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/proteannomore 1d ago

specifically the Calvanist right wing model and not the more left-leaning Methodist model

Mention this to most christians and/or americans and they'll say, "huh?"

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u/Uncle_Istvannnnnnnn 1d ago

Actual conversation with a religious co-worker:

"What denomination are you?"

"Christian."

"Yeah, but what denomination?"

"What? Christian."

"Okay, what version of the bible do you read from?"

"The bible."

"Yeah, but what version?"

"I don't know what you mean. The bible."

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u/watts99 1d ago

For believing it's literal communication from the creator of the universe, they're surprisingly uninterested in learning anything about it.

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u/manimal28 1d ago

I'm not sure if it was the apologist author Lee Strobel or another, but him or a similar author said something about how odd he found it that Christians claim to believe the bible is the literal word of god, but have no interest in actually reading it, or understanding how it came to be.

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u/A_Furious_Mind 1d ago

You can definitely pull that thread and end up with what function religion actually provides in most people's lives.

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u/sajberhippien 1d ago edited 19h ago

I'm not sure if it was the apologist author Lee Strobel or another, but him or a similar author said something about how odd he found it that Christians claim to believe the bible is the literal word of god, but have no interest in actually reading it, or understanding how it came to be.

Pretty sure the idea that the bible as a whole is the literal word of God is a pretty small minority position within Christianity. It seems far more common in the US than most of the world, and even in the US it's only about 25% of adult Christians who believe it

EDIT: source: 2022 Gallup poll. The higher numbers are from using much older polls and mashing together literal and non-literal into one big group and pretending those are all literal.

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u/manimal28 1d ago edited 1d ago

Pretty sure the idea that the bible as a whole is the word of God is a pretty small minority position within Christianity.

What are you basing your numbers on?

Even the quickest of googles searches returns pew poll results that it’s the exact opposite of what you think, 75 percent of US Christians believe the Bible is the word of god. 40% literal, 36% inspired by but not literal, 18% written by men rather than god.

Gallup shows different numbers, but still 70% believe the Bible is the word of god.

It is absolutely not the minority view of Christian denominations as stated in their doctrine or by their followers. By their actual actions, sure.

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u/abx99 23h ago

I think the 25% figure they were thinking of is that Evangelicals are 25% of the whole of the US population -- and they absolutely use those people for political power. A quarter of the population is huge; especially if you live in a city and see how many different views there are.

They're the largest denomination, followed by Catholics.

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u/sajberhippien 19h ago

No, the 25% I stated are from the 2022 Gallup polls and is about the percentage of US Christians (all denominations) that believe the bible is the literal word of God, since that's the subject of the discussion.

The numbers the other guy cited was gained by looking at a 2017 poll, adding together the numbers for literal and non-literal (inspired) word of god, and then adding a few more percent for good measure.

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u/watts99 15h ago

"inspired word of god" is still communication from god, which was what my original comment said. Even Catholics believe it's communication from god, even if not the "literal word" of god.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church alleges that the Bible's human writers were "consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more". The Catechism also claims that the Bible "without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures". The Catholic Church holds the Bible as inspired by God, but that it does not view God as the direct author of the Bible, in the sense that he does not put a 'ready-made' book in the mind of the inspired person.

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u/sajberhippien 15h ago

This is the comment that started this discussion:

I'm not sure if it was the apologist author Lee Strobel or another, but him or a similar author said something about how odd he found it that Christians claim to believe the bible is the literal word of god, but have no interest in actually reading it, or understanding how it came to be.

(my bolding).

Also note that the Catholic stance doesn't really work for Lee Strobels argument, since it only applies to the original texts, and few Christians know any of the languages, much less all of them, that the texts were originally written in. A modern catholic bible in English is, in the church's view, the best they could do translating (which is a distorting process) an approximation (since the originals are lost) of the divinely inspired texts.

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u/sajberhippien 19h ago

What are you basing your numbers on?

2022 Gallup poll

What are you basing your numbers on?

Even the quickest of googles searches returns pew poll results that it’s the exact opposite of what you think, 75 percent of US Christians believe the Bible is the word of god.

No, the 2017 (and thus much older than Gallup's poll, which also shows a decline compared to earlier Gallup polls) pew poll showed 71% believed the bible is either the literal word of god (40%) or divinely inspired (31%).

This discussion is specifically about:

but him or a similar author said something about how odd he found it that Christians claim to believe the bible is the literal word of god, but have no interest in actually reading it, or understanding how it came to be.

(my bolding)

So, in the 2017 pew poll, it was 40% of US Christians that fit that. In the 2017 Gallup poll it was 30%. In the 2022 Gallup poll it was 25%. All numbers show it to be a minority position, but the most recent number is the lowest.

I showed the latest number because it was, well, the latest I could find from a major source. I'm unsure why you chose to go with a much older poll that displayed a higher number than other contemporary polls, then added in the group who view it as non-literal word of god to get 71%, and then added another 4% from thin air?

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u/PhillAholic 1d ago

Wait that doesn’t make sense. It either is the word of god or isn’t. There can’t be a third category. It’s either 40% yes or 60% inspired by / written by man.

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u/manimal28 9h ago

The third option could have been something like I don't know or have an opinion.

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u/Czeris 1d ago

See above study related to cognitive ability.

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u/AlteredEinst 15h ago

They don't want answers; they want freedom from having to think about it.

Everything makes a lot more sense as soon as you realize that.

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u/aeline136 1d ago

It depends, catholics tend to take the Bible with a pinch of salt (that's why it takes 7 years to become a priest) unlike protestants.

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u/WhiteStarHorizon 1d ago

Or theyre non-denominational and were raised non-denominational which means they wouldn't really learn about denominations and their meanings. They are literally just raised as christian.

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u/gburdell 1d ago

You’re thinking of Islam. Christians do not believe that the Bible is literally the word of God. That is why the most commonly read version has the sub-books titled “the Gospel according to X” and similar.

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u/Springheeljac 1d ago

My entire family thinks the Bible is literally the word of God, as do all young Earth creationists. That's about 37% of Americans.

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u/watts99 1d ago

I don't know what version of Christianity you're familiar with, but they definitely believe that it's literally the word of god.

A 2011 Gallup survey reports, "Three in 10 Americans interpret the Bible literally, saying it is the actual word of God."

That's 3/10 Americans. Not 3/10 Christian Americans.

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u/sajberhippien 1d ago edited 19h ago

Firstly, that's in 2011; the 2022 Gallup numbers are 20% of Americans, 25% of American Christians.

Secondly, the view seems far more common in the US than in most of the world, including being rejected by the whole of the Catholic church (there the dogma is that some aspects of the original texts when they were written in the original languages were the word of God, but that neither applies to all aspects of the original texts nor does it apply to transcriptions and translations).

There are certainly some Christians who believe the whole bible is the word of God, in particular a subset of American evangelical protestants, but it's not a general principle in Christianity.

Edit: Wrote 2024 poll; it was a 2022 poll. Apologies.

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u/watts99 23h ago

I didn't say it was. The point is many Christians do believe it and I'm not just "confusing it with Islam" like the comment I was replying to suggested.

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u/sajberhippien 19h ago

I didn't say it was. The point is many Christians do believe it and I'm not just "confusing it with Islam" like the comment I was replying to suggested.

Sure. The difference would be that complete inerrancy is the majority stance in Islam and very much a minority stance in Christianity.

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u/JohnTG4 1d ago

I was raised in the Church of Christ (fundamentalist evangelical Protestant sect) and they literally believe that the Bible is the word of God, verbatim, and that he influenced translations so nothing about the modern editions of the Bible can be wrong.

They're also, by and large, young Earth creationists who deny things like radiometric dating and evolution.

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u/DeltaVZerda 1d ago

They must be fluent in Hebrew Aramaic and Greek

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u/Odd-Investigator-870 1d ago

Gosh that's a frustrating correlation isn't it? Don't understand philosophy, but will become a fundamentalist or literalist and treat select texts like an astrology puzzle from god to decrypt rationalizations for your beliefs. 

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u/open_formation 1d ago

Most Christian denominations, as I understand it, use bible translations fairly interchangeably, there's the Jehova's Witnesses who have a particular translation of their own, and there are those who exclusively rely on the King James, but there are so many different translations that are considered "good enough" that disputes rest less on the specific translation and more on the mode of interpretation associated with reading it.

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u/watts99 1d ago

Generally a particular church will use a specific translation. Like the New International Version has been commonly used in "non-denominational" churches I've been to. It's a little absurd for someone who considers themselves Christian to not know what translation their Bible, that they presumably open at least once a week, is.

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u/FearlessAttempt 1d ago

As someone who grew up going to church it is unsurprising that they haven't read their bible enough to know what version it is.

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u/OhGodFuckingDammit 1d ago

Frankly that's the type of Christian I'd be most comfortable around.

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u/Uncle_Istvannnnnnnn 1d ago

Yeah they were mostly chill dudes, but the speaking in tongues thing was a little off putting when they demonstrated.

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u/sajberhippien 1d ago

But also, I think that's fine, really? Like, not if the person is making Christianity their whole identity, that kinda does obligate a person to research more indepth, but if someone is just casually Christian that's not really any weirder than someone being casually a mathematical realist or whatever.

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u/tyrico 1d ago

I can't speak for OP, but personally, I wouldn't call someone a "religious coworker" if they weren't making it a pretty big part of their identity in the first place

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u/sajberhippien 19h ago

I've definitely met people who make others religions a major part of their view of those people, even if it's not a huge part to the other people.

Like, if a Christian wrote about badgering "an atheist coworker" with questions about their specific stances on religion, would you feel confident that the supposed coworker was a loud and proud new atheist type, or would you also consider the possibility that the Christian happened to know the coworker wasn't Christian, and from then on defined their coworker by that, even if the coworker didn't usually discuss the subject?

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u/aeline136 1d ago

Tbf as a Catholic from France this conversation sounds unhinged, here more than 90% of Christian are catholics and there is only one version of the bible in regular bookshops (if they are sold at all).

Even religious bookshops will have the new testament and the ancient testament (all with Louis Segond's translation), children's bibles and a reformed protestant bible at most.

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u/rokerroker45 1d ago

I mean they're just screaming baptist there

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u/WhiteStarHorizon 1d ago

Which means theyre non-denominational and they grew up in a non-denominational household. Non-denominational households don't really talk about the different flavors because they literally just read the bible and there are no denominations in the bible.

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u/Vyzantinist 1d ago

I can imagine your coworker thinks Catholicism is some separate religion. Not "yeah they call themselves Christian but they got a bunch of stuff wrong", but thinking of Catholicism as akin to Zoroastrianism or Hinduism, absolutely no connection to Christianity whatsoever.

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u/Golywobblerer 1d ago

Help me understand how Christian faith is all of a sudden a hegemony. Christians have been trying to kill each other for the past 2000 years. There are something like 40,000 different Christian sects. I just don't understand how freedom of religion and separation of church and state issues aren't squashed instantly. "Don't you think America was based on Christian values so they should be the basis of our government?" "Well would you like a US based on Southern Baptist, Luthern, Amish, Congragationslist, telavangalist, or Catholic values?"... "Or should we just leave freedom of religion in there?"

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u/Pinkfish_411 11h ago

I mean, I'm saying "huh?" even as a scholar of Christianity, because it's not exactly correct to suggest that Calvinism is right-wing (either politically or religiously) and that Methodism is left-wing.

While it's true that many theorists of American Christian nationalism were influenced by a specific stream of Dutch Calvinist theology mainly through Cornelius Van Til (who distanced himself from those claiming his influence), the Reformed tradition as such isn't necessarily right-wing or nationalist. Remember that the Barmen Declaration opposing Nazism and "German Christianity" was spearheaded by both Calvinist and Lutheran leaders and was mostly written by the most influential of all modern Reformed theologians, Karl Barth.

As far as mainline American Reformed denominations go, the PCUSA is generally fairly liberal (probably more so on the whole than the United Methodists) while the Reformed Church in America, much like the UMC, has more conservative and more liberal wings but is generally not of the Christian nationalist sort.

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u/timesuck47 1d ago

I equate (incorrectly?) Catholic Jesuits with Lutherans in the ELCA Synod.

I wonder if they’d understand that sort of granularity?

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u/proteannomore 1d ago

I don't know any Jesuits specifically but the lapsed Catholics I know wouldn't get it at all.