot envision the broader picture of a whole human family united under something bigger than her or himself.

Yours is all one big false dilemma argument. Not being religious doesn't preclude any of the things you just mentioned. In other words, spiritual, non-religious people have as much imagination, intuition, creativity and broad view as anyone else, and my intuition is that they have more than most.

 

[sojourner]

But it isn't necessarily being better. There are plenty of cases where religious people believe that God is going to heal them and they die anyhow. Placebos aren't very good at curing serious illnesses.

I have personally experienced getting better through spiritual means, and I've witnessed spiritual healing in others. there are plenty of cases where people are made better through spiritual means. There are also plenty of cases where cancer patients don't respond to treatment and die anyway. That doesn't mean that treatment isn't "real."

Such as?

You mean besides the expansion of awareness and holistic development of self and relationships?

These classifications change regularly, there are plenty of differences between the DSM-IV and the DSM-V.

None of them has ever classified religious faith as "delusion." The reason why is because they don't equate religious faith with belief in the existence of nonexistent entities. Like you do. Which is a straw man argument, because that's simply not what faith is.

There's a difference between ideas and facts.

Of course there is. But they'e both real.

A healthy person understands that ideas and concepts are not the same as facts.

Yeah? Duh!

When one starts to assert that ideas and concepts actually exist in reality, a line has been crossed, whether you like it or not.

I have ideas. Creative things arise from those ideas. Some ideas are shared between individuals and lead to group efforts. Therefore, the ideas exist. The only line that's being crossed is the one where you assert that only the material has existence. Which is a narrow and pedestrian way to view the human experience.

 

[sojourner]

Yours is all one big false dilemma argument. Not being religious doesn't preclude any of the things you just mentioned. In other words, spiritual, non-religious people have as much imagination, intuition, creativity and broad view as anyone else, and my intuition is that they have more than most.

There you go, separating religion from spirituality. It's a false distinction.

 

[icehorse]

There you go, separating religion from spirituality. It's a false distinction.

Hey sojourner, Of course I acknowledge that many people put religion and spirituality together. But you don't need religion to be spiritual. So when religious people use spirituality as a defense of religion it doesn't fly.

 

[sojourner]

Hey sojourner, Of course I acknowledge that many people put religion and spirituality together. But you don't need religion to be spiritual. So when religious people use spirituality as a defense of religion it doesn't fly.

The thing is, though, you can't have religion without spirituality, because religion is a spiritual endeavor. So, when one is engaging in religion, one is, by definition, engaging in spirituality. The flip side of that is that you can't engage in spirituality without religion, because all spiritual practices are religious practices. Perhaps you don't need the politico-social framework, the doctrinal clarification, or particular mythic constructions, but prayer, meditation, contemplation, reflection, worship, are all religious acts. Because spirituality engages the imagination and intuition, because it seeks to expand awareness, some aspect of the mythic is engaged, be it metaphoric avatars, or other imagery.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

When one starts to assert that ideas and concepts actually exist in reality

...one is often called a "Platonist" or "realist", although modern Platonists like Sir Roger Penrose aren't typically as radical as Plato seems to be, but they do assert the "real existence" of abstract, non-physical things like numbers.