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Analytic thinking weakens religious belief

Thinking can undermine religious faith

Thinking can undermine religious faith, study finds

Scientists have revealed one of the reasons why some folks are less religious than others: They think more analytically, rather than going with their gut. And thinking analytically can cause religious belief to wane — for skeptics and true believers alike.
More at: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-religion-analytical-thinking-20120427,0,5374010.story

And in other news, "Water is Wet" and "General Franco is Still Dead".

:rolleyes:
 
Hey! I just started a thread about this. Curiously, the conclusions drawn by Amina Khan of the Los Angeles Times seem less "threatening" to the believers.
 
Speaking purely anecdotally from my own experience...

I never really gave the idea of religion much thought. The idea of god just...was. The sky is blue, the sun rises in the morning, and god created the world.

When I met my husband, he was an atheist. I found this a little frightening at first. But as soon as the concept of questioning what I had always simply taken for granted occurred to me, it was like a light had come on. There was no going back. It simply did not make sense when looked at with any sort of logic or reason. How had I believed it up to that point?

So here I am 30+ years later, still an atheist. If nobody had ever caused me to actually think about it, I'd probably still be a xian, just too lazy to give it any honest consideration.
 
Speaking purely anecdotally from my own experience...

I never really gave the idea of religion much thought. The idea of god just...was. The sky is blue, the sun rises in the morning, and god created the world.

When I met my husband, he was an atheist. I found this a little frightening at first. But as soon as the concept of questioning what I had always simply taken for granted occurred to me, it was like a light had come on. There was no going back. It simply did not make sense when looked at with any sort of logic or reason. How had I believed it up to that point?

So here I am 30+ years later, still an atheist. If nobody had ever caused me to actually think about it, I'd probably still be a xian, just too lazy to give it any honest consideration.

But you appear to have been a rather lapsed believer while still believing.
 
But you appear to have been a rather lapsed believer while still believing.

...

I never really gave the idea of religion much thought. The idea of god just...was. ...

How so? I am an atheist. I don't believe in any gods.

Not sure, but I took Humes fork's comment to mean that -- in the distant past -- you were not actively religious, but only religious in the sense that you took God's existence for granted.
 
Not sure, but I took Humes fork's comment to mean that -- in the distant past -- you were not actively religious, but only religious in the sense that you took God's existence for granted.
Oh, well, yes, I guess I see that. It's true, I was never fanatical. But I did at first find the idea of not believing in god frightening. But the ideas were just so compelling that I couldn't deny them for long.
 

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