In a recent issue of Science: Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief, by Will M. Gervais and Ara Norenzayan:
Scientific interest in the cognitive underpinnings of religious belief has grown in recent years. However, to date, little experimental research has focused on the cognitive processes that may promote religious disbelief. The present studies apply a dual-process model of cognitive processing to this problem, testing the hypothesis that analytic processing promotes religious disbelief. Individual differences in the tendency to analytically override initially flawed intuitions in reasoning were associated with increased religious disbelief. Four additional experiments provided evidence of causation, as subtle manipulations known to trigger analytic processing also encouraged religious disbelief. Combined, these studies indicate that analytic processing is one factor (presumably among several) that promotes religious disbelief. Although these findings do not speak directly to conversations about the inherent rationality, value, or truth of religious beliefs, they illuminate one cognitive factor that may influence such discussions.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Thinking Analytically Leads to Religious Disbelief
Monday, March 19, 2012
Tripping Balls
A quick post while I'm on the road climbing. This study of over 13,000 subjects shows amazingly high rates for hallucinations in the general public. The implications for the advent and persistence of religion is obvious:
Prevalence of hallucinations and their pathological associations in the general population
Psychiatry Research
Volume 97, Issue 2 , Pages 153-164, 27 December 2000
Hallucinations are perceptual phenomena involved in many fields of pathology. Although clinically widely explored, studies in the general population of these phenomena are scant. This issue was investigated using representative samples of the non-institutionalized general population of the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy aged 15 years or over (N=13057). These surveys were conducted by telephone and explored mental disorders and hallucinations (visual, auditory, olfactory, haptic and gustatory hallucinations, out-of-body experiences, hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations). Overall, 38.7% of the sample reported hallucinatory experiences (19.6% less than once in a month; 6.4% monthly; 2.7% once a week; and 2.4% more than once a week). These hallucinations occurred, (1) At sleep onset (hypnagogic hallucinations 24.8%) and/or upon awakening (hypnopompic hallucinations 6.6%), without relationship to a specific pathology in more than half of the cases; frightening hallucinations were more often the expression of sleep or mental disorders such as narcolepsy, OSAS or anxiety disorders. (2) During the daytime and reported by 27% of the sample: visual (prevalence of 3.2%) and auditory (0.6%) hallucinations were strongly related to a psychotic pathology (respective OR of 6.6 and 5.1 with a conservative estimate of the lifetime prevalence of psychotic disorders in this sample of 0.5%); and to anxiety (respective OR of 5.0 and 9.1). Haptic hallucinations were reported by 3.1% with current use of drugs as the highest risk factor (OR=9.8). In conclusion, the prevalence of hallucinations in the general population is not negligible. Daytime visual and auditory hallucinations are associated with a greater risk of psychiatric disorders. The other daytime sensory hallucinations are more related to an organic or a toxic disorder.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The F Word
I just gave a lecture to Cosumnes River College last night about faith based religious claims. The slides I used are here
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Bias In Religious Thinking, II
I gave a public lecture at UC Davis last night about recent research on bias and its applications to religious thinking. Here's my latest version of the slides.
The student group at UC Davis has posted a video of my talk here: Bias and Heuristics in Religious Thinking
I didn't know about the camera's location, so I paced in and out of frame a lot during the talk. But maybe my explanations of the slide points are useful.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Favorite Atheist Blog?
My blog has been nominated for best atheism blog of the year by About.com. Go here to vote if the mood strikes you: http://atheism.about.com/b/2012/02/22/favorite-agnostic-atheist-blog-of-2011.htm
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
What is an Atheist?
The Drew School in San Francisco has invited me to speak as part of a lecture series from religious leaders. I'll be speaking about atheism and tolerance on Wednesday, Feb. 15. My lecture slides are here:
What is Atheism?
Bias in Religious Thinking
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Motivated Religious Reasoning
Thursday, November 17, 2011
More on Motivated Reasoning
Mercier and Sperber give an impressive argument here: Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory The standard view of reasoning is that its primary function is correct cognitive functions and find the truth. They argue that it is better understood as facilitating persuasion in social or communication contexts. Their thesis, they maintain, better explains the available evidence that shows how bad humans are at reasoning.
Their section on Motivated Reasoning contains this nice summary of some of the literature. The applications to the sorts of reasoning we frequently see coming from religious believers seeking to defend the God/Jesus conclusion at all costs are striking. For now, all I have time to do is offer a long quote:
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Motivated Reasoning
One of my students (Thanks Kate!) found this article. They are arguing for a thesis quite consistent with what I've been pressing in several recent posts:
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20120503213445im_/http://www.whyisdaddycrying.com/storage/snuggie%20cult.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1263394356635)
Monday, September 26, 2011
News and Lots of Interesting Research on Reasoning
I haven't written here in a while, but lots going on.
I just spoke to the San Francisco Atheists on Saturday. And I'll be talking to the SacFAN group on Thursday this week at the Carmichael Library, 6:30: Is Atheism A Religion?
My publication date for Atheism and the Case Against Christ is July.
And I'll be speaking at a big event at Sacramento City College on Thursday, Nov. 10 from 2-4. Details to follow.
Been thinking a lot about this study: Motivated Sensitivity to Preference Inconsistent Information and other related research. In a nutshell, testing shows how strong the tendency is to excessively critique new information that is inconsistent with preferences and to let preference consistent info slide by easy. I can't imagine that this bias is more pronounced anywhere than with religious beliefs. I'm looking for related research that focuses on the tendency with religious beliefs.
I am still thinking about this piece from Jonathan Baron: Actively Open Minded Thinking and the arguments/points I made here: The Defeasibility Test and here: Defense Lawyers for Jesus
Mercier and Sperber have published an important new argument here: Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory They maintain that reasoning did not develop primarily in order to improve knowledge and make better decisions, rather it is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade where social considerations between trustworthy and untrustworthy informers are important.
Nature has a related study this week: The Evolution of Overconfidence where the authors argue that being more confident than your information or skills warrant was favored by evolution. This thesis fits well with another important recent summary on misbelief: The Evolution of Misbelief--Dennett and McKay see esp. the section on religious belief and HADD.
It seems to me that all of these pieces help fill in some of the outline a good description of much of recent religious debate, and a plan for how to best to analyze much religious belief.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Defense Lawyers for Jesus
Monday, August 1, 2011
The Neural Substrates of Religious Experience
One of my students (Thanks Kate!) put me onto this amazing paper:
The Neural Substrates of Religious Experience by Jeffrey Saver and John Rabin in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry. The abstract:
Religious experience is brain-based, like all human experience. Clues to the neural substrates of religious-numinous experience may be gleaned from temporolimbic epilepsy, near-death experiences, and hallucinogen ingestion. These brain disorders and conditions may produce depersonalization, derealization, ecstasy, a sense of timelessness and spacelessness, and other experiences that foster religious-numinous interpretation. Religious delusions are an important subtype of delusional experience in schizophrenia, and mood-congruent religious delusions are a feature of mania and depression. The authors suggest a limbic marker hypothesis for religious-mystical experience. The temporolimbic system tags certain encounters with external or internal stimulie as depersonalized, derealized, crucially important, harmonious, and/or joyous, prompting comprehension of these experiences within a religious framework
Take special note of various religious figures and their likely psychiatric maladies in a chart on 501-502.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Review of the Salem Witch Trials Argument
There's a review of my chapter contribution to The End of Christianity--the Salem Witch Trials argument here:
http://biblicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2011/07/16/review-of-chapter-8-of-the-end-of-christianity/
He argues that it is possible to consistently hold that they weren't witches at Salem, but Jesus really was resurrected.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Help: Trying to find a study
I'm going to crowd source this problem. Recently I read a study of Americans, I think, that polled people about their attitudes on the one God/one path, many paths question. They asked people whether they thought there were many paths to salvation or just one, more or less. As I recall, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses turned out to be the most exclusive. They were at the far end of the "one God/one path" scale. I can't remember which denomination was at the other end of the scale. I think the study came out within the last year or two, but I could be wrong about it.
Does this ring a bell for anyone? Do you have the reference? I need it!!
Thanks.
MM
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Dead as a Doornail: Souls, Brains, and Survival
I recently submitted my contribution to an anthology on the survival of the soul, edited by Michael Martin and Keith Augustine. It's titled The Myth of the Afterlife: Essays on the Case Against Life After Death, and it will be coming out on McFarland Press next year. Here's a piece of my introductory chapter in it:
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
The End of Christianity--now available
The End of Christianity, a new anthology edited by John Loftus from Prometheus Press is out now. It includes my chapter presenting the Salem Witch Trials argument against the resurrection of Jesus, and a long list of other interesting articles.
It's on Amazon here: The End of Christianity
Here's the Table of Contents:
I. Why 2000 Years is Enough
1. Christianity Evolving: On the Origin of Christian Species, by Dr. David Eller
2. Christianity's Success Was Not Incredible, by Dr. Richard Carrier
3. Christianity is Wildly Improbable, by John W. Loftus
II. Putting an Ancient Myth to Rest
4. Why Biblical Studies Must End, by Dr. Hector Avalos
5. Can God Exist if Yahweh Doesn’t?, by Dr. Jaco Geicke
6. God’s Emotions: Why the Biblical God is Hopelessly Human, by Dr. Valerie Tarico
III. Living on Borrowed Time
7. The Absurdity of the Atonement, by Dr. Ken Pulliam
8. The Salem Witch Trials and the Evidence for the Resurrection, by Dr. Matt McCormick
9. Explaining the Resurrection Without Recourse to Miracle, by Dr. Robert Price
10. Hell: Christianity’s Most Damnable Doctrine, by Dr. Keith Parsons
IV. Science Puts An End to Christianity
11. Is Religion Compatible with Science?, Dr. David Eller
12. Neither Life nor the Universe Appear Intelligently Designed, by Dr. Richard Carrier
13. Life After Death: A Scientist Looks at the Evidence, by Dr. Victor Stenger
14. Moral Facts Naturally Exist (and Science Could Find Them), by Dr. Richard Carrier
And abstracts of the chapters.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
A Monument to Vanity and Self Promotion
I've been compiling stuff for an author bio and promotional form and I've got this partial list of videos, debates, podcasts, and interviews.