"In a series of studies, researchers at Harvard University found that people with a more intuitive thinking style tend to have stronger beliefs in God than those with a more reflective style. Intuitive thinking means going with one's first instinct and reaching decisions quickly based on automatic cognitive processes. Reflective thinking involves the questioning of first instinct and consideration of other possibilities, thus allowing for counterintuitive decisions.
[...]
Participants who gave intuitive answers to all three problems were 1 ½ times as likely to report they were convinced of God's existence as those who answered all of the questions correctly. That pattern was found regardless of other demographic factors, such as the participants' political beliefs, education or income. "How people think - or fail to think - about the prices of bats and balls is reflected in their thinking, and ultimately their convictions, about the metaphysical order of the universe," the journal article stated.
Participants with an intuitive thinking style also were more likely to have become more confident believers in God over their lifetimes, regardless of whether they had a religious upbringing. Individuals with a reflective style tended to become less confident in their belief in God. The study also found that this pronounced link between differing thinking styles and levels of faith could not be explained by differences in the participants' thinking ability or IQ. "Basic ways of thinking about problem solving in your everyday life are predictive of how much you believe in God," Rand said."
Medicalnewstoday.com, 23 Sep 2011
I'm tempted to say: "So, they really are more stupid, then?".But that's just my intution which could be wrong.
"Three in 10 Americans interpret the Bible literally, saying it is the actual word of God. That is similar to what Gallup has measured over the last two decades, but down from the 1970s and 1980s. A 49% plurality of Americans say the Bible is the inspired word of God but that it should not be taken literally, consistently the most common view in Gallup's nearly 40-year history of this question. Another 17% consider the Bible an ancient book of stories recorded by man."
Gallup.com, July 8, 2011
Odd fluctuation in recent years.
See the article for lots of other numbers on this issue.
"Take homicide, which is way higher in the United States than in any other advanced country. Same with incarceration – we have more people in prison than China does, and China is four times our size. In no other first world state do so many die as children. Life spans are notably shorter than in other nations. Abortion rates are higher. Also high are gonorrhea and syphilis infections, which are dozens of times lower in parts of Europe. Out of wedlock teen pregnancy? We’re #1. Divorce? Only the Swedes beat us out. Illicit drug use is exceptionally high. As is mental illness. The U.S.is not a total societal basket case, we are typical in suicide rates and alcohol consumption, and score high on marriage rates and income. But when I tallied up the factors used in my Evolutionary Psychology paper on a zero-10 scale American scored a meager three, while the most atheistic democracies scored up to a remarkable eight (none reached 10, there being no utopias.
[...]
So the line that societies cannot help but go to hell in a handcart if they do not follow the dictates of a God is nothing more than a great big lie. Instead, it is the most atheistic democracies, where few ask what Jesus would do, that enjoy the best overall lifestyle conditions. The same trends hold up within the U.S, too: The Northeast is already as secular as parts of Europe and enjoys less dysfunction than the Southeast which is the most conservative Christian; life spans are actually decreasing in the Bible belt. "
Washington Post, Gregory Paul, 10/17/2011
See the full report here:
The Chronic Dependence of Popular Religiosity upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions
"They interviewed a scientifically selected sample of 275 participants, pulled from a survey of 2,198 tenured and tenure-track faculty in the natural and social sciences at 21 elite U.S. research universities. Only 15 percent of those surveyed said they view religion and science as always in conflict. Another 15 percent said the two are never in conflict, while 70 percent said they believe religion and science are only sometimes in conflict.
[...]
The study was supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation with additional funding from Rice University.
[...]
Many of those surveyed cited issues in the public realm (teaching of creationism versus evolution, stem cell research) as reasons for believing there is conflict between the two. The study showed that these individuals generally have a particular kind of religion in mind (and religious people and institutions) when they say that religion and science are in conflict.
Other findings in the study:
Scientists as a whole are substantially different from the American public in how they view teaching “intelligent design” in public schools. Nearly all of the scientists – religious and nonreligious alike – have a negative impression of the theory of intelligent design.
Sixty-eight percent of scientists surveyed consider themselves spiritual to some degree.
Scientists who view themselves as spiritual/religious are less likely to see religion and science in conflict."
Beliefnet, September 23, 2011
I've seen this survey cited in a number of places and nearly all of them has a headline indicating that science and religion are not in conflict, while the numbers clearly state that 70 per cent thinks religion and science are sometimes in conflict. Only 15 per cent thinks religion and science are never in conflict.
"In a survey released last year, it was found that 72 percent of millennials were "more spiritual than religious." According to Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, the group that conducted the study. Rainer explained to USA Today that young adults today do not pray, worship, or read the Bible.
In studying the data of 1,200 18-29 year olds, Rainer found that among the 65 percent who described themselves as Christians, "many are either mushy Christians or Christians in name only; most are just indifferent," said Rainer. "The more precisely you try to measure their Christianity, the fewer you find committed to the faith," he added.
The study found that 65 percent rarely or never pray with others, and 38 percent almost never pray by themselves. In addition, 65 percent rarely or never attend worship services, while 67 percent don not read the Bible or sacred texts."
The Christian Post, Sep. 22 2011
I really can't stand the word "spiritual" but I guess in this case it's better than being religious.
"Religiosity appears to have little affect on preventing hypertension, or high blood pressure, and those study participants proclaiming to be the most religious were actually the most likely to have hypertension. The study was conducted by medical students at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and presented on April 30 at the meeting of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine in New Orleans.
Although a small study presented at a small meeting, it is yet one more report that chisels away at the notion that prayer and belief alone offer significant health benefits.
Many studies indeed have shown that those who attend weekly religious services or participate in church activities have at least marginally better health than non-participants. Yet these studies have focused primarily on physical participation: getting out of the house to a weekly service and being part of a community.
[...]
Marginally significant results aside, these earlier studies could not tease apart what it was about religion — the spiritual act of believing or the physical acts of participating and interacting with neighbors — that provided the purported benefit.
[...]
The Loyola study focused more on the spiritual, not whether a person merely attends church but whether they "carry [their] religion over into all other dealings in life," as cited in the study. Those who were most religious in this regard were the least healthy in terms of high blood pressure.
Other recent studies have focused on spirituality, too, to see if that alone could lower blood pressure, perhaps through mechanisms such as stress reduction. Yet prayer and spirituality were associated with higher blood pressure in a study of more than 3,000 adults published in January 2009 in Social Science Medicine; and they offered no benefit for preventing hypertension for approximately 1,600 women in a study published in June 2009 in Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
Even a life of the cloth seems to provide little protection. The obesity rate among United Methodist clergy is 40 percent, about 10 percent higher than the national rate, as reported in the September 2010 issue of Obesity.
Meanwhile, just about anything that gets someone out of the house can be helpful. Playing bingo, for example, even in a non-religious setting, is associated with a 40-percent reduction in death risk and 65-percent reduction in disability among the elderly, according to a study published in June 2009 in the Archives of Internal Medicine."
LiveScience, Christopher Wanjek, 05 May 2011
I quote this article at length, because it points to a very important effect of religion, the social aspect. So there aren't any metaphysical effects or effects from belief itself, only the effect that getting out of the house provides. Maybe atheists should gather once a week too.
On a personal note, not long ago I actually had fairly high blood pressure. I could hear the blood pumping when I was laying on my bed with the ear to the pillow. Then I started to excercise once a week, and that helped. Now I can't hear the blood pumping anymore. No need for spirituality, just common sense.
"Belief in God doesn't deter a person from cheating on a test, unless that God is seen as a mean, punishing one, researchers say.
On the flip side, psychology researchers Azim F. Shariff at the University of Oregon and Ara Norenzayan at the University of British Columbia found that undergraduate college students who believe in a caring, forgiving God are more likely to cheat.
[...]
No differences in cheating were found between self-described believers in God and non-believers."
ScienceDaily Apr. 20, 2011
Fairly interesting. As the saying goes: "We're not perfect, we're forgiven". It must be noted, however, that people who believe in a vengeful god may cause a lot of other problems.
"Circumstances predict religiousness," he said. "Difficult circumstances lead more strongly to people being religious. And in religious societies and in difficult circumstances, religious people are happier than nonreligious people. But in nonreligious societies or more benign societies where many people's needs are met, religious people aren't happier -- everyone's happier."
ScienceDaily Aug. 8, 2011
This should settle the discussion on religiousness and happiness. Irreligious people has a harder time in religious countries, but if irreligious people are the majority, then everyone's better off. The map in
this post (which I think is from the Gallup poll this study is based on) is also pretty self-explanatory.
"A recent U.S. Census report shows the Northeast - and New Jersey in particular - has the lowest divorce rate in America, trailed closely by New York.
The Bible Belt, meanwhile, home to Southern hospitality, church telethons and country music, has more "shotgun" weddings and the most divorces.
"People assume that people in the Northeast divorce easily because they're less religious, but that's not the case," said Deborah Carr, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University.
In the Northeast, 7.2 per 1,000 men and 7.5 per 1,000 women got divorced. In the South, the rates were 10.2 for men and 11.1 for women.
New Jersey's rates were 6.1 for men and 6 for women, according to the 2009 American Community Survey, which released the data in August.
[...]
The South sees more divorce for several reasons, Carr said:
First, Southerners tend to marry young.
Second, couples don't usually move in together while unwed, a trend tied to religious beliefs. They often frown upon birth control, and are "more likely to have nonmarital pregnancies, which ... then trigger 'shotgun' marriages."
Third, there are simply more marriages in the South. New Jersey had the second-lowest marriage rates, just above Maine. The Census survey reported New Jersey's marriage rate is 14.8 for men and 13.3 for women."
Chron.com, September 29, 2011
If you're not married you can't get divorced.
"A large-scale survey of British attitudes has been carried out by YouGov–Cambridge (a collaboration between pollsters YouGov and the University of Cambridge’s Department of Politics and International Studies) has some revealing statistics on religion. A representative sample of 64,303 adult Britons aged 18 and over responded.
78% (82% of the over-55s) agreed and 12% disagreed that religion should be a private matter and had no place in politics
In response to the question “What is your religion?” 40% of adults professed no religion, 55% were Christian and 5% of other faiths – age made a major difference, with only 38% of the 18–34s being Christian and 53% having no religion, whereas for the over-55s the figures were 70% and 26% respectively
35% described themselves as very or fairly religious and 63% as not very or not at all religious – there were no big variations by demographics (even by age), but Londoners (41%) did stand out as being disproportionately religious, doubtless reflecting the concentration of ethnic minorities in the capital
79% agreed and 11% disagreed that religion is a cause of much misery and conflict in the world today
72% agreed and 15% disagreed that religion is used as an excuse for bigotry and intolerance, with a high of 81% inScotlandwhere sectarianism has often been rife
35% agreed and 45% disagreed that religion is a force for good in the world, dissenters being more numerous among men (50%) than women (41%)
[...]
Full tables can be seen here."
National Secular Society, 23 Sep 2011
Lots more numbers in the article.
I came across this international survey via
NSS:
It shows that religion has the lowest priority among mothers and fathers whereas hygiene has the top priority.
Here's the
full report (page 22). (See also
Sca.com for more information about who produced the survey).
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