Although I agree with the title of this thread, i.e. Analytical thinking affects *religious* belief, note my emphasis on the word 'religious'. I would suggest that true analytical think opens up the possibility to a 'supreme being' but not *God* in a religious sense. It all depends on whether a dogmatic assumption of the concept of 'sentience' is taken rather than an objective approach, which kind of goes against the grain of analytical thinking anyway.

An interesting question related to this is whether macro systems may be considered sentient if the micro systems are. If this is the case then the question of scale comes into play. If scalability is viable then we have to consider whether the universe is sentient and your are left with the question of what that means in terms of 'belief' systems and the concept of a supreme being which is the product of all that is contained within the macro system at the highest level.

Another secular "study" attempting to destroy religion. I'm not even going to read this noise.

Originally posted by AwakeinNM
Another secular "study" attempting to destroy religion. I'm not even going to read this noise.

How are they attempting to destroy religion?

in response to this survey, a couple of recent surveys (I forget which) also showed that people with high IQ's tended not to believe in God.

Personally, I believe that people grow out of their beliefs in Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, but have no problem in believing in this imaginary "God" being.

Originally posted by babybunnies
in response to this survey, a couple of recent surveys (I forget which) also showed that people with high IQ's tended not to believe in God.

I've discussed this on numerous occasions with friends at my University (supposedly higher than average IQ people). Many of them believe into something mysterious that they can't define. However, almost no one believes in some human-centric personal God that has spelled out a list of rules and influenced human history through miracles and massacres, etc. I think the vast majority of e.g. Christians are almost like this too. They don't believe the magic stuff and perhaps see even Jesus as just a normal human being. However, here in ATS we have numerous fundamentalists who insist that even talking snakes and flying camels existed

Originally posted by rhinoceros

Originally posted by AwakeinNM
Another secular "study" attempting to destroy religion. I'm not even going to read this noise.

How are they attempting to destroy religion?

I don't know, I was just spouting off. It seems that way, though. Why do a study at all? I mean, who cares what affects religious belief? The fact that they did a "study" and concluded that something "diminishes religious belief" suggests that hey, maybe you shouldn't be so quick to believe in religion. That's what I was inferring, more or less.

Originally posted by AwakeinNM
The fact that they did a "study" and concluded that something "diminishes religious belief" suggests that hey, maybe you shouldn't be so quick to believe in religion. That's what I was inferring, more or less.

The closing statement of the article:

Finally, we caution that the present studies are silent on long-standing debates about the intrinsic value or rationality of religious beliefs (32, 33), or about the relative merits of analytic and intuitive thinking in promoting optimal decision making (34). Instead, these results illuminate, through empirical research, one cognitive stage on which such debates are played (35).

I call BS. This article and research is totally bunk. There are plenty of analytic religious people out there, and plenty of non-analytic religious people. The same is true for people who aren't religious. Non religious people like to stereotype religious people as idiots who will believe anything but look around at society, I still see plenty of idiots who don't subscribe to any religious beliefs. The same goes for this forum, there are people who believe in fairies and goblins who probably attend this forum daily, no offense do the goblin and fairy believers, it's just not for me.

Originally posted by Atzil321
I am suprised they needed to conduct research to come to this conclusion, it seems self evident to me.

Its hard to convince those that sheepishly follow along in the heard. It sometimes takes a research study to convince with facts that cannot be brushed aside.

Originally posted by LausDeo
I call BS. This article and research is totally bunk. There are plenty of analytic religious people out there, and plenty of non-analytic religious people. The same is true for people who aren't religious.

How about you read the actual article before calling BS? Nowhere does it say that a religious person can't be analytic or that non-religious people are analytic. The point of the article was, that when brains are challenged, people report lower/less religious belief.

Originally posted by Stormdancer777
If this study is true how did this happen?

How does that dispute the study? Please read the actual study before replying. I'm starting to get this feeling that there are very few people around here who even know how to process information, and no, I'm not talking about just the creationist posse..