7 ms·

If you really want to suppress religion just educate your population. Higher levels of education are linked with lower levels of religious commitment, especial

by hunta2097 8y ago

If you really want to suppress religion just educate your population. Higher levels of education are linked with lower levels of religious commitment, especially the more extreme versions of zealotry. I don't really understand how someone who studies biology or physics to any degree could subscribe to an interventional deity.

nikkwong 8y ago
Ha, I don't understand it either, and I used to subscribe to your philosophy (increasing education == decreasing religious affiliation). But the effect to which this is true is somewhat confuddled. For example many educated people on the conservative right tend to still skew religious. Maybe education alone isn't enough; intelligence, social circles, aptitude for self reflection/self criticism etc, might play more into determining one's religiosity.
- hunta2097 8y ago
  Yes, I have some really clever friends who still attend church but at least here in the UK they are the exception. I put it down to religion being deeply embedded into self-identity, especially in families and spousal relationships where everyone is religious. It's a spectrum though, I am thoroughly atheist but still like singing carols at Christmas.
  - nikkwong 8y ago
    Ha! Same. I am definitely atheist or agnostic if we're being particularly pedantic, but I still go to church with my friends, engage in the rituals, etc. Just because it isn't of spiritual meaning to me doesn't mean it's meaningless. The increasingly polarizing & tribal nature of our world seems to suggest that this kind of thing is happening less and less.
hprotagonist 8y ago
while literally sitting on the toilet, the following names come to mind: physics: issac newton, gottfried Leibniz, george lemaitre, james maxwell, lord kelvin,j. j. thompson ... biology: gregor mendel, pasteur, francis collins... there are rather a few very big names who are Just Fine doing both.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  Sure, but their understanding of the world was different. Everywhere around them religion was important. That's not the case anymore. Furthermore, they also knew a lot less about the world in general, because such information simply wasn't available back then.
  - hprotagonist 8y ago
    i don’t think we’ve made any staggering advances in knowledge since 1960, when lemaitre died, for instance. it’s just a false dichotomy, sorry.
    - ardy42 8y ago
      > i don’t think we’ve made any staggering advances in knowledge since 1960, when lemaitre died, for instance. We've got Twitter and Reddit, and if those don't encapsulate staggering advances in human knowledge, I don't know what would.
      - DougN7 8y ago
        Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not...
- toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
  As a counterpoint religious affiliation and attendance of religious services has fallen across the developed world space with education. I’m not sure that cherry picking a list of names can stand up to the overwhelming demographic shift we see today.
- lostmsu 8y ago
  I am not sure, but looks like lemaitre is couple of steps ahead of your argument: https://archive.org/stream/theoriesoftheuni033062mbp#page/n367/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/theoriesoftheuni033062mbp#page/n3...
chillacy 8y ago
On the flip side religion at least provided meaning to life, a lot of 20th century writers struggled with that one, and I think we still struggle today.
tathougies 8y ago
No it's not. The Middle East is highly educated and really always has been, including the most zealous countries, like Iran.
nutcracker46 8y ago
What? Nobel winners and moon travelers have espoused religious ideas and talked of God, creation, and conversion. So, education is not really a factor (not even if you expand the sample size to include moderately educated and non-elite people).
- hunta2097 8y ago
  Yes, you can be spiritual to an extent. That's very different from the gods described in most religious texts. It's becoming pretty clear how everything since the big bang came to be.
  - hprotagonist 8y ago
    I’m not amazingly fond of Gould’s “two magesteria” idea (the bell curves overlap more than he’d like to admit), but: religion is not and never really has been primarily concerned with how. It’s larger concern is why, and even more than that, given existence: how then should we live?. Since “religion” seems to be shorthand for “the religions of abraham” in common discourse, it’s worth noting that, e. g., Genesis was not written as a text on cosmology. It’s a text on ethics, and to a fairly large extent, it’s also a ~5th century BCE political document. To willfully read it “literally” is just wrong-footed, though it’s very common among christian fundamentalists and new atheists alike.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

nikkwong 8y ago

Ha, I don't understand it either, and I used to subscribe to your philosophy (increasing education == decreasing religious affiliation). But the effect to which this is true is somewhat confuddled. For example many educated people on the conservative right tend to still skew religious. Maybe education alone isn't enough; intelligence, social circles, aptitude for self reflection/self criticism etc, might play more into determining one's religiosity.

hunta2097 8y ago
Yes, I have some really clever friends who still attend church but at least here in the UK they are the exception. I put it down to religion being deeply embedded into self-identity, especially in families and spousal relationships where everyone is religious. It's a spectrum though, I am thoroughly atheist but still like singing carols at Christmas.
- nikkwong 8y ago
  Ha! Same. I am definitely atheist or agnostic if we're being particularly pedantic, but I still go to church with my friends, engage in the rituals, etc. Just because it isn't of spiritual meaning to me doesn't mean it's meaningless. The increasingly polarizing & tribal nature of our world seems to suggest that this kind of thing is happening less and less.

hprotagonist 8y ago

while literally sitting on the toilet, the following names come to mind: physics: issac newton, gottfried Leibniz, george lemaitre, james maxwell, lord kelvin,j. j. thompson ... biology: gregor mendel, pasteur, francis collins... there are rather a few very big names who are Just Fine doing both.

Mirioron 8y ago
Sure, but their understanding of the world was different. Everywhere around them religion was important. That's not the case anymore. Furthermore, they also knew a lot less about the world in general, because such information simply wasn't available back then.
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  i don’t think we’ve made any staggering advances in knowledge since 1960, when lemaitre died, for instance. it’s just a false dichotomy, sorry.
  - ardy42 8y ago
    > i don’t think we’ve made any staggering advances in knowledge since 1960, when lemaitre died, for instance. We've got Twitter and Reddit, and if those don't encapsulate staggering advances in human knowledge, I don't know what would.
    - DougN7 8y ago
      Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not...
toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
As a counterpoint religious affiliation and attendance of religious services has fallen across the developed world space with education. I’m not sure that cherry picking a list of names can stand up to the overwhelming demographic shift we see today.
lostmsu 8y ago
I am not sure, but looks like lemaitre is couple of steps ahead of your argument: https://archive.org/stream/theoriesoftheuni033062mbp#page/n367/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/theoriesoftheuni033062mbp#page/n3...

chillacy 8y ago

On the flip side religion at least provided meaning to life, a lot of 20th century writers struggled with that one, and I think we still struggle today.

tathougies 8y ago

No it's not. The Middle East is highly educated and really always has been, including the most zealous countries, like Iran.

nutcracker46 8y ago

What? Nobel winners and moon travelers have espoused religious ideas and talked of God, creation, and conversion. So, education is not really a factor (not even if you expand the sample size to include moderately educated and non-elite people).

hunta2097 8y ago
Yes, you can be spiritual to an extent. That's very different from the gods described in most religious texts. It's becoming pretty clear how everything since the big bang came to be.
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  I’m not amazingly fond of Gould’s “two magesteria” idea (the bell curves overlap more than he’d like to admit), but: religion is not and never really has been primarily concerned with how. It’s larger concern is why, and even more than that, given existence: how then should we live?. Since “religion” seems to be shorthand for “the religions of abraham” in common discourse, it’s worth noting that, e. g., Genesis was not written as a text on cosmology. It’s a text on ethics, and to a fairly large extent, it’s also a ~5th century BCE political document. To willfully read it “literally” is just wrong-footed, though it’s very common among christian fundamentalists and new atheists alike.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]