Hypothesis: the more educated you are the less likely you are to be religious - by SubJeff
Martin Karne on 27/1/2012 at 14:51
Wrong Hypothesis, but keep trying to label people and if you're lucky you might find one that works with brainless humanoid clones.
Bakerman on 27/1/2012 at 15:11
A few notes.
1. Do you count religious education as 'education'? I doubt it'd change the conclusion much, but I think it's an interesting question. And I don't mean those nutters who try to find scientific support for the young-earth hypothesis, but theology.
2. I tend to agree with the idea that university brings contact with people who are likely to challenge your beliefs, whatever they are. The question is, then, why is it religious people who change their minds when thrown into the melting pot, rather than anyone else?
3. I actually agree with dethtoll when he can be bothered writing more than one line.
4. The correlation between religiosity and refutation of evidence-based science is worrying. But also non-religious people who assume the other from the one. I'm not aware of any teachings that encourage Christians to stop thinking. Nowhere is it written "thou shalt not enquire." To be fair, there are a lot of people who act like it, but I find it fairly insulting to be suspected of intellectual dullness due to my beliefs. Suspect me of being an idiot if I act like an idiot, thanks.
Re-reading this post, I seem a little curt... discussing my religion doesn't come naturally to me. I don't mean offence to anyone I may have indirectly referred to! :p
SubJeff on 27/1/2012 at 15:15
Quote Posted by Martin Karne
Wrong Hypothesis, but keep trying to label people and if you're lucky you might find one that works with brainless humanoid clones.
ButI I haven't labelled anyone, Einstein.
However religious or educated you are I'm now labelling you idiot though, so there is that.
CCCToad on 27/1/2012 at 15:20
Quote:
I tend to agree with the idea that university brings contact with people who are likely to challenge your beliefs, whatever they are. The question is, then, why is it religious people who change their minds when thrown into the melting pot, rather than anyone else?
One reason likely, but also lots of contributing factors. Academic logic trains your mind to focus only on what can be proven through the senses, so it will tend to close your mind off to the possibility of the supernatural. Second, there's a lot of peer pressure. Religious people are regarded as inherently stupid, and changing your beliefs to fit in is more common than you'd think.
Yet another factor is likely behavior-induced re-evaluation of beliefs. I've had more than one "christian" acquaintance who revised their beliefs about fornication being a sin once they discovered they quite enjoyed the experience, and others who stopped believing getting wasted is wrong once they go plastered and liked it.
DDL on 27/1/2012 at 15:23
There seems to be an awful lot of reactions based on the assumption that "the more educated you are, the less likely you are to be religious" is equivalent to "if you believe in god you're thick".
It really isn't. The hypothesis as worded doesn't actually imply anything about how your belief structure is related to your intelligence, or even your education. It simply asks "is there a correlation". If there is a correlation (and it looks like there is, for a given threshold of correlation), then great: we now have a correlation, but again this STILL doesn't say anything about how your belief structure is related to your intelligence, nor does it prove a connection between the two.
Also note that at no point does it even have to be a uniform(ish) distribution: outcomes such as "below threshold X, religiousness increases with lower education, but above this threshold the correlation disappears" are perfectly plausible.
So..don't interpret it as an attack, it really isn't: it's just an interesting question.
faetal on 27/1/2012 at 15:23
Quote Posted by Bakerman
A few notes.
1. Do you count religious education as 'education'? I doubt it'd change the conclusion much, but I think it's an interesting question. And I don't mean those nutters who try to find scientific support for the young-earth hypothesis, but theology.
2. I tend to agree with the idea that university brings contact with people who are likely to challenge your beliefs, whatever they are. The question is, then, why is it religious people who change their minds when thrown into the melting pot, rather than anyone else?
3. I actually agree with dethtoll when he can be bothered writing more than one line.
4. The correlation between religiosity and refutation of evidence-based science is worrying. But also non-religious people who assume the other from the one. I'm not aware of any teachings that encourage Christians to stop thinking. Nowhere is it written "thou shalt not enquire." To be fair, there are a
lot of people who act like it, but I find it fairly insulting to be suspected of intellectual dullness due to my beliefs. Suspect me of being an idiot if I act like an idiot, thanks.
Re-reading this post, I seem a little curt... discussing my religion doesn't come naturally to me. I don't mean offence to anyone I may have indirectly referred to! :p
1) Education is education. So any should be included so as not to cherry-pick. I doubt religious education would skew the figures that much however, as it doesn't represent a huge percentage of overall education.
2) Probably because religion does not base itself on evidence and faith is a personal trait, so if it is shaken, you probably fall hard until you hit evidence. If you have no faith to begin with, you can only have questions about evidence, which is more robust.
4) Tonnes of religions discourage questioning scripture. Plenty of religions ascribe mystery to divinity too, which presumably would stop someone from going quite so far as to answer a gap in one's knowledge with empirical rather spiritual research. Plus, the more invested in a mindset one becomes, the more prone to cognitive dissonance they are when it is challenged.
zombe on 27/1/2012 at 15:34
Quote Posted by Martin Karne
Wrong Hypothesis
You mean the act of stating a guess is wrong? Or that the guess is definitely wrong (ie. there cannot be any correlation) because you said so?
Hard to decide which of the two ridiculously silly things you wanted to convey for some inexplicable reason. My mind boggles.
edit: oh, yeah, this silliness might indeed be the result of not understanding the hypothesis.
scarykitties on 27/1/2012 at 16:29
Quote Posted by faetal
It's the "god of the gaps" argument and the gaps become smaller and fewer as time and knowledge progress.
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRJ8DMyBLTc) Yup.
Pyrian on 27/1/2012 at 17:20
Quote Posted by Independent Thief
...presbyterian church...
Presby's aren't so bad, but you
do realize that the evangelicals consider you guys barely half a step above atheist gays, right? :p
scarykitties on 27/1/2012 at 18:08
Quote Posted by Bakerman
2. I tend to agree with the idea that university brings contact with people who are likely to challenge your beliefs, whatever they are. The question is, then, why is it religious people who change their minds when thrown into the melting pot, rather than anyone else?
I think this depends on where the university is, what size it is, and what programs it offers.
At the university I am attending, there are about 3,000 students on-campus. There is no atheist representation, but there are at least 3 Christian organizations on campus, all of which have a great number of members and significant presence. This is a State university, so it is not directly affiliated with any religion--there just aren't enough motivated secular individuals to create any kind of Atheist organization (and really, what would you do, anyway?).
So, in this case, I'd say that you're
more likely to become a Christian by coming to this university, simply because Christianity has such a powerful presence here and this isn't a science-focused college: mostly technology, arts, and education. Those who
are taking biology majors will (from what I have seen) scoff at the idea of religious rejection of evolution, the "theory of intelligent design," and, in general, seem none too interested in the ideas put forth by Christians, but the science department is a minority here, and this is a very religious area of the country.
So I think it may be hasty to assume that university education will make one less inclined toward religion unless you take into account the culture of the universities in question.
And of course, how much one conforms to fundamentalist Christian dogma doesn't necessarily determine how religious one is. There are plenty of teens and college-age students who will suck a bong and sleep around, but still consider themselves completely Christian. They either ignore the parts of the Bible that the are violating, or they excuse any violation with an explanation like, "the bible says no to adultery, but I'm not married yet, so I can fuck whomever I like!" At their core, though, they still believe in God (or are at least fearful enough to not admitting that they
don't believe in him), that it is necessary to ask Jesus for forgiveness for one's wrongs, etc.
Though really, it can be difficult to lump even Christians of the same denomination together. Some are more spiritual than others, some are more religious than others, and some are more superstitious than others. I think that you'd find a fairly large majority of Americans believe in a supernatural deity of some kind. If we're talking "the more education, the less likely you are to believe in a deity," I think that it may be difficult to actually find a clear correlation there, except possibly among the sciences (particularly Geology, Physics, Biology, and other natural sciences).
