Are there people that are otherwise logical but drop their skepticism when it comes to religion? How do they consolidate those 2 sides of themselves?
Compartmentalise. It's a trait of Homo sapien to convice themselves things are true, so they can believe any bullshit, try not to fall for it yourself in otjer areas.
The problem for me arises when they speak from authority on another subject they are expert in, if they're so naive and easily misled on that, how can i trust their opinion on anything substantive?
A superb example of this is Katherine Hayhoe. I get around it by just reading nothing she writes on climate change because her evangelical christianisim just muddies the waters too much to take her at all seriously. On a side note, my goto is Professor Kevin Andersin.
The end scares most people so much that logic gets thrown out the window.
You likely also participate in rituals that were taught to you that are not solely grounded in logic or science. Do you do things in a certain order for no reason other than your parents taught you to do so? Do you avoid eating certain foods because you never ate them growing up?
People who are raised religious may not be fanatic believers, but they may still be "culturally religious" e.g. take part in Ramadan, avoid eating pork, because that's the way they grew up, and a lot of the time it means they can be included in cultural matters of the community they come from.
As for why some people are proper religious, fully believing and all, I also don't think all beliefs have to be rational. Some beliefs are comforting. If it helps someone to get through a difficult time by believing there's a higher power rooting for them, or who has pre-planned their suffering for a greater good, they may choose to believe that because it's mentally easier. Arguably that is a rational belief anyway because it benefits you and makes your life easier to get through.
If it helps someone to get through a difficult time by believing there's a higher power rooting for them, or who has pre-planned their suffering for a greater good, they may choose to believe that because it's mentally easier.
Additionally, it can be a catalyst for seeking novel solutions and developing strengths we never knew we have if we can get over the victim mentality and allow it. I'm not saying that's always the case. A stroke of fortune is often required.
I get your sentiment but all the rituals I picked up in life are nowhere near the seriousness of a religion though. You're talking about choosing something that could potentially affect you for eternity vs me not wanting to eat guinea pigs because I didn't grow up in Peru.
I understand that people find comfort in religion and a lot do it as a way to calm their existential crises but my question is how someone who is otherwise logical can separate religious beliefs into another folder. They knowingly fool themselves into believing something that may not be true or possibly even being tricked into following a false idol but they don't apply those rules elsewhere.
Tbh I think a lot of people bury that logical side deep down and compartmentalize. The narrative we tell ourselves can be quite powerful.
Not everyone who is deeply religious is a true believer. Some just see it as a community, and the rigid adherance to the rules as the key to that community. One of the rules is to always say you're a true believer, though. My sister in law is like this. She just decided one day to join a religion, researched the ones with the perks that best suited her and joined it.
My aunt joined a humanist church, which is basically "religion" for atheists. It was literally just Sunday mass without the worship.
Deep cultural conditioning. When a person approaches something totally new they will use reasonable standards of evidence, but in religious communities there's a expectation present and deeply established that certain things shouldn't be questioned, or at least don't need to be shown true.
Note that in certain places there basically aren't atheists, so it's not like you need to be illogical relative to most to believe.
Wait, there's more: Some people are skeptical even of religion, yet still practice a religion.
We reconcile that by:
Can I ask what religion you practice and what drives you to continue?
I'm Christian, Episcopalian. What drives me to continue practicing? There's a lot of things:
Socially, I enjoy the sense of community that comes with being an active member of a congregation, and it provides both a reminder to and a venue for giving back in the form of volunteering and charity.
Personally, I appreciate the rhythm it gives to my weeks and years, with specific times set aside for joy and grief, reflection and action, uncomfortable growth and quiet recovery.
Spiritually, I draw both comfort and strength from my relationship with God; whether or not this is a spiritual sort of "rubber ducking" doesn't change how it affects me.
Morally, I think the example of Christ is a good one to follow, and again, that doesn't really depend on Him being a real historical figure.
Greatly worded imo.
There are doubts and things we can't understand or explain no matter what we ultimately believe.
I personally left my religion and considered myself atheist but I continued to research other religions and belief systems and happened to have found one that I agreed with on a pretty consistent basis and didn't oppose my other understandings of the world, obviously belief still fluctuates and I do have doubts but on average I believe my religion to be true more than I doubt it.
TLDR: No explanation/understanding is "beyond all reasonable doubt", so "more likely than not" is enough and that happens to be a religious framework for me personally.
Historically/anthropologically, conforming to the beliefs of the society you live in is the most logical thing a human can do for their survival.
In the sense that people who aren't really religious go to church to conform?
In the sense that people who aren't actually being watched by a higher power will legitimately believe they are because believing anything else can be hazardous to their health.
I used to know this guy who majored in astrophysics or astronomy (can't remember which).
To paraphrase his reasoning: There is nothing about physics that prohibits the existence of a god. The Bible has many things that clash with modern scientific understanding, but the Bible was an interpretation of things as they stood almost two thousand years ago, and is therefore likely to fail in many of its explanations. Religion is about faith, science is not.
He considered himself a Christian, and didn't see why that and his field of study would be mutually exclusive. Also, he was pretty open minded about most things and overall a pretty chill guy regarding other people's view and lifestyles.
The way i think about it:
The brain has two halves (hemispheres)
The left hemisphere does rational thinking
the right hemisphere does magical thinking (which probably also covers religion)
Both of these hemispheres developed through evolution, because both of them are useful and beneficial to your life. That is why you should employ both.
Would that not require hypocrisy in a lot of areas?
I’m curious what you mean by “drop their skepticism.”
I believe the universe was created and I also believe that modern science does an incredibly good job describing the way it functions to the best of our ability. I do not believe the idea of religion is 100% at odds with science
By drop their skepticism I mean dropping their scientific mindset of theories are not facts, an experiment needs to be reproduceable, etc. I don't believe that science disproves religion but I do believe there are too many unproveable aspects of most religions for me to be too skeptical to believe in fully
Gotcha gotcha
There is plenty of science with a non-reproducible basis. Richard Dawkins has gone as far to say that evolution is fact. And yet we have never observed one species changing into another - sure, the headlines say we have, but when you drill right down into the source material the best you can find is "these creatures do not normally reproduce with each other". Note the wording: "do not normally". Not "cannot", which is what the headline fundamentally requires in order to be truly accurate.
veritassium did a video replicating a FASCINATING study that proves that logical people get dramatically less logical when they encounter facts that contradicts their deeply held beliefs; they get even less logical that "non-logical" people
so they don't consolidate the 2 sides of themselves; instead they apply their logic to the things that they don't care much about and get less logical on the subjects/topic that they care more about it.
Man brains are so weird. Thank you for that video!
Yes, I know a guy like this. I'm not aware of his considerations of how he is able to separate science from religion.
I had a colleague a few years ago, who wasn't dumb. He'd question everything, often discussing things down to excruciating details. Like, you seriously couldn't shut him up, with how much he was putting everything into question.
Except when it came to the bible. That was what he considered unquestionable truth.
One time, I felt like I kind of got through to him. We were discussing the Big Bang and whatnot, and I told him that I don't believe that actually started the universe, which really caught him off-guard, because he thought all the science people were a big hivemind and no one's allowed to disagree. I'm guessing, because that's how he's been taught about the bible, so he just assumed the enemy is taught the same way.
And yeah, I explained to him that I don't believe it started things, that I don't believe in creation (the fundamental concept as well as the non-evolution thingamabob), because things don't just randomly start existing. When you produce a chair, that's just some atoms rearranged from a tree, which is just some atoms rearranged from the ground and the air, which is rearranged from yet another place. That explanation also kind of got to him, because it really is all around us that things don't just pop into existence, ever.
What's also kind of interesting/funny, is that he did not actually have a terribly good understanding of the bible.
One time, I don't know how we got to that topic, but I was like, wait, isn't there a commandment that says you shouldn't be using god's name in vain? And at first he just said no, there's not, to then start really heavily thinking when I didn't back down. But yeah, I had to then look it up to confirm it, because he did not know his commandments.
That was his worst moment by far, but we had many bible debates, where I, with my shitty school knowledge and never having been interested in any of it, was telling him things he didn't know.
To my mind, the question is the same for evolutionists and creationists: where did the stuff come from that caused the big bang and where did God come from. And the answer is the same: it's always been there. I agree about rearrangement of atoms. And also, Adam is atom but that's a whole metaphysical discussion of kabbalah/quabala and I am doing this in between chores so I'm not particularly interested in opening that can of worms at this moment.
That explanation also kind of got to him, because it really is all around us that things don't just pop into existence, ever.
But they do! Not a classical scale, but on the quantum scale this literally happens all the time.
Hmm, I'm no expert, but I think I looked into this a while ago and it turned out to be pop-sci misinformation. What I'm finding from looking this up right now seems to confirm that it's not actual empty space, but rather space with electro-magnetic fields or in a "false vacuum", whatever that is precisely. If you happen to know a specific keyword for this phenomenon, though, I'd look into it some more.
There was a woman in my microbiology program who did not believe in evolution. We extracted dna in labs and put plasmides into ecoli and such. It was weird.
It isn't like religion is incompatible with logic and science.
There are some religions that require rejecting science, and some that require blind faith, but it isn't all throbs religions, and it isn't inherent to religion itself.
The only time it takes any mental gymnastics is when the religion does reject science as a methodology (as opposed to rejecting blind faith in science) and/or require that each follower must agree to reject it as well.
Something like neopaganism isn't as prone to excluding science as methodology, and berry very often supports science as a body of knowledge, but focuses on the parts of life that science doesn't cover. It happens still, and some of the zealots from those religions can be just as crazy as zealots from something like christianity. But, on average, your typical Wiccans aren't going to be science haters, they're just more interested in other things.
Now, you will get a lot of those sorts choosing to reject science based information on specific things, but that's no more or less than when your average agnostic or atheist buys into pseudoscience. That means it isn't really a religion thing, it's a human thing.
You'll find plenty of monotheists in science even, and they're not conflicted because science, logic is about the concrete, the physical world. They can freely choose to lol are their holy texts as humanly made, but divinely inspired, and thus a product of its time. So there's no conflict. The scientific method simply explores the world as it is, seeking a better understanding of what their god created, without worrying about the why.
There doesn't even have to be a conflict in the Abrahamic sects between evolution and creation. If the specific sect and follower assumes that god is all powerful and all knowing, them evolution is simply the will of god as it expresses itself over time. Or, that god created a universe that is meant to grow and change independently, and thus evolution was part of that creation from the beginning.
As much as religious thought can be a limitation to thinking, it doesn't have to be. They just have to accept that the religious stuff is about the soul, and that souls aren't relevant to logic or science. When that way of thinking is in place, it's possible to logically know that no religion can be proven any more than the existence of the divine can be disproven, so it simply isn't relevant to science at all.
Fwiw, I'm not religious. The closest I get is an appreciation of Buddhist principles, and taoist outlook on viewing reality. They're "fun", they give a platform to work from in dealing with the unpleasant aspects of existence, so they have value. But that's not the same as being religious, or even "spiritual". Plus, when the topic of religion comes up, I can throw those out there as shorthand for "I'm not interested in your religion becoming my religion, thank you."
What if I were to propose to you that there's no way to prove that matter comes before consciousness? For all you know, everything exists inside consciousness but most people believe matter is the prior condition. This is pure logic. But when it's brought up to science minded people, they tend to get very uppity about it.
Beliefs be like that.
To me, that's a rather pointless thought experiment, similar to the conspiracy theory that we're in a big simulation. Like, yeah, there's no way to disprove this idea, but if it were the case, then we still gotta work within the constraints that we're given. It's not like you can be conscious differently or escape the simulation or whatever.
Science-minded folks might dismiss that idea perhaps less favorably as "unscientific", but that's basically saying the same thing. If there's no way to prove or disprove an idea, then we call it "unscientific", which is kind of just means there's no point in spending time thinking about it. This is also taking into account that it would be provable or disprovable, if it had an impact on our reality. Theoretically something could have an impact on our reality and then trick us into believing that it does not, but yeah, at that point we need quite a lot of unproven theories stacked on top of each other and there's still nothing we can do about it...
i’d say it’s less that people “get very uppity about it” and more that it’s not something that’s particularly relevant. we have no evidence for or against, and the outcome doesn’t really change how we interact with the world
likewise the universe could be entirely chaos and everything that exists in this instant: your memories and understanding of the universe and everything to back it up could just be the current arrangement of things and will be torn apart in the very next instant
but it’s not really a useful position to form conjectures from: if it is, it doesn’t matter what you do; if it isn’t, then you should act as if the universe will be here and that your memories are valid
we have no evidence for or against, and the outcome doesn’t really change how we interact with the world
I've heard it described as "flying spaghetti monster for the religious" because, much like FSM, it's a useful allegory to frame the point, but not very interesting beyond that.
I see where you're drawing the correlation because we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of higher powers the same as I can't tell you whether you are a brain floating in amniotic fluid running through a simulation or not. People approaching philosophical questions usually reach an impasse because that is the nature of philosophy.
But a religious person would be more akin to someone telling you that they know we are in fact floating brains powering an AI civilization. They can't provide you with solid proof but you are incorrect if you think otherwise.
No but the latter is what science-minded people do. They insist that matter comes before consciousness without being able to prove it, though what's extremely obvious in everyone's direct experience is that consciousness is needed before anything else is said about the world. It's a false status quo.
But a religious person would be more akin to someone telling you that they know we are in fact floating brains powering an AI civilization. They can't provide you with solid proof but you are incorrect if you think otherwise.
Some do. The loud/belligerent don't necessarily make a majority. The rest know that faith is exactly that, and know the difference between faith and belief and proven facts.
Do you think Christianity and the western idea of God is the only religious idea in existence?
Also looking at religion as a social phenomenon vs something supernatural . Some people can enjoy the ceremony and community and drop all the dogma. I know I'm an atheist but still enjoy Christmas , Hanukkah, Vesak, Diwali. Nice thing about not being tied to the dogma means you can pick and chose what you like.
I think a lot of people wouldn't consider you religious if you just do it for the social aspect
I consider myself a very logical person. I consider myself "religish". Mainly, the idea of death being the end makes me very anxious, so I choose to believe it's not, which inherently brings one to religion of some sort.
No, there are no such people.
Doublethink, bro. Doublethink.
You’re saying I could be thinking twice as fast 👀
Not you, no
/s