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... (read more)
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... (read more)