I found this article that had been published here in April 2012, but I think that it is worthwhile to revisit it because both critical thinking combined with being intuitive and sometimes even believing in God will help many people survive the times we are living in. Without good rational decisions people often don't make it. But also, without good instinct and intuition people often don't make it either. In some ways being too intelligent can actually work against your survival if you just stay too worried all the time. So, common sense, instinct and intuition, and critical thinking all are needed to make useful decisions to stay alive. I have always found taking one day and one moment at a time is enough. When I try to live the rest of my life in my mind that usually doesn't work. But, if I can survive today or even this moment, there is almost always another moment and another and another. So, even seeing the future as I can often do is actually less important than being right here right now and staying calm and centered through all of it.
begin quote:
Belief in God, Critical Thinking Butt Heads
The strength of your faith may depend on how likely you are to think analytically or to trust your intuition.
- By Emily Sohn
Thu Apr 26, 2012 02:00 PM ET
(7) Comments | Leave a Comment
THE GIST
- Thinking analytically reduces the strength of religious beliefs.
- A tendency to think either critically or more intuitively could help distinguish between people who are or are not religious.
- Critical thinking is not enough to destroy faith for most people.
When pushed to think in a more rational way, people
experience a dip in their religious beliefs, found a new study. Simply
looking at pictures of Rodin's sculpture "The Thinker," for example, was
enough to make people less likely to agree with statements like,
"Nothing is as important to me as serving God as best I know how."
The effects were subtle, and encouraging critical thought is unlikely to destroy anyone's faith. But the findings suggest that rational analysis interacts with gut instinct in the brain to help distinguish between people who believe fully in God and those who abandon religion.
"This could help people take a broader approach to debates about whether religion is true or not, and realize that subtle cognitive differences might be influencing where people end up on that debate," said Will Gervais, a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, who added that understanding why some people are more religious than others doesn't say anything about who's right.
NEWS: Was Jesus Happy?
Nor is rational thinking the only factor that influences religious belief.
"It's not the case that the Pope walked into the lab and Richard Dawkins walked out," he said. "I think this study tells us one factor that is implicated in whether or not people are believers, but it is just one factor out of many."
While most of the world's population believes in God or gods, hundreds of millions of people do not. To explain how intelligent people might believe in concepts that lack proof, researchers have previously theorized that our brains have two distinct modes of thought. One uses rational analysis to think things through. The other relies on intuition to form beliefs and gut feelings.
With that theory in mind, Gervais and colleague Ara Norenzayan challenged a diverse group of people to answer three questions whose answers were likely to differ depending on whether they reasoned out the answer or went with their gut.
For example, one question asked, "A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?" Without thinking, many people guess 10 cents, even though a little bit of quick math shows that the correct answer is five.
People in the experiment who stepped back and thought analytically before answering tended to hold weaker religious beliefs, the researchers report today in the journal Science, suggesting a connection between rational thinking and a lack of faith.
ANALYSIS: Atheists Best Informed About Religion
But does the tendency to think rationally cause religious doubt, or does it go the other way? To find out, the researchers conducted a series of experiments with hundreds of people that triggered them to think analytically before answering faith-themed questions about things like their belief in God and the role that faith plays in their decision-making.
In one experiment, participants looked at artwork portraying either a thinker or a man throwing a discus. In another, in which people rearranged letters and words to form sentences, they saw either thinking-related words or neutral words. Yet another experiment asked people to read the religious-beliefs survey in a font that was either easy or hard to decipher.
No matter how the researchers primed the brain to think critically, people's responses were less strongly religious compared to the responses of people who were not put in a rational frame of mind. The findings, Gervais said, suggest that the rational brain is capable of undermining the intuitive brain in slight ways when it comes to faith.
Because our minds and bodies are so closely connected, it's not surprising that religious thought is linked with certain kinds of brain activities, said John Hare, a philosophical theologian at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Conn. But discoveries like these say nothing about the existence of God or anything else that is outside of the mind.
"For most people of faith, their faith is not a matter of proof," Hare said. "This is true even though throughout the history of the Abrahamic faiths, some of the brightest thinkers have been people of faith, and have proposed proofs of various kinds.
"Probably it is good that there should be a division of labor. Some people can spend their time and efforts reflecting about their faith intellectually. And most people can just live it."
The effects were subtle, and encouraging critical thought is unlikely to destroy anyone's faith. But the findings suggest that rational analysis interacts with gut instinct in the brain to help distinguish between people who believe fully in God and those who abandon religion.
"This could help people take a broader approach to debates about whether religion is true or not, and realize that subtle cognitive differences might be influencing where people end up on that debate," said Will Gervais, a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, who added that understanding why some people are more religious than others doesn't say anything about who's right.
NEWS: Was Jesus Happy?
Nor is rational thinking the only factor that influences religious belief.
"It's not the case that the Pope walked into the lab and Richard Dawkins walked out," he said. "I think this study tells us one factor that is implicated in whether or not people are believers, but it is just one factor out of many."
While most of the world's population believes in God or gods, hundreds of millions of people do not. To explain how intelligent people might believe in concepts that lack proof, researchers have previously theorized that our brains have two distinct modes of thought. One uses rational analysis to think things through. The other relies on intuition to form beliefs and gut feelings.
With that theory in mind, Gervais and colleague Ara Norenzayan challenged a diverse group of people to answer three questions whose answers were likely to differ depending on whether they reasoned out the answer or went with their gut.
For example, one question asked, "A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?" Without thinking, many people guess 10 cents, even though a little bit of quick math shows that the correct answer is five.
People in the experiment who stepped back and thought analytically before answering tended to hold weaker religious beliefs, the researchers report today in the journal Science, suggesting a connection between rational thinking and a lack of faith.
ANALYSIS: Atheists Best Informed About Religion
But does the tendency to think rationally cause religious doubt, or does it go the other way? To find out, the researchers conducted a series of experiments with hundreds of people that triggered them to think analytically before answering faith-themed questions about things like their belief in God and the role that faith plays in their decision-making.
In one experiment, participants looked at artwork portraying either a thinker or a man throwing a discus. In another, in which people rearranged letters and words to form sentences, they saw either thinking-related words or neutral words. Yet another experiment asked people to read the religious-beliefs survey in a font that was either easy or hard to decipher.
No matter how the researchers primed the brain to think critically, people's responses were less strongly religious compared to the responses of people who were not put in a rational frame of mind. The findings, Gervais said, suggest that the rational brain is capable of undermining the intuitive brain in slight ways when it comes to faith.
Because our minds and bodies are so closely connected, it's not surprising that religious thought is linked with certain kinds of brain activities, said John Hare, a philosophical theologian at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Conn. But discoveries like these say nothing about the existence of God or anything else that is outside of the mind.
"For most people of faith, their faith is not a matter of proof," Hare said. "This is true even though throughout the history of the Abrahamic faiths, some of the brightest thinkers have been people of faith, and have proposed proofs of various kinds.
"Probably it is good that there should be a division of labor. Some people can spend their time and efforts reflecting about their faith intellectually. And most people can just live it."
End quote from:
http://news.discovery.com/human/religious-belief-critical-thinking-120426.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1
For me, Belief in God and Critical Thinking go hand in hand, because my
father always taught me to be a critical thinker first and to realize
when I was a child from age 4 (1952 to 1960) until when I was 12 that I
would always be making decisions the rest of my life. So critical
thinking would be necessary for my survival and the survival of my
family. But Dad said not to worry about having to make decisions all the
time. He said to be relaxed about decisions because if you make a bad
one usually you can modify new decisions as you get better information.
He said it is most important not to freeze up because I had a lifetime
of critical decisions to make and I might as well be relaxed and focused
about it all the time as a man. For me, critical thinking doesn't get
in the way of believing in God because when I was young and almost died
in several health situations God was there for me. So, God isn't
theoretical for me because most of my life has been a 24 hour a day
ongoing experience of God. God is much more real and permanent than
Earth or the physical universe in my everyday experience. God and I will
be together whether or not the physical universe exists or not. That is
my experience. I see the physical universe as a dream that God and I
are sharing together, sort of like you were sitting next to God in a
theater watching a good movie.
Another useful way to look at all this is to realize that most people need to believe in God or have a purpose to be living for. During wars a common saying was and is," There are no atheists in foxholes."
When people think they will die any moment it is not surprising that they call out to God or to their mothers. It is quite common while soldiers are screaming and dying on the battlefield to hear them screaming the name of God and "Momma" on the battlefields as they lie dying. So, critical thinking is all very well and good but if you think you are about to die it doesn't really mean anything. Then you need something more to continue to stay alive. Because if you completely freak out into shock then you are dead for sure. So, believing in God in traumatic situations often is the difference between life and death.
Another useful way to look at all this is to realize that most people need to believe in God or have a purpose to be living for. During wars a common saying was and is," There are no atheists in foxholes."
When people think they will die any moment it is not surprising that they call out to God or to their mothers. It is quite common while soldiers are screaming and dying on the battlefield to hear them screaming the name of God and "Momma" on the battlefields as they lie dying. So, critical thinking is all very well and good but if you think you are about to die it doesn't really mean anything. Then you need something more to continue to stay alive. Because if you completely freak out into shock then you are dead for sure. So, believing in God in traumatic situations often is the difference between life and death.
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