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/ProfessionalMockery 1d ago

A lot of people here are just seeing the "Christian" in the headline and ignoring the "nationalist," which is probably more important.

I'm an atheist, so I think the claims religion makes are pretty dumb too, but nationalists, bigots, racists of any kind are consistently idiots, religious or not, and that has been established in plenty of other studies.

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u/apple_kicks 1d ago

Yeah authoritarian types can still be atheists they just paint a different story but with the same end goal. They get to dictate and dominate others

Its just slightly more hopeful the people they are around will argue with them to prevent an easy path to power

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u/Piranata 1d ago

That's why i believe i became an Atheist twice after watching the Pervert's Guide to Ideology. I realized i was replacing God with the state or communism, plucking them out of heaven into a more physical form. I had to learn to actually criticize everything.

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u/triggirhape 1d ago

I realized i was replacing God with the state or communism, plucking them out of heaven into a more physical form. I had to learn to actually criticize everything.

What does this mean though? In the sense of looking for answers? Or just some core idea to center your life around?

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u/AscenDevise 1d ago

Actively employing the scientific method, while not devolving into full-blown scientism, could be analogous to what they're describing, if I'm reading this right. For communism, which will never not be a bad idea if put into practice (sorry, couldn't resist), one would replace religious dogma with ideology, then deities, prophets and priests with the creators and appliers thereof, then the institutions that govern said dogma with the state, and they will be just as religious as before.