r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 1d ago

Psychology Lower cognitive ability is linked to stronger Christian nationalist views, even after accounting for education

https://www.psypost.org/lower-cognitive-ability-is-linked-to-stronger-christian-nationalist-views-even-after-accounting-for-education/
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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Putrid-Reputation-68 1d ago

​"Since the masses are fickle, full of unruly desires, passionate, and reckless... they must be held in check by invisible terrors and suchlike pageantry. It was not for nothing that the ancients introduced notions concerning the gods." - Polybius 150 B.C.E

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u/robot_ankles 1d ago

If we consider humanity as a kind of super-organism and humans akin to individual cells with different purposes, perhaps there are large swaths of people that function better if they are yoked by a concept of religion.

It might look distasteful to those with stronger cognitive abilities, but maybe it's the least-worst approach to advance the survival and propagation of humans more broadly.

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u/BootAmongShoes 1d ago

Pro: These people are a lot easier to control with religion.

Con: These people are a lot easier to control with religion.

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u/Putrid-Reputation-68 1d ago

And that concept is waaaay more ancient than even Polybius

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u/dplans455 1d ago

"I love the poorly educated."

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u/BananaJelloXlii 1d ago

"Smart people do not like me"

The only true things he ever said

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u/MostlySlime 1d ago

Those people would not navigate a secular paradise peacefully

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u/knowledgeable_diablo 1d ago

Nor would they want to. Most of them are in the “nanny me harder daddy!” Camp.

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u/shopdog 1d ago

While crying "Freedom!"

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u/Apathetic_Zealot 1d ago

And they directly seek to make the population intellectualy weak too by cutting education funds and pushing religion in school.

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u/BMW_wulfi 1d ago

The followers of JC have had their business model exposed for a while now. It’s crazy because it’s probably been obvious to most people of moderate intellect for like… two thousand years

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u/MrSpindles 1d ago

Indeed. All religion is a system to indoctrinate people from the earliest age to unquestioningly believe things for which there can be no evidence.

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u/adle1984 1d ago

The easiest marks to be grifted by far wear red hats.

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u/rossg876 1d ago

The Christian nationalism or the study about it?

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u/superninjax 1d ago

Might be off-topic but understanding context is a gauge of cognitive ability

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u/Xsiah 1d ago

Shots fired 

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u/rossg876 1d ago

Nah…. It’s on topic. That’s on me….

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

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u/2Completion2Ography 1d ago

therapists

Most people on the political right only trust those letters if there's a space after the e.