Article: Thinking can undermine religious faith

[momopi]

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/26 ... g-20120427

Thinking can undermine religious faith, study finds

Those who think more analytically are less inclined to be religious believers than are those who tend to follow a gut instinct, researchers conclude.

April 26, 2012|By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times

Scientists have revealed one of the reasons why some folks are less religious than others: They think more analytically, rather than going with their gut. And thinking analytically can cause religious belief to wane — for skeptics and true believers alike.

The study, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, indicates that belief may be a more malleable feature of the human psyche than those of strong faith may think

[Jester]

Those who think more analytically are less inclined to be religious believers than are those who tend to follow a gut instinct, researchers conclude.

April 26, 2012|By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times

I totally agree. Very analytical people often have a tough time believing in God. But it is their fundamental need to control and understand that is the cause.

On the other hand, a farmer doesn't know why seeds grow, but he knows that they do grow. So he acts and gets results.

Atheists talk like nothing is allowed to exist unless they have analyzed it, and then concurred. Their little minds have to approve before it could exist.

"I there is a God, how could he...."
"I don't understand how God could..."


All analysis, with none of the understanding gained through suffering, joy, work, experience, and observation. Like a martial arts student who keeps raising his hand to ask questions -- instead of watching and then doing the exercises. Solution in the old Hong Kong movies is to have the student go back and work in the kitchen for a while.
"But I don't get it..."
"You don't have to get it. Shut up. Tell your MIND to shut up. Watch. Do."

Experience and observation, not analysis, teach the best.

God's reply to Job, in the ancient Book of Job, was quite similar to this, something along these lines:
"You don't HAVE to understand, little man, you are in no position to tell me how to run things."

In fact, since the poetic imagery is so beautiful, here's a sample from Job Chapter 38. wherein God makes the point that noone understands how He was able to create a functioning world that is hospitable to human life, all miraculously operating on its own:

Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm. He said:
2 "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-
7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels [1] shouted for joy?
8 "Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,
9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,
11 when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt'?
12 "Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place...........

Yes, highly analytical people tend to have a tough time with faith.

One of Jesus's top followers, Thomas, was a skeptic. He refused to believe Jesus had risen from the dead. No amount of analysis or argumentation or even eyewitness testimony convinced him. Not even Jesus appearing to him convinced him. He didn't believe until he physically stuck his fingers into the nail-holes torn into Jesus's wrists. He thus experienced the truth, first hand (no pun intended). That's what it took to get him to believe.

There is hope even for hard cases. Being tough-minded and honest is great for deflecting bullshit. But ego needs to be discarded for true objectivity. Like Clausewitz wrote in "On War", we operate as if in a fog, and we never know everything that is going on. If we think we do, we die.

[FREEDOM1]

religion is just another system of control over the masses

divide and conquer, religion has been the casue of countless deaths

and social issues over the course of history

in the past the majority of people could not read or write, less educated so they

were more easily maniupalated with stories of hell and heaven etc...

Anyone who wants to be objective , will question all religion

why should religion think its above scrutiny?

Again religion is good for conformists and those they want to follow the sheeple

[Jester]

http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en ... ,s:0,i:109

[onezero4u]

agree wholeheartedly with FREEDOM1

religion is another prong on the establishment's control pitchfork to keep you godam peasants in line.

government, police, state educational system, the media are other prongs as well.