Hypothesis: the more educated you are the less likely you are to be religious - by SubJeff
jay pettitt on 26/1/2012 at 12:22
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Nope. I never said that. I'm not really arguing for or against the potential of a God. The whole point of my argument is that it's reasonable to assume that there is more to the universe than we currently know, and can, at this moment in time, observe. Since I find it hard to believe that something can come from absolute nothing...either regular absolute nothing, or the ultra absolute nothing you claim I'm talking about (both are the same thing...it's nothing), then it's easy to logically assume that there is possibly more than we can currently account for. And if there is something there we can't currently account for, then it's easy to assume that there's something beyond even it. And then even more beyond it.
Eventually, you'll come to the point where it's all so absurd that any answer is likely. Infinite Nature, or Infinite God, or Infinite Complexity. Hell, you could get all zen buddhist pantheist and say it's all one and the same thing. By that point, it's all academic, and the only truthful thing anyone can say is "...I don't know".
And that's why I'm agnostic.
edit: I'm going to watch that video Zombe and Shug posted when I get back. :P
Yup.
Of course there's that classic creationist argument that says science and rationality must say that the universe came from nothing - but that's not actually quite right, it's one of those strawman arguments.
Empirical clues about the universe, it's bigness, origins, what it's made of and so on all come from studying light. Science doesn't actually say that there was nothing and then there was, all of a sudden, a whole universe (though it very nearly does). Science actually says that the trail of clues runs out once you get to the big bang (or 13 billion light years away from it - whichever comes sooner), so beyond that - until we get really really smart - we're in the dark.
However, I'm an (more?) atheist rather than agnostic because even though sun beams run out at the big bang leaving physicists, astronomers, logicians and mathematicians at the end of their game, my Mom (by chanting in a big hut and with some of her, frankly, slightly dippy friends on Sundays) seems to know all about it. Something I find a bit of a stretch.
Chimpy Chompy on 26/1/2012 at 13:08
Phatose I realise the usual battleground is against the damaging influences of conservative christianity. And that's largely the fuel for the current Atheist movement.
But I don't want to fight against the bad habits of religion by pushing for it to end in all forms. I get the impression that a cessastion of catholic (etc) stupidity wouldn't be enough for the hardcore atheists, they want some sort of society where everyone either subscribsed to their level of securalism or is looked down on\socially ostracised.
Religion can be a personal thing sometimes. Nowhere near often enough.
And if someone is banning research for theological reasons they're clearly not doing "different strokes" for themselves and thus not the sort of believer I'm trying to stick up for.
Briareos H on 26/1/2012 at 13:20
Re. many posts in this thread: I will never understand why theists, atheists, gnostics and agnostics insist on always fighting for proof over the one thing that will never bring any proof, creation. Setting aside those who believe in a creation literally depicted by the Genesis (lol), is there a person, even profoundly scientific and atheist, that cannot feel a sense of unprovability/unattainability of the start of everything? I mean both in the philosophical and mathematical sense.
From there, it's always possible to adapt the hypothesis of the existence of god and never be able to refute it. One way or another, from the angle of the creation of our universe, there's always something that can't be proved. Big deal, stop arguing over it.
IMO any debate about religion trying to define whether we were ultimately created by a "will" or not is a worthless, circular and purely rhetorical debate. Agnostics in particular make me laugh "I don't have the means to know so there may be a thing". Cool story bro, how does that change anything and what question are you replying to anyway with that?
The true question of faith is not about creation, is not about a wise old man holding hands or whether some guy made some bread. It is: what do you think will happen after you die? How can people still debate religion without addressing this first and foremost is beyond me.
Among those educated, i.e. those who have knowledge of physical and biological processes and a good sense of what death means, there are those who choose willingly to believe that something more exists, putting aside consciously the ever-increasing amount of evidence, but they aren't many. IMO again, that very faith of the educated is really different from the faith of the uneducated for whom death remains a mystery. The latter do what they're told, because their parents, friends, pastors or whomever they trust tells them life is better and easier that way. And in many cases, it is : they will be judged for their acts so they have to act for the good (of their religion), there is no need for critical thinking - something they have never been trained to use anyway.
I'd say the choice by default for the uneducated is to believe (whether they are religious or not), and the choice by default for the educated is opposite.
faetal on 26/1/2012 at 13:26
I have a degree in biology and am currently half way through a PhD in Biochemical Immunotoxicology. For me, the problem with religion comes from the idea of it being reductive, i.e. that you start with the presumption that religion is fact, because it has been believed for so long, and you look for ways to disprove it. I prefer to take a post enlightenment positivist viewpoint that in order to promote the notion of a creator, there needs to be valid basis to do so.
So why believe in anything supernatural? Firstly, I would take into account known human traits, such as cognitive biases, including, but not limited to: pareidolia, apophenia, confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, sensory bias. Combine this with the fact that most religion is based on centuries' old writing which tells of deities who were very much involved with humankind's affairs on a visible and regular basis, but have conveniently stopped since history records, photography etc.. began.
Also taking into account that explanations that were previously laid on god's doorstep are increasingly being given indisputable and elegant scientific explanations, the areas in public consciousness inhabited by god shrinks year on year. In order to decide if chasing god to the gaps is worthwhile, the rational mind should reconsider from first principles if such a thing is worthy of deep thought. So, imagine nothing exists and use only solid evidence to build up a view of the universe and its workings. It would take someone who was searching for bias in ways to justify a god, to actually make that as a well justified possibility.
Besides, if you were going to create god out of this, then why not anything else that the human mind is capable of imagining? Why not any of the other thousands of gods worshipped over the years?
What bugs me is that people then start to cling to arguments from incredulity, along the lines of "How else do you explain x,y,z...?", which only really says "I believe in god because of limitation in my knowledge and inability to admit that some things are just beyond ready comprehension".
And don't even get me started on the decades out of date notion that religion is in any way responsible for morality..
Independent Thief on 26/1/2012 at 13:42
Quote Posted by DDL
You...
really don't get what Sombras was saying there, do you?
No I assumed it was the usual spam you see here:rolleyes:
Quote Posted by DDL
Lets see if I can make it simpler: sporadic, anecdotal accounts of "HAY I GOTTA DOCTOR FREIND WHOS CHRISTIAN!" does not disprove the hypothesis. If the hypothesis was "All doctors are not christian", then as soon as your account of your friend was verified, we could consider that hypothesis debunked.
That is not, however, the hypothesis.
"The more educated you are the
less likely you are to be religious" is the hypothesis (emphasis mine). Less likely. That does not in any way whatsoever suggest that educated people cannot be religious, it simply suggests that perhaps the distribution of religiousness in people is skewed toward the less educated end of the spectrum.
Just a nicer way of saying religion=less intelligence
Quote Posted by DDL
Now if you could produce validated statistics for the entire planet, and demonstrate that there is either
no correlation between educational level and faith, or a
positive correlation between educational level and faith, then we could consider the hypothesis debunked.
I don't have 'vailidated statistics for the entire planet' but I don't see SE producing any either.
Quote Posted by DDL
"My local church group has some smart peeps in it", however, is massively insufficient. And that is Sombras' point.
Actually my experiences go beyond 'my local church group' and cover at least the 2 decades I've been a Christian. I've met people from all across the spectrum who have a belief in God.
scarykitties on 26/1/2012 at 14:48
Quote Posted by DDL
"My local church group has some smart peeps in it", however, is massively insufficient. And that is Sombras' point.
I don't think that anyone can question the idea of there being Christian professors, doctors, lawyers, etc. Being a doctor, you understand how the body works, but you can still attribute that all to God. Being a biologist, you understand
why the body works, while doctors can still attribute the "why" to God. Maybe that's where the rift beings--when you have enough education to understand why the universe works, you are less likely to attribute it to God.
Quote Posted by Briareos H
The true question of faith ... is: what do you think will happen after you die?
Personally, I'm holding out that the afterlife is as depicted in Grim Fandango. Latin jazz; fuck yeah!
Quote Posted by faetal
Combine this with the fact that most religion is based on centuries' old writing which tells of deities who were very much involved with humankind's affairs on a visible and regular basis, but have conveniently stopped since history records, photography etc.. began.
Pff, I beg to differ!
Inline Image:
http://zodiblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/jesus-christ-toast-virgin-mary-grilled-cheese-photo1.jpgDDL on 26/1/2012 at 15:41
Quote Posted by Independent Thief
Just a nicer way of saying religion=less intelligence
No. No it's not. It really isn't. I can't believe I have to spell this out. Again.
For a start, intelligence is a poorly defined, difficult and highly subjective trait. Education is not. You either have a degree or you don't. You either have a PhD or you don't (I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you..don't?).
Education is quantifiable. This is important.
Also, education carries with it certain givens, i.e. that you will probably have been exposed to lots of other people, both teachers and fellow students. You will have consequently been exposed to many differing viewpoints, and will also have learned much more about the world as a whole (and about basic statistics and logical equivalence, hopefully).
Intelligence carries no such associations. Bright people exposed to learning will know stuff. Bright people NOT exposed to learning will know less stuff, but will
still be bright. You can't really make a
direct correlation between intelligence (however defined) and exposure to learning.
So there's that.
So even if we edit your quote to say "Just a nicer way of saying religion=less education", is that still equivalent to the hypothesis that "more education=less religious"?
I'll save you the time: the answer's no.
"Religion=less education" attempts to suggest that
only stupid people believe in god. That's a nice reactionary suggestion I'm sure you're all too happy to get behind and froth in rage about. It's not actually what the hypothesis IS, though.
"As educational level increases, so religiousness decreases" is a basic summary. And note, this is NOT, and NEVER HAS BEEN, directed at a personal level, this is at a global level. It does not attempt to suggest that each degree a person gets makes them X% less religious. It simply posits that if we were to look at the global distribution of religiousness amongst the population, and the distribution of educational level, there would be a negative correlation. It needn't even be a big negative correlation, it simply needs to be not "no correlation" or "positive correlation" (and indeed there's
already a degree of evidence for a slight negative correlation).
At
no point does this suggest that smart people can't believe in god.
And also, in case you were wondering: correlation does not imply causation, so even if we had concrete evidence that there was a strong negative bias against religiousness with increasing educational level, this does not tell us anything about the causative elements, other than that they are
likely to be associated with education in some way. Consider: the hypothesis "as religiousness increases, educational level decreases" would be tested by exactly the same metrics as the above hypothesis, and is in fact (more or less) logically equivalent. Does this mean (if it were found to be true) that finding god immediately means you lose your degree? And that if you persisted in your belief they'd take away your college grades too? Of course not. There is no implied causation in the hypothesis, it looks only for correlation.
faetal on 26/1/2012 at 15:51
Also, if the correlation happens to be the truth, you can't just shy away from it because it isn't a NICE truth. What is better is to explore what it means, while acknowledging that, just like everything which is normally distributed, there are exceptions to the rule.
Beleg Cúthalion on 26/1/2012 at 20:18
Did I somehow miss the infallible statistical proof during the last three pages for this hypothesis which you guys are about to cement right now? Or does it simply seem logical to you who are used to grumpy believers in rural areas?
Education is far from quantifiable unless you believe (haha) that degrees imply a comparable exposure to knowledge, different opinions and all that stuff. That's IMHO about as far from reality as the assumption that a person is less religious as soon as it doesn't blindly accept all the aspects or sources of his/her nominal religion. A student of biology who is told for five years how all living things "work" might not care about the question of why they work in the first place (or even, as Dawkins, counter the why-questions with the unsurpassed witty statement: "Not all why questions make sense, do they? Why are unicorns hollow on the inside? See? Doesn't make sense hahaha..."). A student of philosophy might learn to think about what people generally can ever know and how worldy life can be set up to everyone's best. And if both get their master degree the effects on their religious mindset could be very different. This doesn't even touch the influence of different regions/states/continents, different cultural backgrounds in the broadest sense and last but not least faking the final thesis. The aspect of education is so diffuse that accepting this hypothesis without reservation is basically saying religion equals less education – just without the chance of getting tangible backing. That being said, I don't doubt that education leads to a more thoughtful life and more understanding in general.
This is IMHO still wanting in this thread:
1. The hypothesis is occasionally presented as proven albeit it is not, unless I missed said proof.
2. Religion is considered to be what a Kentucky creationist/evangelical wheat farmer might consider his religion. But that's not new, this is what happens for years.
3. The level of religiousness is measured against this biased idea of religion, ignoring and/or downplaying the plurality of mindsets that each religion encompasses, either in a deliberate way or not; likewise downplaying the religiousness which is only loosely based on a certain religion.
DDL on 26/1/2012 at 20:28
Um..did anyone actually say it was proved?
No (also, technically, it's a hypothesis: you can't prove it, only fail to disprove it very very thoroughly). As far as I'm aware, this is still simply a discussion. While several studies have apparently tended to show a slight correlation in support of the hypothesis, even the authors of those studies are quick to point out the many many caveats that need to be taken into account.
Educational status may not be a perfect metric, but it IS quantifiable as a raw statistic, and a variable that can be compared across many groups relatively easy. Would you care to suggest a better metric?
