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 An exhibit of Rodin's "The Thinker."
April 27th, 2012
04:01 PM ET
Study: Analytic thinking can decrease religious beliefBy Becky Perlow, CNN (CNN) - When was the last time you sat down and questioned your decision to believe in God? According to a new study, that simple act could decrease your religious conviction – even if you’re a devout believer. In the study, published Friday in the journal Science, researchers from Canada’s University of British Columbia used subtle stimuli to encourage analytical thinking. Results from the study found that analytical thinking could decrease religious belief. “Religious belief is intuitive - and analytical thinking can undermine intuitive thinking,” said Ara Norenzayan, co-author of the study. “So when people are encouraged to think analytically, it can block intuitive thinking.” CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories Some of the more than 650 Canadian and American participants in the study were shown images of artwork that encouraged analytic thinking, while another group was shown images that were not intended to produce such thinking. One of the images used to trigger analytic thinking was of Rodin’s statue “The Thinker.” A previous study showed that such images improved performance on tests that indicate analytic thinking. In addition to the artwork images, the religion study used other stimuli to promote analytical thinking. After exposure to such stimuli, researchers gauged participants’ religious beliefs through a series of questions. Subjects who had performed analytical tasks were more likely to experience a decrease in religious belief than those who were not involved in such tasks. That included devout believers. “There’s much more instability to religious belief than we recognize,” said Norenzayan, noting that life’s circumstances and experiences, from traumatic events to joyous occasions, can lead people to become more or less religious. “Religion is such an important part of the world and we have so little understanding of it,” he added. “So regardless of what you think about religion, it’s important to understand it because it’s so important in the world.” Norenzayan is quick to mention that the experiments did not turn devout believers into total atheists. But he speculated that if people habitually think analytically, like scientists or lawyers do, it would lead to less religious belief in the long run. Robert McCauley, director of the Center for Mind, Brain and Culture at Emory University, and author of "Why religion is natural and science is not," found the study particularly interesting because he thought it was difficult to make even a minimal change in religious belief. “It’s not likely you would argue someone out of a religious belief very often because they don’t hold those beliefs on argumentative or reflective grounds in the first place,” said McCauley, who believes religious beliefs rely primarily on intuitive thinking. Analytical thinking alone does not necessarily lead to a decrease in religious belief, emphasized Norenzayan. “There’s a combination of factors [as to] why people become believers or nonbelievers - this is only one piece of the puzzle,” Norenzayan said, explaining that his team doesn’t think analytical thinking is superior to intuitive thinking. “It makes the story we need to tell about religion and religious belief all the more complicated,” said McCauley. “That’s what great scientific research does – ask more interesting questions.” soundoff (3,468 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Next »
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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In other words, our country is full of idiots. LOL
we didn't know that ?
Analytical thinking is but an anal-lyitical depositorium for fractured members of maniacal contrivences such as guns but not roses! Truth be told fully, an analytical mind is beyond the passivities of the common hybrids of today's allotted and upcoming generations! One needs to be of stupidity in these days wherein all one thinks about are numbered pleasentries! I say lower the marriage age to when one comes into being pubescent! Oh, I keep forgetting people are too young to have such ongoing manifestations of the lewed kind!
Thinking pressed. In the yellow turnpike we can be incessantly certain of your pear, but it yields no marigolds of ink. Whole cars have reached the venal sky without ever coughing up broken chipmunks of yore.
No one is fooled by fake pomposity.
Millions are fooled by pomposity, fake or otherwise. Just look at the flocks that show up when that criminal known as the Pope comes around.
Re Kendra: huh?
How can someone say so much without saying a single thing of importance?
The authors defined "religious belief" as "intuitive". Intuitive is defined as: "Using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive." So it seems the authors have only shown that the more people use logic, the less they rely on feelings or intuition. This seems so obvious that it surprises me it is worthy of the journal Science. Maybe if the reviewers at Science thought more analytically about what the article was actually trying to prove they would realize there is very little meaningful content.
Reread the article and every place there is "religious belief", "religion", or "belief" replace it with "intuition". This removes the emotional impact of those word and, in my option, gives a more honest presentation of what the authors have "proven".
So far, keisma is showing the most critical-thinking regarding this article. Obviously has good reading comprehension skills too. Now, if only the trolls can learn these things.....
Barf.
You call that thinking? I call it dribble.
if god made my life full i would defend the believe of god he hasn't yet i am going to keep praying but into he dose i really cant believe in some thing i have no proof of in any way. i believe in gravity because it has been proven over and over again and we reason to believe its there , god well we really don't if god proves it me i will believe in it or him what ever.
You're not alone.
Please God, do not impregnate my 12 year old daughter for the benefit of humankind.
Once was enough.
Best leave that to the neighbor boy.
I like that CNN often does reports like this. It is so important to get religion out in the open where it can be discussed, questioned and no longer be seen as sacred or taboo to question. Really, I am hugely relieved that a major news organization is doing this.
Really, you believers who allow dolts to speak for you undo yourselves. If the best you can do is morons like Paleoconservative and Bo, you deserve every ounce of scorn you get here.
Now let us have a pity party for all the atheists. Because by sheer volumn of posts, Tom is really screwing you all as your representative.
Excellent! ROFL – thanks Middle school Tom!
Desperate, aren't you, bfart? It won't help, honey. Nobody's ever going to marry you.
Yes Christians, your "god" is the biggest baddest "god" there ever was. (Yawwwwn) Are you happy now? LOL
Yours is the biggest baddest sarcastic sense of humor ever. Yaaawwnn. Feel better now? LOL!
Good come-back Cee Dee, lol!
God told me that he does not exist.
I would have to assume that wasn't God talking to you.
Unless he/she's taking lessons from Andy Kaufman
Actually you're wrong ! ! ! Jesus told me that heave is like an enormous disco with lots of naked buff men running around. . . including the 12 apostles ! ! !
A true Zen saying JB!
Tomorrow's true Zen saying: "Nothing is what I want".
Sounds like a study in which the scientists had already formed their conclusions before it started. Many scientists and mathematicians through the ages have believed in God.
As the latest atheist attack that Jesus of Nazareth was a myth collapses because of concocted scholarship, serious Christians not only ask hard questions about God but put their beliefs to the test in the furnace of suffering.
No, Christians cannot prove scientifically that God exists, but that argument is irrelevant, since God lives independently of this universe and even independently of time. And the bottom line is, if we could understand him, he wouldn't be God.
Right. God doesn't want people to understand what the rules are. It's much more fun to guess and send the losers to h-ll.
The god you describe isn't one concerned with human lives or worship..
So everything follows the rules EXCEPT God? That's terribly convenient, don't you think? Do you ever actually listen to yourself?
Observer, imagine if you drew a stick-man on a piece of paper. Now imagine that you wanted this stick-man to know that you exist. The stick-man has no capacity to even conceive of your existence or to see you being trapped in his two dimensional world. And if you try to step into his world as you are you would tear it completely apart. Now think of all of the things that you might try to give this stick-man knowledge of yourself and of his existence. Now reflect on what we learn in the bible, culminating in the coming of Christ. By the way the stick-man idea was simply an analogy, so don't get too excited.
So, you're saying that god was able to communicate math and chemistry with ease but can't clear up the continual, countless misconceptions about his nature and his desires?? I don't buy it.. If god wanted to be known and worshiped he'd be as obvious as gravity.
momoya, it's not a question of how much God wants to be known. It isn't Him who is the limiting factor.
That makes no sense. Who says that you can only be god if you're invisible and misunderstood? That's just weird. We should consider that Jesus or our bible doesn't exist at all and that while that might be the case it doesn't mean that there isn't something outh there somewhere that we simply don't know.
We can debate, we can sermonize, we can postulate, we can doubt, we can deny, we can philosophize, we can research, we can opine.......WE CANNOT PROVE.......one way or the other.
Simple.. lets say if god exists, let him prove it by giving the poor homeless guy some food before I go give him money to buy some.. Back in a couple of mins.. to tell you if it happened..
Didin't happen.. Sorry.. God doesn't exist.. and the sad thing is that guy has a crucifix around his neck.. what better work does your god have than to help his faithful? leave the unbelieving shmucks alone.. but not even the faithful? sad god!
Great pair, Snow.
@ snow
Still can't prove anything, can you?
understanding proof requires the ability to think and interpret.. you sadly lack that.. or you are a sad troll who does not know anything other than "You can't prove it" ... so believe away whatever you want you sad silly man..
Imagine that...
Just consider this:
The bible was written by MEN, who were probably on retainer, paid by the Eilite. Thus you could conclude religion is designed not only for population control, but to "wash away" the the hideous crimes of empire building.. a very bloody process of having a societal construct. And of course, Religion addresses the primary 'collateral philosophical confound' of empire building: –Legitimacy.
i agree with you on that
Since several of the authors of the Bible were executed, they probably didn't have it that good with the ruling elite. This is a bizarre argument anyway. Most of scientific works have been written by MEN. Many of those were funded by the elites. This doesn't make their works any less true. Issac Newton was a man, and funded by the elite (he became a member of the royal society and made a knight). Calculus is still true though
i don't find it odd that people are arguing about this people always do.
hers something my life is hell i pray every night to god to help me i have for the past 2 years because i found that nothing else works and want to be able to have a ok life i haven't received help yet if god is real how come my prayers haven't been answered? if my prayers were answered i wouldn't question if god is real i am going to keep praying but its starting to get hard to think if any one or thing is listening. what evidence do we have that god is real ok the bible but how do we know who made it. the bible came from the middle east of all places people arguing and making lies all time they're not the best source for info. i bet this is what happened some people got together and wrote the bible to control people if that is true they did a good job.
Precisely!
Read the book of John in the bible until you understand it. Pray God will help you understand it. If you really want to know the truth and know Him I believe He will help you. One step at a time. Read the book of John ( Gospel of John ) fourth book of the New Testament.
Don't listen to all these other naysayers. They haven't found God yet either.
Don't listen to anyone who arrogantly claims that everyone else must be wrong because they disagree with him. You're on the right track. Ignore the faith-pushers.
Look up Dan Barker.. I myself was a christian for almost 50 years..
Read the book of John in the bible until you understand it. Pray God will help you understand it. If you really want to know the truth and know Him I believe He will help you. One step at a time. Read the book of John ( Gospel of John ) fourth book of the New Testament.
Don't listen to all these other naysayers. They haven't found God yet either.
1 Corinthians 1:18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
ALinCa
You miss my point entirely.
We all live in the same universe. God is part of mine because I choose it to be so. Whether or not God exists is immaterial.
To prove me wrong, you must prove that God doesn't exist.
Good luck with that.
1. God is a square circle.
2. Square circles don't exist.
3. Thus, god doesn't exist. QED.
Now, before cying foul, riddle me this: Did you define what god is? Or did you leave it up to those who you demand prove its nonexistance?
Cute, Ken.....too bad you didn't prove anything.
The onus is on you to prove that there is a God first. I could tell a group of people that there is an invisible tiger in the room with no proof to back up my story. To use your logic it would be on them to prove otherwise regardless of how implausible and ridiculous my earlier claim was. Using your logic my claim would have to be considered as truth until the other people in the room could prove that there was no invisible tiger. You see, this is exactly the opposite manner in which we prove a fact.
@Ricky L
You said, "You miss my point entirely."
I'm pretty sure I got it.
You said, "We all live in the same universe. God is part of mine because I choose it to be so. Whether or not God exists is immaterial."
True, true and not entirely. The evil done in name of the various gods makes it imperative that we dispel the notion of their existence.
You said, "To prove me wrong, you must prove that God doesn't exist."
I have no need to prove you wrong. The notion of any gods is so utterly ridiculous that I can dismiss it without blinking an eye. Your god is equally likely to exist as Pink Unicorns, The Flying Spaghetti Monster or Bob the Magical Blue Sock. Even Santa Claus, The Abominable Snowman and Loch Ness Monster are far more likely to exist than your god.
Unless you can provide evidence that your god actually exists, I simply laugh at your gullibility.
Too bad you don't get it Ricky.. sad that you can not think more about the proof as it is forbidden by your faith.. sorry!
RickyL, you've backed up this study yet again ! ! ! Thank you for providing us living proof of it ! ! !
Ah, but I did. I proved that you are a disingenuous fool.
Prove that unicorns don't exist.
There are no gods save those thought of and created by the weakest of minds, nurtured through the centuries, and held alive despite reason's teachings. The Sky God and Nature Gods were more acceptable since it was understandable how ignorance brought them to life. The rise and domination of monotheism, however, served no one but the adherant...then or now, and was born of greed, power craving, and not one iota of universal love for all mankind despite what filth is spewed daily from the frothing mouths of the religious. The sooner their god dies in the mind and heart of every human being the better; then and only then can we possibly have peace on this earth.
So this means you cannot be a scientist or lawyer and have faith at the same time? Wrong. I'm a scientist and love critical and analytical thinking and arguments. And I believe in God. I have lots of lawyer friends who believe as well. For me, Science and Religion co-exist – there is no exclusivity. I don't get it when people say otherwise.
One says how the earth was created, the other says why...
Einstein believed in God.
@RICKY...BE TRUTHFUL IN YOUR STATEMENTS, NOT MISLEADING......I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)
@Jespo – beat me to the quote, lol
Oh, Jespo, you and your facts. Facts don't mean anything in a debate about religion!
Sigh.. this is a hard debate that not many of you get, but here it goes.. Einstein did NOT believe in god.. he did not believe there is a god watching you and listening to your prayers and answering them.. What he believed is a cosmic force that created the universe and holds it in harmony..
is it called god? no..
is it something we do not understand? yes..
is it any religious god as defined by a myriad of religions silly humans believe around here? Fuck NO!!!
Facts matter in any discussion...how they are used is open to debate...only the religious would have facts and reality suspended from the discussion.
Yeah Jespo! Facts are a big no-no ! ! ! Shame on you ! ! !
"Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not." A.E., 1921
"As I have said so many times, God doesn't play dice with the world." A.E., 1943
Choose your poison, Jespo.
No, it just means you have to have a certain capacity for self-deception, which you clearly have. You believe in God because you need to believe in God, nothing more.
@Snow – "Sigh.. this is a hard debate that not many of you get..."
Don't start muddling-up the discussion with facts and reason.
Enjoyed your comments. I found it interesting two Mormons would post back to back as we did. Small world.
I agree. Seems God knows a lot about chemistry and math and applies them very well. Tragedy does not mean there is no God, in the end we will be judged for what we do with what we knew during our lives, however long or short those lives are. We have our own choices to make, choose them well.
I’m glad I don’t fit the common mold.
22 years ago, I allowed two Mormon missionaries in my house to hear what they had to say. No way would anyone convince me their weird story could ever make any sense. A number of things they taught disagreed with my life style so I had plenty reasons to find things wrong with their logic. Of course as you can already guess, I did not find the logic to disprove what was being presented and today I am one of those weird Mormons. I still find that hard to believe.
If course at this point of the story everyone can now be convinced that I am not much of an analytical thinker. I would have to argue that is wrong. I have successfully owned my own computer company now for almost 20 years. To successfully work on computer one normally would be involved with a good bit of analytical thinking.
And then the real kicker of this all is that I love science. I love space and physic research. My all time favorite TV show is Nova, I’ve watched it now for over 30 years. I remember when discussions about black holes were just starting in the 60’s and today string theory, multiverses, branes, extra dimensions. Then couple that with the magic programming language of DNA and RNA and how complex it is that it can make life with such rich variations.
Of course the real question I have for most those that use science as their foundation to claim there is no God. How can that be? Even at our best, science without a doubt can only see, touch or feel about 5 to 6 percent of the universe. I’m not talking about not seeing the stuff that is beyond the 13 billion light year limit to our reach of vision into the unknown, I’m talking about that stuff science is now calling dark matter and dark energy.
How can there not be a God. I’ve was raised in a very dysfunctional family. I’ve seen life without faith, hope or charity. I’ve seen life now with it. Why would a God not want to help us to find faith and learn the value of hope that comes from it..
Enough preaching, analytical thinking does not seem to bother my faith in God, I think it actually enhances it. I wish I could help everyone see and feel the joy that I have found in my faith. God lives, Jesus is the Christ. It doesn’t get better than that.
"How can there not be a God. I’ve was raised in a very dysfunctional family."
Everyone fills such voids in their lives in different ones. Congrats, you are probably not an alcoholic, criminal, abuser, but face it, you've filled the void with an imaginary father figure.
About 30 years ago I had two Mormon women stop by our house – one of them at least was interested in my theory that the universe is endless, that there was no creation, no beginning and no end – that the big bang may well have been a local occurrence etc. I'm somewhat of a Christian atheist – Christian values that I grew up with but no belief in a higher power. I'm afraid one of the women couldn't wait to get out of my house – but they were welcomed as I have been at the Mormon libraries (genealogy research) Good letter Jack.
No one uses science to disprove the existence of God. That is a silly myth designed to discredit non-believers. We use LOGIC to address belief in God.
For all your talk about loving science, your post is completely irrational. It is one big logical fallacy. First, you start with an argument from ignorance, asserting that because we currently lack knowledge about certain aspects of the universe, God must have done it, and you completely ignore the other possibilities at work. There was a time when humans did not know why the sun rose and set, so they explained it with a simple but false belief. Did the earth not rotate and revolve around the sun before humans did not understand that it did so? Of course it did. Your lack of knowledge or understanding of a thing has no bearing on whether or not that thing exists.
Second, you go to what is essentially an appeal to consequences (as well as a completely irrational reliance on anecdotal evidence): because you perceive the consequences of God not existing to be bad, then God must exist. This is no different than me asserting that because winning the lottery tomorrow will be good for me, I will win the lottery.
I don't think you are stupid. I think you understand what I am saying. I just think you have a serious problem with cognitive dissonance.
Ken,
No doubt the Lord has filled void far beyond that of just a dysfunction family. And I can see how you could say this. Being analytical I have certainly asked myself if that was the a big part of my belief. I have reached the conclusion that if it took that to lead me to the door of this happiness that I have found in my belief, then so be it. Thanks for not being mean about your different viewpoint. It seems so often the Internet allows or almost invites such. Best
Johnnystop,
Interesting, my wife served a mission about 30 years ago. It could have been her. Sounds like it in that she would have been in a hurry to get out. Not because the statements you might have made but because of her own shyness and not wanting to push her believes on another. Thanks for your kind expression of your feelings on this
Maya,
I’ll simply say I disagree but I respect your right to not believe that there could be a God. I once had real doubts concerning such. I… for the life of me could not see how God could be but yet so many suffered and died horrible deaths because the hate of Adolf Hitler. Anyway, we obviously do not agree on this subject. Best to you.
It is kind of funny that a piece of art like The Thinker would encouraged analytic thinking, when the first use of The Thinker was in Rodin's Gates of Hell. The Gates of Hell was inspired by the very religious oriented book The Divine Comedy by Dante.
I believe I am going to sin like a mother F*kr this weekend when I go to Las Vegas.
Get happy!
Oh, can I be there when you do? hehe