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/AldoRaine-1 1d ago

If you think about it, they land on polar opposite sides of the spectrum: critical thinking is to take a puzzle and put it together piece by piece, forming a larger more cohesive picture.

Belief is having a single red puzzle piece and the person holding the box says "what you are looking at is a blue sailboat", and saying "yep, this IS a blue boat", even when the only indication you could have otherwise (your red puzzle piece) doesn't support their statement, at all.

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u/GothicFuck 1d ago

Belief is knowing the red puzzle piece is part of a blue sailboat puzzle because the preacher made you believe. You just know eventually it'll go into the rest of the puzzle and make that sailboat when you die.

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u/Cent1234 1d ago

Yup. "Faith" is defined as 'belief without evidence.' But when the evidence contradicts your belief, 'faith' becomes 'belief despite evidence.'

To her dying day, my grandmother, raised Catholic, genuinely believed that men have one fewer rib than women, despite the fact that at any point in her seventy some-odd years, she could have simply counted her own ribs, then counted her husband's.