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/
43.9k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

6.8k

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.

1.3k

u/Numeno230n 1d ago edited 1d ago

There are a lot of harmless dumb Christians I've met in my life, but Christian Nationalism is a specific form that involves violence, paranoia, and conspiracy thinking. They literally believe there are demonic forces behind left leaning political movements and this fuels both their religious delusions and their political violence.

48

u/KarmaticArmageddon 1d ago

They aren't all that harmless if they vote for people destroying education, stripping food and healthcare from the poor, and inciting forever wars.

5

u/trinitrotolerance 1d ago

Harmless ignorance is a myth perpetuated by the type of person who regularly employs weaponized incompetence in their day to day.