Hypothesis: the more educated you are the less likely you are to be religious

Epos Nix on 28/1/2012 at 03:53

I believe that's why God invented ttlg.

Phatose on 28/1/2012 at 04:38

Quote Posted by Tocky

Yeah? What about those that understand fully the ludicrus history of our need to worship sky daddy and the root of our behavior yet can't shake the need to bitch at something more substantial than fate? I mean, particularly when they have been drinking. Where is our support group? They all just break up into pairs and go screw someplace that's what. And who's name do they call then huh? That's right.

Er....Jack Daniels?

faetal on 28/1/2012 at 11:30

Epos - sorry to call it, but that sounds a bit over-simplistic. Anything which sounds like specious pop-psych, while sounding neat, doesn't empirically answer the question. There are numerous facets which determine a person's mindset with regards to belief structures, and it's unlikely to be down to any Belbin-grade, neatly delineated archetypes.

Epos Nix on 28/1/2012 at 11:55

Try it out then.

Go type some people and ask what their religious preference is. I do. And it works.

The ENTP I work with is agnostic. My wife, an INFJ, agreed with Buddhsim. I am INTJ and agree to some extent with Objectivism but prefer Buddhism.

The site I linked was half tongue-in-cheek but still fairly accurate in some of the choices it thinks a type will go for. An ENTJ I know has even said he would love to start a cult because he believes he is God.

faetal on 28/1/2012 at 11:58

In this thread, people need to learn how to understand basic statistics :erg:

EDIT: Little bit of back up from actual analysis rather than "fits the wife and I therefore is flawless":

(http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/30/mbti-flawed-measure-personality)

(http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/develop/mbti.pdf)

(http://skepdic.com/myersb.html) (less reliable, but comprehensively argued)

(http://harvey.psyc.vt.edu/Documents/BessHarveySwartzSIOP2003.pdf)

That's just a few easy links. Either way, most psychometric testing is of low value given how hugely variable humans are and how many of them consider certain traits to be mutually exclusive. I'm certainly not surprised that a method devised in the early 20th century based on Jungian archetypes and with no integration of statistical checks, turns out to be unreliable.

Epos Nix on 28/1/2012 at 14:01

I'll have to read through those later when I get some time. I'm pretty sure they contain info I've poured over before--about how inaccurate typing can be. I agree there, but it isn't meant to be airtight. People change as they age so invariably typing can be only a framework and nothing else.

However, you created a straw man there in saying that I implied it couldn't fail. I didn't. I said it was interesting how a relationship can be found. And really, a relationship between how a person thinks and what philosophy they choose should be pretty apparent.

faetal on 28/1/2012 at 17:10

If you search for relationships, they can always be found - it's called the Barnum effect. Psychometric "typing" systems are only really used by large business HR departments as a semi-disingenuous way of telling someone how they fit into their teams etc...

They don't serve much actual purpose above that, which is why they don't get used in high quality academic studies. It's kind of like starting a party conversation with "Oh, so you're a gemini?".

Epos Nix on 28/1/2012 at 17:56

I'm not sure what idea you are attacking or defending here. I already agreed with you on one point. And on the other I think you are just being pedantic.

Jenesis on 29/1/2012 at 12:51

I was going to post some stuff about this anyway in response to the original post, but it speaks directly to this anyway:

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?

Quote Posted by faetal

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.

My experience (Cambridge University, 2002-2006) - and I'll admit up front, I don't have numbers to hand for this, and I'm talking about Christianity rather than religion in general - is more or less the opposite. By a wide margin, the Christian Union and student-heavy churches were full of science students, not arts students. The science students, having been trained to look at evidence and to believe that there really is one right answer, had examined the Bible and been satisfied by its claims. The Bible is full of historical evidence, all the way up to multiple eyewitness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus. (We can argue whether the evidence is reliable, of course, but it's there to be examined.) For an arts student, on the other hand, to subscribe to some kind of absolute truth that applies to everyone is precisely what they're trained not to do. Postmodernism has made absolute truth among arts academics exceedingly unfashionable. There were Christian arts students, of course, just not as many.

To address Bakerman's question, we saw plenty of non-Christians convert at university. Christians were telling their friends about Jesus, the CU put on lots of evangelistic events, and an awful lot of students heard the gospel (which obviously is a rather vital first step). Of course, there were also students going the other way, turning their back on Christianity when getting to university, but it was by no means a one-way street. We even had one guy turn up to something not because he was invited, but because he'd heard that lots of people become Christians at university and he wanted to see what the fuss was about.

From the Christian viewpoint, there are plenty of people in churches calling themselves Christians who are there because they're going with their family, because it's 'traditional', but who don't have a relationship with God - I wouldn't call those people Christians, but I guess for this discussion they must be included under the heading of 'religious'. For them, a move away from Christianity when they hit higher education may simply be moving out from the influence of family etc., rather than because their beliefs have been actively challenged. Someone who doesn't go through that, especially if they take a job close to their parental home once they leave school and so don't have such a clean cultural break, is probably more likely to continue going along for the ride, religiously.

jay pettitt on 29/1/2012 at 14:01

I have "historical" evidence that Mr Tickle really did have exceedingly long arms.

I think a couple of things here.

If you're a relatively woolly religious type then you're probably not going to be hugely inconvenienced by having a brain and learning to use it. There are an awful lot of unknowns (on both sides, so to speak) and thus plenty of opportunity to jiggle everything around to fit a world view if that's what your mind is minded to do.

If you're a real deal young earth creationist you're going to hit problems. There aren't quite that many unknowns (on both sides). Study gives you the skills and basic information to know that the specific claims of young earth creationism are patently wrong.