Does religion impair vital critical thinking skills?

[FunctionalAtheist]

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.

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party. Haven't read all the posts so don't know if this study has been mentioned. According to this study, children who are exposed to religion have difficulty distinguishing possible from impossible. I.e. a child who is taught Jesus rose from the dead is susceptible to believing things that are purely fantastical but UNRELATED to religion. Children Exposed To Religion Have Difficulty Distinguishing Fact From Fiction, Study Finds

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party. Haven't read all the posts so don't know if this study has been mentioned. According to this study, children who are exposed to religion have difficulty distinguishing possible from impossible.

According to the study, children raised with little religious background may be incapable of identifying a story in which God does something as "religious". It's hard to tell, because rather than report all classifications of all stories by all groups in study 1, they focused on whether stories were classified as "real" when they were, when they were "religious", and when they were "fantastical". The authors don't do tell us that secular children were more likely to judge religious stories as "pretend", but as that isn't one of their categories it seems more than a little odd.

However, they did provide more for the classification scheme broken down into 5 categories: reality, impossibility, religion, pictorial, and uninformative. The stories differed very little, mainly in that the "fantastical" stories used the word "magical' and the "religion" one used the word God while the "reality" used neither. Oddly enough, scores were pretty similar except in one category: "religion". The non-religious group's responses were almost equal among 4 of the categories (basically none of any groups' responses were ever classified as "pictorial", making the classification schema questionable). Now, if I'm 5 and I know something about religion (I've been taught prayers and told stories about the Bible, for example), and someone tells me a story that involves God and asks me about it I'm probably going to notice that because it involves God it's religious. What's a good way to test that? Take children who non-religious and see if they are more or less identical in how their responses were classified when it comes to the religion stories. Guess what? They were. Non-religious children's explanations were slightly more likely to be classified as religion given religious stories than they were to be classified "impossibility", slightly more likely to be classified as "impossibility" than "reality", and slightly more likely to be classified "reality" than "uninformative". Take the same story as the "reality" one, insert God, and children familiar with religion identify it as religious. Do this with the non-religious children, and they are more likely than all other groups to explain it as "reality" rather than "religion".

This could have been a much better study had they not assumed that Barrett's work (and those like him) entails something it doesn't: namely, that a natural tendency in children to religious-like explanations means that there won't be differences among children with and without religious backgrounds in terms of their tendency to explain "stories" as religious (or reality, fantastical, etc.).

As for Study 2 (the second experiment in the same published study), we find "The results also undermine the hypothesis that religious children take a reference to magic to be an indirect reference to a miracle. In fact, religious as well as secular children were more likely, not less likely, to judge the story protagonist as pretend if the story included a reference to magic."
So, when you remove religion for the equation, and voila: "it is important to note that there were almost no religious justifications in Study 2, even by the religious children."

So what they really found was that when children with some religious background (in "Study 1" there were four groups, three of which were religious on some level) when presented with a vignette that refers to God are likely to think it religious, while non-religious children are more likely to think it is reality. Astounding!

I.e. a child who is taught Jesus rose from the dead is susceptible to believing things that are purely fantastical but UNRELATED to religion

.
None of the stimuli involved Jesus.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Not for me, I need more than primitive fairy tales, I need demonstrable and confirmable stories, based on objective, testable evidence..

A 'fairy tale' is most obviously fiction by definition ..
Your statement above claims that all scriptures are 'fairy tales' .. that's your claim only, it doesn't make it true.
I see constant discussions about 'historical Jesus', and most people agree that he existed and that he was apparently crucified. That is based on objective historical evidence.

Muhammad, peace be with him, was born around 500 years later .. there are reams of historical records regards him. Of course, you can claim him to be a fraud, but I'd like to see you prove it!

But they're not because most of it is simply assertions based on wishful thinking. People can claim to have experiences with a god, yet they cannot show that they actually have done so, only assert that they have done so.

I don't claim to have had an 'experience with a god' .. I claim that my experience in living my life while applying my faith only serves to strengthen it!
eg. there are rational reasons why Almighty God forbids us from evil and encourages us towards righteousness .. God is not in need of anything whatsoever .. it is ourselves who are in need

 

[Rick O'Shez]

there are rational reasons why Almighty God forbids us from evil and encourages us towards righteousness .

But what is the rational reason for God making us evil in the first place? Didn't He anticipate events like the Holocaust?

 

[FunctionalAtheist]

According to the study, children raised with little religious background may be incapable of identifying a story in which God does something as "religious".

It's hard to tell, because rather than report all classifications of all stories by all groups in study 1, they focused on whether stories were classified as "real" when they were, when they were "religious", and when they were "fantastical".

I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean in the above sentence. Can you clarify?

The authors don't do tell us that secular children were more likely to judge religious stories as "pretend", but as that isn't one of their categories it seems more than a little odd.

Religious IS one of the categories. Fictional is a response. Or am I misunderstanding you again? The rest of you analysis seems to be beyond me until I can find a way to understand what you're trying to say.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean in the above sentence.

Did you read the study?

Can you clarify?Religious IS one of the categories.

Yes and no. There were two classificational schemata. I thought this rather obvious.Did you skip over the methods sections?

 

[FunctionalAtheist]

Did you read the study?

I'm not having a problem with the study. Your statement

It's hard to tell, because rather than report all classifications of all stories by all groups in study 1, they focused on whether stories were classified as "real" when they were, when they were "religious", and when they were "fantastical".

reads...stories were classified as real when they were, when they were religious, and when they were fantastical. From this study you picked up that they classified all real, religious, and fantastical stories as..real??? Apologies if I'm not understanding, but I can't see what you meant otherwise.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I'm not having a problem with the study. Your statement reads...stories were classified as real when they were, when they were religious, and when they were fantastical. From this study you picked up that they classified all real, religious, and fantastical stories as..real??? Apologies if I'm not understanding, but I can't see what you meant otherwise.

All stories were nearly identified but were initially grouped by the researchers as one of three categories. All subjects/participants' responses were classified by the researchers as one of 5 categories. So every participant of every group was presented with stimuli and asked to classify them, and these classifications were interpreted by the researchers as belonging to one and only one of 5 categories. These categories included real, impossible, religious, pictorial, and unintelligible. Each story, however, was predetermined to be one of three classifications a priori.

 

[FunctionalAtheist]

All stories were nearly identified but were initially grouped by the researchers as one of three categories. All subjects/participants' responses were classified by the researchers as one of 5 categories. So every participant of every group was presented with stimuli and asked to classify them, and these classifications were interpreted by the researchers as belonging to one and only one of 5 categories. These categories included real, impossible, religious, pictorial, and unintelligible. Each story, however, was predetermined to be one of three classifications a priori.

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't sure exactly what your objection was. Each story was nearly identical with the exception of including or not including impossibilities (normally speaking), and those with impossibilities referring either to religion or magic. This is experimental design, it has nothing to do with a priori 'deciding' which classification each story fall in. The responses take into account 3 valid responses, and 2 invalid responses.

The assumption here is that there is a difference between possible and impossible, and that the researcheres know the difference. What the study shows, is that religious children differ significantly (from the researchers, and from secular children) in their ability to distinguish possible from impossible. Now, if the researchers failed to properly classify possible and impossible, then yes you have a point.

 

[icehorse]

A 'fairy tale' is most obviously fiction by definition ..
Your statement above claims that all scriptures are 'fairy tales' .. that's your claim only, it doesn't make it true.
I see constant discussions about 'historical Jesus', and most people agree that he existed and that he was apparently crucified. That is based on objective historical evidence.

Muhammad, peace be with him, was born around 500 years later .. there are reams of historical records regards him. Of course, you can claim him to be a fraud, but I'd like to see you prove it! ...

It is one thing to claim that a person named Muhammad created Islam 1400 years ago. That's a reasonable claim. It's a very different thing to claim that god *revealed* the Quran to Muhammad. That's an extraordinary claim.

I've heard skilled reciters, recite the Quran, and it's beautiful to hear. So, I'd be happy to grant that Muhammad was an exceptionally skilled poet. But Beethoven and Rumi and Mozart and Shakespeare were also extremely skilled.

 

[Cephus]

A 'fairy tale' is most obviously fiction by definition ..
Your statement above claims that all scriptures are 'fairy tales' .. that's your claim only, it doesn't make it true.
I see constant discussions about 'historical Jesus', and most people agree that he existed and that he was apparently crucified. That is based on objective historical evidence.

No, it isn't. There simply are no contemporary eyewitness accounts to anything that Jesus might have done, none of the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses, nor the people who the books are named after. This is a well known historical fact. Once you get beyond blind faith, nobody thinks that the Jesus, as described in the Bible, actually existed. There very well might have been a real individual at the center of the myth, a Jewish itinerant preacher upon whom the mantle of godhood was posthumously draped, but there's no reason whatsoever to think that the Biblical Jesus was ever real. Whether our preacher was crucified or not is unknown, there are certainly no Roman records of such a thing and they kept very good records.

Muhammad, peace be with him, was born around 500 years later .. there are reams of historical records regards him. Of course, you can claim him to be a fraud, but I'd like to see you prove it!

Yes there are, in fact, we do know that some of the accounts of Muhammad were written by eyewitnesses which makes his physical existence much more well verified than Jesus. That still doesn't verify what he said was true or worthwhile.

I don't claim to have had an 'experience with a god' .. I claim that my experience in living my life while applying my faith only serves to strengthen it!
eg. there are rational reasons why Almighty God forbids us from evil and encourages us towards righteousness .. God is not in need of anything whatsoever .. it is ourselves who are in need

Lots of people do claim to have direct experiences with a god though, it's very commonplace. They have no means of demonstrating how they know they actually had an experience with a god however, they can only claim it, exactly what you're doing when you claim that God forbids us from doing anything. There's only faith, no demonstrable fact involved.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..exactly what you're doing when you claim that God forbids us from doing anything. There's only faith, no demonstrable fact involved.

I didn't say God forbids us from doing anything

The Qur'an confirms the Bible .. I believe it and try to follow it .. You follow what you follow, and I follow what I follow .. it's as simple as that!

When you say that There's only faith, that applies to many things in life .. particularly when it comes to trusting what human beings promise

 

[Cephus]

I didn't say God forbids us from doing anything

Yeah, actually you did, you said "Almighty God forbids us from evil and encourages us towards righteousness". Your words.

The Qur'an confirms the Bible .. I believe it and try to follow it .. You follow what you follow, and I follow what I follow .. it's as simple as that!

Which really doesn't matter because neither the Qur'an nor the Bible have been independently or objectively verified. It means nothing to say that the Qur'an confirms the Bible (which it doesn't, it often simply repeats the Bible and repetition is not confirmation), any more than saying that the Qur'an confirms Harry Potter.

And of course, everyone is going to follow what they follow, there's no other option. The question isn't who believes what but whether what people believe is actually accurate and true. It's as simple as that.

When you say that There's only faith, that applies to many things in life .. particularly when it comes to trusting what human beings promise

Trust, at least for the rational, comes from the demonstrable and from direct experience. I trust people who have proven themselves to be trustworthy. I do not trust people who have proven themselves to be untrustworthy. We make these decisions rationally and we understand why we make them. We don't just pick someone to trust, just for the heck of it. Faith is the excuse people give for believing things for no good reason. I do not employ that kind of faith anywhere in my life.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..We make these decisions rationally and we understand why we make them..

Right..

Faith is the excuse people give for believing things for no good reason. I do not employ that kind of faith anywhere in my life.

How sad
How smug and cynical you are .. I can assure you that many people have a good reason for believing what they believe .. some people are spiritually blind, and you are one of them!

 

[Rick O'Shez]

..some people are spiritually blind, and you are one of them!

 

[Harikrish]

I didn't say God forbids us from doing anything

The Qur'an confirms the Bible .. I believe it and try to follow it .. You follow what you follow, and I follow what I follow .. it's as simple as that!

When you say that There's only faith, that applies to many things in life .. particularly when it comes to trusting what human beings promise

Why does the bible need any confirmation by God or an illiterate Arab. Christianity was already well established and became the state religion of Rome in 325AD. The Quran only came into existence around 800AD about 200 years after the prophet died. The Quran has done little to enhance the faith of Christians in the bible. In fact the Quran has lost credibility among Christians because it misrepresents facts about the bible.
How credible are the two religions Islam and Christianity? One was the recitations by an illiterate Arab and the other the aspirations of a deluded carpenters son who actually made the prophets top list in the Quran.

 

[Cephus]

How smug and cynical you are .. I can assure you that many people have a good reason for believing what they believe .. some people are spiritually blind, and you are one of them!

There's a difference between having an actual good reason and being personally convinced that you have a good reason. Anyone who has any belief in any subject thinks they have a good reason to believe it. That doesn't mean that they do. I'm not spiritually blind, I'm just not intellectually brain dead.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

This is experimental design, it has nothing to do with a priori 'deciding' which classification each story fall in. The responses take into account 3 valid responses, and 2 invalid responses.

They didn't do any such things. They created the five classifications; they NEVER asked whether a story should be classified as "impossibility". They had two separate response categories: one that reflected whether the child correctly classified a story as belonging to the researchers' 3 possible classes, and another in which the children's account/explanation for their interpretation (the 5-part schema, which doesn't have "3 valid responses and 2 invalid responses" nor anything remotely similar to such a description).

The assumption here is that there is a difference between possible and impossible, and that the researcheres know the difference. What the study shows, is that religious children differ significantly (from the researchers, and from secular children) in their ability to distinguish possible from impossible.

What the study shows is that non-religious children are more likely to classify a "religious" story as "reality" than religious children.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..I'm not spiritually blind, I'm just not intellectually brain dead.

OK .. tell us about your 'spirituality', then..

 

[Cephus]

OK .. tell us about your 'spirituality', then..

I have none. Just because I have no spiritual beliefs doesn't mean I'm blind, it just means I have a much higher standard of proof than you apparently do.