I found the Scientific American article to be problematic in its focus on religious beliefs rather than just intuitive beliefs. Basically the whole study (as presented in the SA article) boils down to a correlation between analytical thinking and a rejection of intuitive beliefs that can be falsified by analytical thinking.
Religion does not really apply here, except for the fact that many Religious beliefs are intuitive and relatively easily falsified by analytical thinking. The thing is that only applies to a subset of religious beliefs, and it is entirely possible to hold religious beliefs that are not intuitive and are not really prone to being disproven by analysis. To usefully understand this study, I would want to know which specific beliefs were most likely to be disbelieved in the "thinker" sample while being believed in the control.
My guess, without having that data, is not that religion was being undermined, but that the study pushed religious people into a more theological frame of mind, which is not the same thing as making them disbelieve religion. I may have to look up the actual study, since I am now curious.
Also, the article seems to place the core of religion on belief in its headline's assumption that undermining belief is the same as losing religion. This requires a definition of religion that really only applies to Protestant Christianity. Given the core audience of Scientific American, this may be a valid assumption, but it's worth being aware what religion means in any given context as it is such a varied term.
Obviously, this study doesn't prove the nonexistence of God. But it poses a challenge to believers: If God exists, and if believing in God is perfectly rational, then why does increasing rational thinking tend to decrease belief in God?
I suspect many or even most believers would not claim their belief to be perfectly rational.
To paraphrase someone on Futurama, "perfectly rational" is just a word, what matters is what you do.
I think both LW-ers and many Christians could agree with that sentiment, although meaning different things by it.
"What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." — James 2:14-17
On the particular theological branch that bites the sovereignty-of-god bullet, I've heard this explained as an acausal relationship between faith and works (although, not it those words) - god chooses the people he wants to save and they turn out to have faith and do good works. So good works are evidence of saving faith, but have no causal influence on salvation.
I think the person who made that statement is simply making a confusion of terms: "rational" as in "reasonable" as in "legitimate/acceptable/sound", and "rational" as in "resulting from properly applied deliberative thinking". Le's rephrase it:
If believing in God is perfectly legitimate, then why is it that when people actually stop and think carefully, they tend to find it that they don't believe in God as much?
Most people don't have correct intuitions about lots of things: probability theory, complex numbers, etc. Why should "big topics" like God be any different? It's weak evidence either way.
The person in question was not talking about rationality, but "right and wrong," hence the paraphrase.
I've previously read that copy/pasting entire articles hurts LW's SEO. If someone with expertise on the subject confirms that is true, then I'd kindly ask the OP to accordingly edit his post.
Thank you for warning me. Nobody seems to have confirmed it, but still, posting entire articles is bad form, so I corrected that, as well as I could.
I had no idea such websites existed. That is ridiculous.
I'm inclined to believe that it does hurt SEO. "Common wisdom" may be pretty weak evidence, but we can't ignore evidence, right? I think there's some E. T. Jaynes quotation to that effect, anyway. Something to do with paradoxes...
Either way, it is still bad form. I'm glad to see the OP made the corrections.
Do you regard the undermining of religious belief as important and as a priority? I ask in the context of your previous article, which calls on its readers to collectively seek wealth, power, and influence, so as to pursue an unspecified agenda.
I don't know where you may have gotten that. The agenda is the prevention of existential risk. One of the most effective ways that can be indirectly achieved is through the promotion of analytical thinking skills and the improvement of the level and quality of instrumental and epistemological rationality. The movement for rationality having a strong, powerful, influential base is the tertiary goal that would enable that: rationality sequences do not implement themselves. If the religious phenomena diminish in scope and intensity, or even disappear, as a side-effect of raising humanity's level of e+i rationality, I, for one, deem it an acceptable loss for the sake of the continued existence of humanity, but I, for one, don't advocate going out of one's way to achieve that particular effect.
I don't know where you may have gotten that.
Just from the succession of topics. I don't know much about you; the abolition of religion might have been part of your personal concept of how to save the world. But I see that the religious bronies are safe for now!
Regarding the topic of this post, I would add that analytical thinking can undermine many other forms of belief too, not just religious belief.
I would add that analytical thinking can undermine many other forms of belief too, not just religious belief.
Please develop that.
Just from the succession of topics.
Be wary of Internet Cold Reading, and of jumping to conclusions on insufficient evidence.
But I see that the religious bronies are safe for now!
Safe from what?
Please develop that.
Political belief, philosophical belief, belief about what you should have for breakfast. Belief in an idea or belief in a person. What beliefs aren't at risk of modification or abandonment, if subjected to scrutiny? Not many.
Be wary of Internet Cold Reading
Why would anyone think I do that...
Safe from what?
Your Chaos Legion.
"at risk of modification or abandonment" =/= "undermined". The correct expression would be "questioned", The connotations are very different.
Your Chaos Legion.
I gathered that. From what actions or policies?
I don't know, I didn't think that far ahead, and you've already said you're not a militant atheist. All that happened was, first you made a post saying, let's get strong and powerful so we can save the world, then you made a post saying, reminders of rationality can reduce religiosity, and I asked if reducing religiosity was part of the plan to save the world, and you answered no, it's not, and I quipped that the religious people are safe for now, meaning, safe from whatever world-changing activities you do have in mind.
It appears that Scientific American have found out about raising the sanity waterline. Plus one successful prediction by Mr. Yudkowsky, I presume. Since I couldn't bring myself to quote any particular bit of the article, deeming all of them to be of substance and interest, I urge the reader to actually follow the link and read for themselves.
To summarize: the conclusion many experiments, performed in many different ways, reach, is that, whenever you get people to actually stop and think of what they are saying, rather than go on intuition or what they think the socially "normal" thing is, their declared levels of religious belief seem to always drop dramatically, on average. This isn't achieved by anything complicated like teaching them about biases, but by tricks as simple and cheap as making the font of the answer sheet hard to read, or showing them a picture of Rodin's The Thinker.
I shall also link you to the TVTropes discussion on that topic, since they're a little more mainstream than us, and we shouldn't lose sight of the world around us and fall to parochialsim. Links to other communities discussing the article (it's bound to make quite a splash) are very welcome.