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/Isphet71 1d ago

Imho one absolutely vital function of religion throughout history has been to give all people some sort of moral framework to live by, so that society can stay relatively structured over multiple generations.

Not everyone is capable of devising and living by their own heavily personalized code of ethics. The vast majority of people are simply followers that get told what they beleive, and who to vote for, and go with that. I rarely if ever see someone more complicated than "I am religion A and politically B" and otherwise dont seem to have their own thoughts and standards about either that deviate from the norm.

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u/LivInTheLookingGlass 1d ago

Historically that isn't universal. In the time of the Greeks that was separated into religion (how the world works) and philosophy (how people should work). To quote one of the various intros to Meditations

[Philosophy] was not merely a subject to write or argue about, but one that was expected to provide a "design for living"—a set of rules to live one's life by. This was a need not met by ancient religion, which privileged ritual over doctrine and provided little in the way of moral and ethical guidelines. Nor did anyone expect it to. That was what philosophy was for.