Analytic Thinking Can Decrease Religious Belief, Study Shows

[Raz]

Re: Analytic Thinking Can Decrease Religious Belief, Study Shows

no problem with your comments, raz. and i reciprocate your esteem. one of the things i like about this place is the large number of people whom i respect.

Me too.

fwiw, i have my own set of understandings which to some degree map [in a mathematical sense] to certain religious beliefs. instead of a judgement LATER, for example, i think about something i call "instant karma" NOW, in the present. this is to say, that i think people who are harmful or hateful suffer in the present by being who they are. they may not feel like they are suffering in the usual sense of experiencing pain, but i see them as leading coarser, less rich and therefore in some sense impoverished lives. they "suffer," in this sense, merely by being themselves. or perhaps i should say, by being merely themselves.

You may find this most interesting as the author sees things in a very similar vein to yours. This is a speech given at an Orthodox conference in 1980 and likely contains more information than you require and certain theological points that you might find confusing, but I believe you will profit greatly from reading it.

While I don't agree with everything Dr. Kalomiros says here (some points could use more sugar and less vinegar) I do believe he captures the very essence of the Orthodox mindset and spirit concerning God.

[c1ue]

Re: Analytic Thinking Can Decrease Religious Belief, Study Shows

My own view is that much of religion encompasses the systemic benefits of tidal love.

Tidal love I define in conjunction with tidal hate: both are actions which promote more of their like, but to the individual do not necessarily show obvious or immediate benefit. Thus in a real sense, the only way for tidal love to work in a large scale is through belief.

Under this context, if the basic underpinning of religion is similar, then it is also possible that Allah, Yahweh, God, or whomever are merely aspects of the same being or force.

Unfortunately for me there are forces beyond tidal love and tidal hate - there is chaos and bureaucracy for example. Ultimately too much of any of the above is dangerous and harmful.

Or as I quote from Mark Twain: Moderation in all things, including moderation.

[aaron]

Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than Are Non-Believers

This has been my personal experience on MANY occasions. Nice to see I was not imagining it.

Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than Are Non-Believers

ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2012) — "Love thy neighbor" is preached from many a pulpit. But new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that the highly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists, agnostics and less religious people.

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In three experiments, social scientists found that compassion consistently drove less religious people to be more generous. For highly religious people, however, compassion was largely unrelated to how generous they were, according to the findings which are published in the most recent online issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.


The results challenge a widespread assumption that acts of generosity and charity are largely driven by feelings of empathy and compassion, researchers said. In the study, the link between compassion and generosity was found to be stronger for those who identified as being non-religious or less religious.


"Overall, we find that for less religious people, the strength of their emotional connection to another person is critical to whether they will help that person or not," said UC Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer, a co-author of the study. "The more religious, on the other hand, may ground their generosity less in emotion, and more in other factors such as doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational concerns."

Compassion is defined in the study as an emotion felt when people see the suffering of others which then motivates them to help, often at a personal risk or cost.

While the study examined the link between religion, compassion and generosity, it did not directly examine the reasons for why highly religious people are less compelled by compassion to help others. However, researchers hypothesize that deeply religious people may be more strongly guided by a sense of moral obligation than their more non-religious counterparts.


"We hypothesized that religion would change how compassion impacts generous behavior," said study lead author Laura Saslow, who conducted the research as a doctoral student at UC Berkeley.


Saslow, who is now a postdoctoral scholar at UC San Francisco, said she was inspired to examine this question after an altruistic, nonreligious friend lamented that he had only donated to earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti after watching an emotionally stirring video of a woman being saved from the rubble, not because of a logical understanding that help was needed.
"I was interested to find that this experience -- an atheist being strongly influenced by his emotions to show generosity to strangers -- was replicated in three large, systematic studies," Saslow said.

In the first experiment, researchers analyzed data from a 2004 national survey of more than 1,300 American adults. Those who agreed with such statements as "When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective towards them" were also more inclined to show generosity in random acts of kindness, such as loaning out belongings and offering a seat on a crowded bus or train, researchers found.
When they looked into how much compassion motivated participants to be charitable in such ways as giving money or food to a homeless person, non-believers and those who rated low in religiosity came out ahead: "These findings indicate that although compassion is associated with pro-sociality among both less religious and more religious individuals, this relationship is particularly robust for less religious individuals," the study found.
In the second experiment, 101 American adults watched one of two brief videos, a neutral video or a heartrending one, which showed portraits of children afflicted by poverty. Next, they were each given 10 "lab dollars" and directed to give any amount of that money to a stranger. The least religious participants appeared to be motivated by the emotionally charged video to give more of their money to a stranger.

"The compassion-inducing video had a big effect on their generosity," Willer said. "But it did not significantly change the generosity of more religious participants."

In the final experiment, more than 200 college students were asked to report how compassionate they felt at that moment. They then played "economic trust games" in which they were given money to share -- or not -- with a stranger. In one round, they were told that another person playing the game had given a portion of their money to them, and that they were free to reward them by giving back some of the money, which had since doubled in amount.


Those who scored low on the religiosity scale, and high on momentary compassion, were more inclined to share their winnings with strangers than other participants in the study.


"Overall, this research suggests that although less religious people tend to be less trusted in the U.S., when feeling compassionate, they may actually be more inclined to help their fellow citizens than more religious people," Willer said.
In addition to Saslow and Willer, other co-authors of the study are UC Berkeley psychologists Dacher Keltner, Matthew Feinberg and Paul Piff; Katharine Clark at the University of Colorado, Boulder; and Sarina Saturn at Oregon State University.

The study was funded by grants from UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley's Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging, and the Metanexus Institute.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0430140035.htm

[Raz]

Re: Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than Are Non-Believers

This has been my personal experience on MANY occasions. Nice to see I was not imagining it.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0430140035.htm

Your personal experience is the exact opposite of mine. Most (not all) of the people I've known who disdain religous belief are comfortable with government "charity" and say that they pay taxes for such situations. And I might give this "scientific study" a little more credence if it hadn't been done at Berkeley.

But hey, they might be right. There are so many hospitals and adoption agencies founded by and named in honor of atheists.

[jk]

Re: Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than Are Non-Believers

i think you're misreading the article. what it says is that non-believers will base charity on their feeling of emotional connection to the cause, if such a connection exists. otoh, the religious person will base charity on more global and less personal norms. it doesn't address which group actually gives more or less per capita.

the most interesting,albeit more limited, study i've come across on this subject showed that the more people studied economics, the less they gave to charity.

[cindykimlisa]

Re: Analytic Thinking Can Decrease Religious Belief, Study Shows

A real life experience to ponder and search for answers.

I am a believer in the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son for many years.

Over the years my faith has increased to the point that certain things which are not rationally explainable happen to me frequently as they did in the Bible with Jesus, the apostles and the disciples, In particular signs and wonders and miracles.

From time I receive an intuition or sign from God through the Holy Spirit of God to go to a specific person and do something revealed to me by the Holy Spirit. When I go and do what God has inspired me to do, within 24 hours and sometimes within an instant something happens to the person, to who I have been sent. Most often it is a miracle of healing in a way I could not have imagined and very often the person is not aware I am there for that purpose. However, at times the person and others are aware of what is happening. Why I believe it is a God thing has to do with the timing of things.

I do respect science but recognize its limitations. Sometimes when science fails my God works beyond science in mysterious ways.


Peace

No way I can come to a scientific explanation for any of this. But the Bible clearly analyzes and explains how this happens: through faith is the key.

Peace

[charliebrown]

Re: Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than Are Non-Believers

maybe ... but what about helping someone I don't feel emontionally connected to. Or helping when I don't feel like it.
Those are things I am told to do in my religion. Think of the good samaritan, love your enemy etc. This is where your faith will really be tested. Mine is not strong enough, but I know where I have to get to.