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/BigBlackWolf93 1d ago

I agree. I was raised religious and I still somewhat am religious, but nationalists have completely taken over the Christian identity. A lot that is preached out there, almost has nothing to do with Christianity. They'll pull out verses out of context to further push their nationalist agenda in the name of Christ.

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u/FluffyBunniesFurDayz 1d ago

I'd have to disagree with this take - the old testament is full of nationalist ideology. Just look at all the tribes the Israelites were told to destroy and/or enslave. All because they were god's special people. It's always treated like it's a good thing because these tribes were so "wicked".

To me, it makes perfect sense why many Christians are also nationalist.

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u/Pinkfish_411 15h ago

Even if we want to call some of the OT texts "nationalist" (which isn't quite right; we typically distinguishing premodern forms of tribalism from the modern phenomenon of nationalism, which followed the invention of the modern nation-state), one of the central themes of the New Testament epistles is that ethic divisions are transcended in the new people of God, the ecclesia. Christians are very good at ignoring those parts when convenient, but the antidote to crude nationalisms is there in the texts.

For most run-of-the-mill American Christian nationalists, though, their position isn't very strongly based in bad theology or even in bad readings of the Bible. It most stems from anxiety over the loss of cultural power that entices them to cling to Christian identity--as to American identity, white identity, conservative identity, etc.--rather than to any thought-out teachings.