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Originally Posted by tore
All interested in this subject should check out an article in Scientific American titled "How Critical Thinkers Lose Their Faith in God".
It's an article about some studies that show how intuitive thinking, which is a sort of standard thinking most "run on", promotes religious beliefs while analytical and critical thinking, which generally takes more effort, does the opposite. It's interesting as it can tell us something about why some people believe while others don't.
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Just a little quote from the study to hopefully pique your interest :
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I find the tests and results quite interesting but not really convinced about the terminology used. It looks like they relate 'intuition' to system 1 (and especially religious faith). Intuition can get a bit vague at times as it encompasses many other things such as a quick impulse on fixing a computer problem. All of it is based on your previous cognitive experience. I'm guessing that if you were to witness something strange, your first impulse would be to examine and reason it and not turn to the supernatural.
The advancements in civilization and science in the past what? few thousand years is still extremely small in evolutionary terms for the brain to expand its prefrontal cortex where large percentage of the decision making activities take place. We also don't require the 'flight or fight' mechanism as much as before. It does seem strange though (or maybe even explains a lot) that when I read these religious texts, a lot of it seems to be based on
fear - fear of dark, fear of death, fear of the unknown, sometimes even fear of the known, like the origin of our species....and when many of it gives the impression that it has the answers to everything, I find that it explaining absolutely nothing whatsoever.