What Are the Effects of Scientific Knowledge on Religious Beliefs?

[vincentm]

Athiest here

 

[Moonbear]

What about removing loaded or misintertpretable words and simply having your options as:

a] believe in a superpnatural presence
b] believe there is not a supernatural presence
c] believe the jury is still out

People will think the survey is asking them if they believe in ghosts.

Yeah, supernatural brings in a whole 'nother group of potential responses beyond "deities."

Perhaps a better phrasing might be:
a) believe in a deity or deities.
b) believe there is/are no deity/deities
c) none of the above

(C would include the agnostics and atheists who will claim they have no beliefs in any direction, A makes no presumption of religiosity associated with the beliefs, and B should cover the atheists who have rejected belief in a deity (not all atheists are the same "flavor").

 

[Evo]

Yeah, supernatural brings in a whole 'nother group of potential responses beyond "deities."

Perhaps a better phrasing might be:
a) believe in a deity or deities.
b) believe there is/are no deity/deities
c) none of the above

(C would include the agnostics and atheists who will claim they have no beliefs in any direction, A makes no presumption of religiosity associated with the beliefs, and B should cover the atheists who have rejected belief in a deity (not all atheists are the same "flavor").

I suggest that we start a poll to see if the poll should be changed.

 

[NoTime]

I suggest that we start a poll to see if the poll should be changed.

I suggest poll on creating a committee to study the advisability of starting a new poll to see if the poll should be changed.

 

[Gokul43201]

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

Table 1 Comparison of survey answers among "greater" scientists 

Belief in personal God 	   1914           1933 	      1998
Personal belief 	   27.7 	   15 	       7.0
Personal disbelief 	   52.7 	   68 	      72.2
Doubt or agnosticism 	   20.9 	   17 	      20.8

Belief in human immortality 	 1914 	        1933 	         1998
Personal belief 	         35.2 	         18 	          7.9
Personal disbelief 	         25.4 	         53 	         76.7
Doubt or agnosticism 	         43.7 	         29 	         23.3

Note: Some columns don't add up to 100. I don't know what the deal is with that.

 

[edward]

I suggest poll on creating a committee to study the advisability of starting a new poll to see if the poll should be changed.

That sounds too much like politics.

 

[Poop-Loops]

Note: Some columns don't add up to 100. I don't know what the deal is with that.

There are more accurate algorithms for adding these days, is my guess. I mean, back in 1914 they had to do it by hand! I can't imagine how they got anything done. Now you can set a 32-bit floating point number and get like a billion times more accurate sums.

 

[Cyrus]

The other day I had to say the pledge of allegiance. I must admit, when it got to the part 'one nation under god' I bit my toungue. The entire concept of a national pledge just seemed too NAZI to me. All of us standing up like a bunch of mindless zombines. Hail USA, HAIL! -It kinda creeped me out.

 

[Poop-Loops]

By the end of my schooling I was just mindlessly saying the PoA, since I've repeated it so many times it's more like a sequence of sounds than actual words by now. I don't know why they expected that saying it over and over every day would somehow make kids more patriotic. They are smarter than that and they need an actual reason for it, not because someone older told them to. Please.

 

[Gokul43201]

The other day I had to say the pledge of allegiance.

Had to? Why? What was the event?

 

[Cyrus]

Had to? Why? What was the event?

It was a talk at a military conference, followed by a prayer that started, "Oh heavenly father..."

Keep the religious crap at church. F***. It was mostly military people around, and I have no problem saying the pledge. The god part is well...and a bunch of grown men standing and saying the pledge was rather disturbing. But I wasnt about to piss off a room full of high ranking military people.

 

[Kurdt]

Hmm. *Bites tongue*

 

[Poop-Loops]

It was a talk at a military conference, followed by a prayer that started, "Oh heavenly father..."

Keep the religious crap at church. F***. It was mostly military people around, and I have no problem saying the pledge. The god part is well...and a bunch of grown men standing and saying the pledge was rather disturbing. But I wasnt about to piss off a room full of high ranking military people.

Ugh note to self: never attend a military conference.

I don't have that kind of self-control. =/

 

[Moonbear]

By the end of my schooling I was just mindlessly saying the PoA, since I've repeated it so many times it's more like a sequence of sounds than actual words by now. I don't know why they expected that saying it over and over every day would somehow make kids more patriotic. They are smarter than that and they need an actual reason for it, not because someone older told them to. Please.

That was my experience with church as a child. You just say the words because everyone around you is saying them, not because they mean anything. (It wasn't until "the talk" when approaching puberty that I even realized there was significance to the word "virgin." I used to just think Mary just had two names, like Betty Sue, she was Virgin Mary. ) I liked singing the hymns though, because I was allowed to sing as loudly as I wanted and my mom couldn't tell me to "knock off the racket!" For some parts of mass, I'd just mumble something, because I really didn't know what the words were and couldn't figure them out.

 

[waht]

The psychological forces that compel people to conform and submit to social norms are quite potent. That reminds of the stereotyping thread.

 

[sysreset]

From what I've seen from reading the replies to the thread, some individuals find the three options provided to be insufficient to describe their belief. How could I better word my surveys/the options to get more accurate responses (changing religious to theistic, for example) in the future? Mind you many sample groups will be taking the same survey, and too difficult wording might be a hindrance to some of the samples. Thanks.

Daniel Y., here is a slightly different set of categories based on some of the preceding posts. I'd be up for another survey with something like this. I purposefully eliminated terms like "religious" or "agnostic" because they come with so many preconceived notions for some people. Also left out "God," "faith" and "supernatural" for similar reasons. (Consider substituting the phrase "deity-set" for deity below if it is more inclusive.) Five categories, arranged along a (hopefully) logical spectrum of belief.

1. I firmly believe in a specific deity.
2. I firmly believe in a higher order that is beyond the reach of scientific inquiry, but cannot be characterized as a deity.
3. I believe in either a deity or a higher order, but have significant doubts about its truth.
4. I do not believe in either a deity or a higher order, but wish I could.
5. I am certain that there is no deity or higher order, and do not wish to change.

 

[Moonbear]

Daniel Y., here is a slightly different set of categories based on some of the preceding posts. I'd be up for another survey with something like this. I purposefully eliminated terms like "religious" or "agnostic" because they come with so many preconceived notions for some people. Also left out "God," "faith" and "supernatural" for similar reasons. (Consider substituting the phrase "deity-set" for deity below if it is more inclusive.) Five categories, arranged along a (hopefully) logical spectrum of belief.

1. I firmly believe in a specific deity.
2. I firmly believe in a higher order that is beyond the reach of scientific inquiry, but cannot be characterized as a deity.
3. I believe in either a deity or a higher order, but have significant doubts about its truth.
4. I do not believe in either a deity or a higher order, but wish I could.
5. I am certain that there is no deity or higher order, and do not wish to change.

That still leaves out those who don't believe but aren't certain if a deity might exist. I'm not sure about that "...but wish I could" category. That seems like an odd one.

 

[DaveC426913]

People will think the survey is asking them if they believe in ghosts.

Change to taste. I used 'supernatural' arbitrarily. Some forms of religion might not consdier their [fill in blank here] as a deity. For example, Buddhism. It should be a broad enough term to encapsulate that option without leaving room for a fourth.

 

[BobG]

From what I've seen from reading the replies to the thread, some individuals find the three options provided to be insufficient to describe their belief. How could I better word my surveys/the options to get more accurate responses (changing religious to theistic, for example) in the future? Mind you many sample groups will be taking the same survey, and too difficult wording might be a hindrance to some of the samples. Thanks.

My suggestion would be to not take any suggestions from PF members on how to word a survey that a 'normal' person would understand.

In other words, if we do have a poll about changing your poll, I vote no (unless one of the choices manages to use an or, and, nand, and an xor in the same choice, in which case I'd pick that option in addition to no and your percentages would wind up adding to more than 100%).

 

[binzing]

Wow, that's a fast fillup. Um, can't vote, I'd have to say something like agnostic leaning atheist, as in, I don't go around and refute other religions to their believers, but I don't believe there's any "intelligent" beings. I mean, sure, I think there's greater things than us, like the Universe and the Earth.

 

[arunma]

I voted "religious." For those who happen to be taking data, I would categorize myself as a conservative Christian. I could go into a long explanation about creeds and confessions, but for those who like easy categorizations, this basically means I believe the Bible is true, and that there is a God who sends people to hell for not believing in him (figure I'd state the most "offensive" belief first and get it out of the way). I'm part of a denomination called the Presbyterian Church in America (there are two churches in America that call themselves Presbyterian, the PCA is the conservative one).

I'm also a grad student in a physics department, in case you're wondering.

This is the correlation I intend to show in my paper; in fact, the general idea of providing samples of specialized forums (Scientific vs. Paranormal for example), as you might have guessed, is to show the general consensus among the individuals in the sample. I would venture to say the paranormal forum would contain an abundance of religious persons, but one might be surprised by the results.

I would say that this is an accurate correlation. The proportion of atheists and agnostics in the scientific community is, in my experience, larger than the general population. To first order, about 80% of Americans claim to be Christians, and most of the minority associates with various other religions. In my physics department, I know four other people who are religious. Not a lot, given the size of my department.

Oh wow..many are ...atheists.

Is this what happens, when you're into science?
(I guess I'm the exception then, since I love chemistry and yet I still believe in some higher power )

Not necessarily. There are a few different theories about this. Some people believe that learning more science causes one to rely on naturalistic explanations in general, leading them away from religion. The key assumption here is that the purpose of religion is to explain natural phenomena. Others believe that there is an atheistic bias in science, which indoctrinates scientists into atheism. I'm not so sure about this one either. Most of the "scientific" arguments I've seen for atheism come out of the mouths of non-scientists who have no clue what they're talking about. I've never had a professor or fellow grad student tell me that science disproves the existence of a deity, or that good scientists ought not to be religious. Usually scientists are good about not letting their personal beliefs dictate their science unless the belief has some scientific backing. Finally, there's the view that people who do not believe in a deity are naturally more inclined to science, because science can fulfill a role in their lives which religion fulfills in most other peoples'. This, I think, is the most likely case.

Anyway, you certainly don't need to be an atheist or agnostic to be a fruitful scientist. There are plenty of religious people in science. There just happens to be plenty more non-religious folks.

 

[Danger]

I'm not going to comment upon any of the foregoing posts, simply because I don't have the time or attention span to do so. Leave it suffice to be said that everyone has made valid points.
I'm a 'semi-militant atheist' (a term that I made up); you can tell me your opinion, you can argue your point to me, but if you ever try to convert me I will drop on you like a ball of neutronium.
My father came out of McGill University's St. Peter's College in 1923 with a Masters degree in Religious Studies (I think that it's called 'Theology' now), and worked as a minister for his entire life. Because of his training, he was an agnostic. His definition of 'religion' was "One's total response to the whole of life." It need not involve anything supernatural. By his terms, even I have a religion... do unto others before they do unto you.

 

[Moridin]

93% of the National Academies of Science are non-theists.
40% of the AAAS are theists.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v394/n6691/full/394313a0.html
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/e...rticles/2008/05/08/trouble_ahead_for_science/

 

[Gokul43201]

Finally, there's the view that people who do not believe in a deity are naturally more inclined to science, because science can fulfill a role in their lives which religion fulfills in most other peoples'. This, I think, is the most likely case.

This is not my experience. I find that most atheists I come across have started out life with religious upbringings and have turned towards atheism only after being exposed to science.

 

[Poop-Loops]

That's definitely the case with me.

 

[TR345]

For me it was sort of the opposite in a way. I was raised going to bible school, mostly just as a substitute to day care, but then I turned atheist in high school mostly because of science. But then after I matured more and got a more in depth view of the world and of science I have realized that science is shallower than I had thought in high school, as in science barely scratches the surface of the complexities of the universe, especially life.

I am not specific to a religion, I am just open to the idea of "spirituality" so to speak.

 

[Poop-Loops]

I know what you mean. Every time I look at something amazing, such as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field pictures, I just get this sense of awe, like there has to be something "higher" out there. And I ask, "is there?" but I never get an answer. So I don't dwell on it. I'm content with my life regardless of whether or not there is a higher being or purpose.

 

[TR345]

the thing that gets me, is that I can't understand how the universe could be infinite in size, and I can't understand how it could be finite. Either way, there is something deep and profound that is beyond my understanding.

 

[Poop-Loops]

You think there is something deep and profound beyond your understanding. I think there is something I don't understand as of yet, but nothing is telling me it has to be deep, profound, or beyond my understanding.

Women. Women are beyond my understanding, as are sports fans. But for the universe the jury is still out.

 

[TR345]

Thats the other thing, we may figure out the secrets of the universe before we figure women out.

Kind of ironic though, sports fans are among the least understanding of how women think, and women are of the least understanding of how sports fans think. I doubt that either one can understand the least bit how you think.