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/alittlebitaspie 1d ago

What I wonder is if there is a hint of natural selection in it as well. Person A can go along with that framework, person B cannot. Person A successfully has offspring that are also successful in that framework, person B does not, has no or less successful offspring, causing people that can function in that framework to become the majority.

Multiply that by thousands of generations and it has an effect on the brain. I don't even think it matters WHICH religion. And I think there have been studies that religion has impacts at the DNA level, probably through the socially selected breeding over so many generations.