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Bad news for atheists: individuals low in religiosity are more likely to have a “slacker” personality. And worse news: this is true even among intellectually gifted people. First, a disclaimer that I consider myself an atheist, though I would never use that term.* So no guff about having an agenda. Also, though obvious, it needs to be said that correlations don’t tell you about particular individuals — if you’re a nose-to-the-grindstone atheist, then great. My purpose here is to describe correlations of interest to students of psychology or religion, as well as to deflate some of the smug — and in this case false — stereotypes that some atheists have about religious people.
In the interest of time (that is, to save me time), I’ll be quoting most of the results since the authors provide enough exposition already. Throughout, the quoted article is McCullough et al. (2003).
Beginning with a review of the Eysenckian work done:**
Cross-sectional studies using Eysenck’s P-E-N model (e.g., Eysenck, 1991) indicate that religiousness, as measured by a variety of indicators including frequency of attendance at worship services, frequency of private prayer, and positive attitudes toward religion, is inversely related to Eysenckian Psychoticism (e.g., Francis, 1997; Francis & Bolger, 1997; Francis, Lewis, Brown, Philipchalk, & Lester, 1995; Lewis & Maltby, 1995, 1996; Maltby, 1997, 1999; Maltby, Talley, Cooper, & Leslie, 1995; Robinson, 1990; Smith, 1996; Svensen, White, & Caird, 1992; Wilde & Joseph, 1997) but essentially uncorrelated with Extraversion or Neuroticism. Indeed, the basic finding that religiousness is negatively related to Eysenckian Psychoticism (i.e., sex-adjusted correlations in the neighborhood of -.30) (e.g., Francis et al., 1995) and essentially uncorrelated with Eysenckian Neuroticism and Extraversion has been replicated with children, adolescents, adults, and older adults from around the world.
And then a review of the Big Five work done:
Several recent studies have employed measures of the constructs in the Big Five, or five-factor personality taxonomy (e.g., John & Srivastava, 1999; McCrae & Costa, 1999), to examine the association of religiousness and personality. Kosek (1999), MacDonald (2000), and Taylor and MacDonald (1999) found that measures of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were positively associated with measures of religious involvement and intrinsic religious orientation. These results are not surprising in light of the robust link between Eysenckian Psychoticism and religiousness because Eysenckian Psychoticism appears to be a conflation of Big Five Conscientiousness and Agreeableness (Costa & McCrae, 1995).
The authors’ original contribution used data from the Terman Longitudinal Study to examine the relationship between religiosity in early adulthood and personality traits in adolescence. The latter were judged by teachers and parents, not self-reported. It’s also worth noting that the students in this study were selected to have an IQ of at least 135, a point to which we return. Of the 1528 students in the TLS, the authors looked at 492 of them (280 male) for whom the relevant data was obtainable. Their findings:
Conscientiousness (beta = .14) was also a significant predictor of [early adulthood] religiousness, suggesting that for each standard unit increase in adolescents’ Conscientiousness, their religiousness in [early adulthood] increased by .14 standard units.
And although other personality traits did correlate with religiosity:
Table 1 shows that children who were rated as Open to Experience (r = .11), Conscientious (r = .20), and Agreeable (r = .15) in adolescence went on to be slightly more religious 19 years later, p less than .05. In addition, adolescents who became highly religious reported having had relatively strong religious upbringings, r = .43, p less than .001.
These did not remain after their correlation with Conscientiousness was accounted for:
In part, the Openness-religiousness association may simply reflect the variance that Openness shares with the rest of the Big Five — and Conscientiousness in particular — in this sample. Measures of Openness and Conscientiousness were related at r = .43, which is not surprising because participants’ traits were being evaluated within an achievement setting (i.e., they were rated by their teachers as well as parents), which might cause children who are more conscientious about their studies and assignments also to appear more open to experience (i.e., higher in intellect). Indeed, when we controlled for the intercorrelations among the Big Five through multiple regression, Openness and Agreeableness did not retain significant unique associations with religiousness, but Conscientiousness did.
So that’s the reality. Atheists like the author of the following comment will no longer be able to assume they are more conscientious (original emphasis):
Personally, I trust atheists the most. I think they’re more likely to keep their word than some Christians who think they’re automatically going to Heaven solely because they accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I think atheists, in general, are more conscientious about their actions because they don’t want to face negative consequences in the here-and-now.
As anyone knows, that attitude is not exceptional among those who wear the atheist label. Nor can they move the goalposts and suggest that, yes, this may hold in general, but since atheists are smart, we don’t need religion to make ourselves more conscientious — “Only retards need a written rule system for how to behave,” as brainiacs can rely on their superior common sense to behave diligently. But the TLS data contradict this self-satisfied pap as well: even among MENSA-level people, religiosity correlates positively with Conscientiousness. To be blunt, it’s time for atheists to stop patting themselves on the back about how conscientious they are, since as a group they score lower than more religious people.
On a related note, I’m getting pretty sick of atheists congratulating themselves for having low divorce rates or infidelity rates. Steve Sailer has suggested that one reason why Massachussetts citizens have lower divorce rates is that they marry much later in life, so that would-be homewreckers take one look at their wrinkled, sagging skin and say, “Yeah, no thanks.” Inductivist showed from GSS data that atheists commit less adultery, but I posited the same reason that Steve would have: for a variety of reasons, they’re just not attractive enough to would-be homewreckers, sheer age being the most obvious one (just look at the putz in the about.com article linked to in the beginning of this paragraph). And because
infidelity correlates with Psychoticism or low Agreeableness and low Conscientiousness, we expect atheists to cheat more — ceteris paribus, but in real life things aren’t equal and thus most atheists are not put to the same tests of temptation.
In closing, although I’d like for religiosity to hold no relation to Conscientiousness, the real world does not care what I’d like. (On a side note, it’s odd how frequently atheists fall victim to the moralistic fallacy in this way, given how many of them profess a belief in a universe indifferent to their desires.) Religious nutballs who paint atheists as deformed scoundrels are wrong, but merely not being a wretch hardly merits all the more-ethical-than-thou braggadocio coming from the other side. The data are in, and it’s high time that some atheists lose the vainglory.
* “Atheist” understandably makes a person think of a permanent student activist who works in a used bookstore and argues with his co-workers over which progressive rock album is the best.
** If you want the full references to what McCullough et al. (2003) quote, it shouldn’t be difficult to look it up on Google — how many articles on religion and personality could the given authors publish in a given year? If that doesn’t work, then email me. I just don’t want to waste space listing out all their references.
Reference
McCullough, M., J. Tsang, & S. Brion (2003). Personality traits in adolescence as predictors of religiousness in early adulthood: Findings from the Terman Longitudinal Study. Pers Soc Psychol Bull, 29, 980-91.
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measures of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were positively associated with measures of religious involvement and intrinsic religious orientation.
any discussion of this topic has to separate these two issues. there’s a robust cross-cultural tendency of participation in mainstream religion being a sign of being a ‘pillar of the community.’ yet in many nations these are not the most religious people in terms of belief (think of episcopalians who join the church to network). church affiliation can go up with SES while fundamentalist religious orientation and belief drops.
d.s. wilson reports the same general trend in terms of a correlation between prosocial tendencies and religiosity. but, i think it will be important to see how this works cross-culturally. to be an atheist in the united states often implies a great deal of psychological deviance. not so much in sweden or japan.
probability of agnostic converting at a later date/on his deathbed? anyone?
Marrying late in life is a good thing in itself, and not only because it correlates with less adultery and divorce. Early marriage interferes with education and career development and with impulsiveness and incapacity for future planning. “Children having children” is not a good thing even if they’re married.
So on this point atheists should still congratulate themselves.
In response to Razib’s 5:19:
My area (Upper Midwest) has possibly the highest percentage of church membership, with most members attending church occasionally but not necessarily often, but is low in religiosity of the pentecostal type, and also relatively low in far-right political Christianity. That’s just the way Catholic and Lutheran churches work — you are born into a church. The church community (including its weaker members) is a religious unit, whereas in many Anglo-Saxon-origin churches the church is a collection of redeemed born-again individuals.
S/B “and correlates with with impulsiveness and incapacity for future planning.”
Agnostic writes: “I consider myself an atheist, though I would never use that term”
I thought about this and my current position is the one expressed by Bertrand Russell:
if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods
Danny: Douglas Adams on this subject always made me chuckle: People will then often say “But surely it’s better to remain an Agnostic just in case?” This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I’ve been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would chose not to worship him anyway.) source
Does “atheism” indicate “low religiosity”, where the latter is a personality trait? This is not a-priori self-evident. You are assuming that a belief is the same thing as a personality trait. That’s sort of like assuming that having accurate knowledge of the rates of mortality and morbidity associated with various activities is identical to, or even indicates, low (or possibly high) neuroticism.
michael vassar: Well since religiosity is meant to refer to religious activity, dedication (measured by activity), and belief, then yes, “atheism” would indicate “low religiosity”. What problem do you have with this?
To amplify Michael Vassar’s comment, I think there could be a confounding problem in equating low religiosity with philosophical atheism. On a low to high spectrum of religious belief, it might be a mistake to group atheists — who are often obnoxiously passionate about their lack of belief — with those who simply care less. While the latter group (apatheists, for lack of a better term) might simply tend toward laziness in affairs religious and otherwise, I would like to know more about the comparative profile of those who are not merely low on the scale, but who explicitly disavow belief.
Is this problem addressed in the cited literature?
Most people in poor or developing countries are religious. Any one notices them less slack than developed nations?
Most people in poor or developing countries are religious. Any one notices them less slack than developed nations?
You’re confusing differences between individuals with differences between groups.
Re: measuring atheism, the first quoted paragraph says you can measure it by public acts, private acts, or positive attitudes toward religion. As for how it was measured in the TLS study:
We measured participants’ degree of religiousness in 1941 with a four-item scale of items measuring both the overt, behavioral manifestations of religiousness as well as the more private, attitudinal aspects. Participants indicated their degree of interest in religion with a single item using a 5-point scale (where 1 = none and 5 = very much). Second, they indicated how much they liked reading the Bible with a 3-point scale (where 1 = like, 2 = indifferent, and 3 = dislike; reversescored). Third, they indicated their agreement with the idea that giving children religious instruction is essential for the successful marriage using a 5-point scale (where 1 = very essential and 5 = decidedly not desired; reverse-scored). Fourth, participants indicated the number of religious activities in which they were involved (out of five possible activities). The linear composite of these four items had an internal consistency of alpha = .74. Similar items are widely interpreted as valid measures of religious commitment for largely Protestant and Roman Catholic samples (Mockabee, Monson, & Grant, 2001).
In our validation sample, the sum of these four items measured had an internal consistency reliability of alpha = .77. Their sum was correlated at r(N = 149) = .80 with the five-item Duke University Religion Index (Koenig, Meador, & Parkerson, 1997), which measures engagement in public and private religious activities as well as the presence of an intrinsic motivation for engaging in such religious activities. Corrected for attenuation due to unreliability per Schmidt and Hunter (1996), the correlation between the two variables soared to r = .98. In the validation sample, the scale was also correlated at r(N = 153) = .72 with a single-item self-rating of importance of religion and r(N = 153) = .66 with a single-item self-rating of frequency of religious service attendance. Thus, scores from the 1940-1941 religiousness items appear to have both adequate reliability and adequate validity as a measure of an intrinsic orientation to religious faith that involves both public and private religious activities.
Marrying late in life is a good thing in itself, and not only because it correlates with less adultery and divorce. Early marriage interferes with education and career development and with impulsiveness and incapacity for future planning. “Children having children” is not a good thing even if they’re married.
Unless a guy marries late to a young woman, late marriage will mean a drastic increase in the chances of developmental problems. Female homo sapiens were not designed to pump out kids in their mid-30s. 20-somethings are not “children” biologically or even socially (they may get some assistance from family, but they’re not dependent).
The two reasons you give for later marriage both benefit the parents, not the kids, so another interpretation is that late-marriers are more selfish (I’m not avowing that, merely showing that it’s not obviously a commendable thing). And it’s a non-starter for males, since they do little of the child-rearing anyway, even when they’re pressured to in Sweden.
I doubt rearing children interferes much with education & career development anyway. In most traditional societies, they’re sorta toted around w/ the mom for a few years, then set free in the group. It’s only the overly-indulgent child-rearing culture we have in the US that makes us think if the mother isn’t playing the role of Supermom 24/7, her kid won’t get into Harvard. Of course, a stronger concern is that her kid’s IQ may be depressed 5 points (or whatever) b/c she had him when she was 36 instead of 26.
Just as a personal anecdote, my mom got married when she was about 21 (and my dad 22), had me when she was 25, and my twin brothers when she was 27. From when I was 5 on up, she raised us as a single mom (though my dad helped out on weekends), working full-time, plus going to evening classes to get her MBA. I could tell it definitely stressed her out a lot, but it was do-able, especially w/ babysitters in high school / college who aren’t expensive. Kids mostly raise themselves, along w/ input from peers.
Reading through the metric criteria, it still seems that avowed atheists could be misleadingly grouped with those who are a-religious or religiously disengaged. I would be more impressed if self-described “atheists” were shown to exhibit the imputed personality traits.
There seems to be two opposite trends going on here:
1. From my observation, a lot of atheists have order loving, rule following personalities. They like things simple and they tend to go into things like math, science, and computers. This love of order doesn’t necessarily make them the most compassionate people on earth, but they tend not to be a threat to anyone. These kind of people tend to be perfectly harmless.
2. Atheism, regardless of its truth or untruth, presents a really horrible vision of the universe. Unfortunately, unpleasant people seem to have an easier time believing unpleasant truths. So, even if atheism is true, it will tend to attract unpleasant people.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: One should remember that groups don’t make moral decisions in a vacuum. Atheists are a minority in active competition with the religious for status in society. And morality, sadly, isn’t just about being good; its about high status. Because, rightly or wrongly, morality tends to be associated with religion, atheists are in the position of having something to prove. I suspect this functions as a mild incentive to behave better than they would in the abscence of competition with religious folk.
Conversely, religious folk operate in an environment with constant criticism from high status, non-religious intellectuals. This has, I suspect, made religious folk, or at least the religious leadership, act better than they otherwise would.
Human beings seem to have a strong cognitive bias in favour of conflating the good, the beautiful, and the true. As a very, very rough rule of thumb this may have had some value to our ancestors.
BUT, IN AN ABSOLUTE SENSE, THIS BIAS IS WRONG AND RATHER OFTEN LEADS TO FALLACIOUS CONCLUSIONS.
Some examples of how it works:
Atheists often seem to conclude that if atheism is true therefore it must be conducive to good behaviour.
Religious people often conclude that because religion has helped them to behave better (often by making them accountable to a community) that therefore it its true.
The truth is neither of these conclusions follows from the premise. To be more general, this particular cognitive bias has been a serious impediment to cautious empirical research on the relationship between religion and morality.
it still seems that avowed atheists could be misleadingly grouped with those who are a-religious or religiously disengaged.
There are two cases: 1) if there is little heterogeneity among low-religious people, then avowed atheists are just a special case of the general trend. Or 2) if there is substantial heterogeneity, and avowed atheists were small in number, the a-religious could drag down the mean of Conscientiousness.
Here are some reasons not to believe 2:
– The TLS students had a minimum IQ of 135, and mean probably in the 140s — so, Harvard material. Smarties in young adulthood tend to think things through, so it’s probably not just lazy thinking.
– Their religiosity was measured in 1941, before the “what’s it to me?” casualization of the culture, so showing low religiosity (in public, private, or attitudinal ways) would mark one as a weirdo. You figure, then, that they arrived at low religiosity as a result of some intellectual examination.
Very bright people in 1941 were not likely to adopt lazy atheism, but likely examined the issue intellectually, debated it with their very bright peers in college, discussed it as part of coursework in college (whether a class on history or visual art), and so on. So case 2 seems the less likely of the two.
Very bright people in 1941 were not likely to adopt lazy atheism, but likely examined the issue intellectually, debated it with their very bright peers in college, discussed it as part of coursework in college (whether a class on history or visual art)
even most very intelligent atheists aren’t reading george h. smith’s the case against god 😉 your point is correct, but as someone who has explored the extant atheistic and anti-atheist apologetic literature i don’t think you should underestimate the social (“religious people are stupid”) and personal (“i’m an individualist”) reasons as opposed to deep examination of personal axioms. the tendency for atheists to not explore the topic deeply is illustrated for their common caricaturization of religion.
speaking of which…
Atheism, regardless of its truth or untruth, presents a really horrible vision of the universe. Unfortunately, unpleasant people seem to have an easier time believing unpleasant truths. So, even if atheism is true, it will tend to attract unpleasant people.
that’s not an uncontestable assertion thursday. after all, many religious people live in a universe where most humans will burn in a lake of fire for eternity (including many friends and cloes relations). do the probability calculus, if you were in a “original position” and you had to choose between a minority (sometimes very small) change of everlasting life and everlasting pain and anguish, and guarantee of oblivion, what would you choose? i don’t think it is a foregone conclusion.
(yes, i know that the model is something of a caricature of religious models
a) it describes a large subset
b) one caricature deserves another
)
p.s. as i noted above, the validity of some of these models can be tested cross-culturally. if there is selection for particular personality types and atheism it would be a far stronger effect in a nation where 5% max are atheists & agnostics (USA) than sweden or japan, where something like 20% could be so described.
Does everybody remember Dean Hammer and the “god gene”? I think it was on the cover of Time.
agnostic – – The TLS students had a minimum IQ of 135, and mean probably in the 140s — so, Harvard material. Smarties in young adulthood tend to think things through, so it’s probably not just lazy thinking.
— the harvard smarties i’ve known have all gone in for dodgy academic fads, worship adrienne rich, and most certainly do not think things through. however i suspect you’re largely right about atheists, but there really ought to be a better designed study that measures belief (like those gallup polls) and not interest or practice. all this reminds me of a similar study a few years ago (i think), that showed prisoners with less interest in religion were more likely to re-offend. again, no surprise, but i doubt these thugs had a well-worn copy of george smith’s opus in their knapsack, as razib pointed out. i just think they didn’t care (like our smartie friends in this study).
You’re all speaking as if agreeableness and conscientiousness are somehow “positive” traits that atheists should be ashamed to be lacking. Me, I’m happily low in both. There’s a special expression for agreeable and conscientious people and it’s “sucker”…
Razib:
We are all aware of the nasty things that people do to each other and the nasty things that animals do to each other and that they will beget descendants that will do the exact same things to each other and that this is going to go on for near to forever without supernatural intervention, however unlikely that may or may not be. If you care at all about decency or compassion, its quite plain that the universe sucks. Would that that were only a caricature.
The fact that some religious visions of the universe are just as bad or worse can’t disguise the fact that that all atheistic visions of things-as-they-are are pretty horrible (unless you include pseudo-atheist, Marxist, history-is-moving-upward type things, and those didn’t work out so well). You or I, with luck and intelligence, may have been able to carve out small sphere of relative decency for ourselves, but that doesn’t remotely describe the lives of most living beings, human or otherwise, on this earth. Delusional or not, only a religious vision can offer a way out.
More generally, I can fully understand someone being driven by intellectual conviction to the conclusion that there is no God. But what I cannot understand is someone actually preferring things-as-they-are to the possiblility that some transcendant father (or whatever) will come to set things right. I cannot approach any perspective from which the former is not horrible.
Respectfully,
T
If you care at all about decency or compassion, its quite plain that the universe sucks.
decency or compassion are present in the universe. i don’t believe in god, nor does my study of the literature suggest that these traits emerged ex nihilo 3,000 years ago with moses coming down from sinai. there’s a reason that most fiction where good and evil are any issue tend to imply that the former is preferable to the latter. i don’t think it is because people read the bible and therefore they know that good is good, rather, humans have a modal moral compass which is selected for in a species where sociality is the norm. this doesn’t mean that we all attain our ideal, nor is this ideal invariant out of context. but it isn’t a coincidence that the all-against-all scenario doesn’t exist in reality, we segment into small social groups which exhibit levels of trust and altruism (sometimes this scales up, as in finland, land of suckers and somali refugees, and sometimes it doesn’t, as in iraq or most of the world). in short, some scholars of religion believe that there was a ‘religio perreni’ which is the root of all moral faith systems. i don’t believe that, rather, religious moral systems simply extrapolated from innate perceptions of good and evil which are intelligible in light of our intuitions, which themselves have been subject to natural selection. many animals consume their young if given an opportunity, why pass up the nutritive bundle? humans do not do this, no matter how “savage” they are. i suspect that’s because of the special nature of human sociality (the short term nutrition isn’t worth the long term loss of a possible ally and helpmate).
The fact that some religious visions of the universe are just as bad or worse can’t disguise the fact that that all atheistic visions of things-as-they-are are pretty horrible (unless you include pseudo-atheist, Marxist, history-is-moving-upward type things, and those didn’t work out so well). You or I, with luck and intelligence, may have been able to carve out small sphere of relative decency for ourselves, but that doesn’t remotely describe the lives of most living beings, human or otherwise, on this earth. Delusional or not, only a religious vision can offer a way out.
“horrible” is relative. in our modern consumer life where safety and security are the norm it does seem that most humans lived lives of misery. i would just suggest some caution in regard to this. certainly no one would want to be a slave in the american south or in ancient rome, but most people were not slaves. in any case, your point is well taken about the slave. obviously if one is a slave, and one believes that one will bask in everlasting life, then something is better than nothing. so one would expect slaves to be unlikely to be atheists. but you or i are not slaves, and the high proportion of atheism among affluent upper middle classes in the developed world, or even among pre-modern elites (relative to the general population at least), seems to imply that when a little piece of heaven is possible on earth there is less need for a feast in the afterlife.
as for whether a godless universe is horrible. for some atheists it is, but i suspect for most it is not. we never much believed in gods in the first place. i totally understand how you can not understand it could not be horrible, but that’s why you’re a theist (at least one reason). similarly, i do not seem the manifest evidence of god in the universe around us through design and beauty which many theists claim to be irrefutably compelling. that’s why i’m an atheist, and most people are not.
First of all, I know a lot of theists make these arguments, so I can understand why you made the response you did, but:
1. I never said that life was always a war of all against all.
2. I never said decency and compassion didn’t exist in the universe. (My own position is that they are genuine but shallow.)
3. I never said our moral sense could not evolve through natural processes, nor that special revelation was required.
“horrible” is relative.
I’m sorry, we’re going to have to disagree on this one. Beyond the de minimus level, the existence of pain and suffering is objectively horrible.
but you or i are not slaves, and the high proportion of atheism among affluent upper middle classes in the developed world, or even among pre-modern elites (relative to the general population at least), seems to imply that when a little piece of heaven is possible on earth there is less need for a feast in the afterlife.
Its true I have a pretty decent life, but I care about those who have not been or will not be able to attain it. What can I say, I actually do care about them and their fate. Furthermore, even modern middle class life has its strivings and sorrows, which are not always minor. I’m not saying that there has to be a way to eliminate them, but I am saying it would be better than having them continue into the indefinite future.
A recent study suggested that the genes for religiousness and pro-sociality are even related:
Joint biometric analyses of religiousness and antisocial behavior or altruistic behavior were completed. The relationship between religiousness and antisocial behavior was due to both genetic and shared environmental effects. Altruistic behavior also shared most all of its genetic influence… with religiousness.
Thursday reminds me of 18th c. novelist, Charlotte Bronte’s first introduction to the Atheist of day, Harriet Martineau (whom CB liked very much). This opinion is more articulate than the norm, but in essence, presents the dilemma of living in the material world:
“Feb. 11th, 1851,
“My Dear Sir, – Have you yet read Miss Martineau’s and Mr. Atkinson’s new work, Letters on the Nature and Development of Man? If you have not, it would be worth your while to do so.
“Of the impression this book has made on me, I will not now say much. It is the first exposition of avowed atheism and materialism I have ever read; the first unequivocal declaration of disbelief in the existence of a God or a future life I have ever seen. In judging of such exposition and declaration, one would wish entirely to put aside the sort of instinctive horror they awaken, and to consider them in an impartial spirit and collected mood. This I find it difficult to do. The strangest thing is, that we are called on to rejoice over this hopeless blank – to receive this bitter bereavement as great gain – to welcome this unutterable desolation as a state of pleasant freedom. Who could do this if he would? Who would do it if he could?
“Sincerely, for my own part, do I wish to find and know the Truth; but if this be Truth, well may she guard herself with mysteries, and cover herself with a veil. If this be Truth, man or woman who beholds her can but curse the day he or she was born. I said, however, I would not dwell on what I thought; I wish to hear, rather, what some other person thinks, – some one whose feelings are unapt to bias his judgement. Read the book, then, in an unprejudiced spirit, and candidly say what you think of it. I mean, of course, if you have time – not otherwise.”
So what progressive rock album do you guys think is the best? Thick as a Brick gets points just for making an album-length song and the music is better than Yes’ Close to the Edge to boot, but I think Days of Future Past beats them both.
Throw near random numbers into the data field. How excited can we be about the polarity of the correlation we see? There would be a lot less to talk about if we saw plots, I think.
Yeah. Not very. It seems no real surprise if altruism should correlate with religiosity, both being the normative condition of the species in question. It doesn’t give either self-avowed atheists or self-avowed adherents of religions any grounds to claim moral superiority, though.
Charlotte Bronte was a bitch.
Anne Bronte solved her worries about her dissolute brother’s fate after death by deciding that universal salvation was the right thing to believe in. That way no one gets to burn in hell. It’s an altruistic solution to the problem.
TGGP – Fair go, jaekkeli and I are still trying to get to grips with Bill Haley.
Anne Bronte solved her worries about her dissolute brother’s fate after death by deciding that universal salvation was the right thing to believe in. That way no one gets to burn in hell. It’s an altruistic solution to the problem.Only if our beliefs make the slightest bit of difference to reality, which they do not. Do you think that the altruistic solution to poverty and hunger is to deny their existence?
Who ever said the world has to be a nice place? Facing the truth has its own quiet dignity.
Life survives despite the ultimate deadliness of Nature. That is its glory.
So we too have a cruel side? Well we adapted to live in this universe, so what would you expect?
No matter what price rationality imposes on people, I don’t believe it even comes close to the burden imposed by constantly living your life in the fantasy role-playing game we call “religion”.
Superstition-based religion? No Thanks.
Am I the only person who’s increasingly sceptical of papers that just provide tables of correlations? In my field I can think of one paper that provides scatter diagrams alongside the correlations. These scatter diagrams suggest that some of the relationships presumed to be linear are in fact non-linear (fig. 5 if you have access). I’ve read psychology paper after psychology paper where no-one considers the possibility of non-linear relationships, which (to me) raises large questions about their data analysis. I expect there are many undiscovered non-linear relationships, perhaps there are some in this data set.
Cal – No. I was trying to be sarcastic.
Ben A – No, you’re not.
Bad news for atheists: individuals low in religiosity are more likely to have a “slacker” personality
Good news for slackers: individuals high in conscientiousness are more likely to have a “gullible fool” personality
Equally fair and balanced
“Charlotte Bronte was a bitch.”
Well, she was certainly lacking in social graces and small talk, and common opinion did hold that her writing was shockingly unladylike. Charlotte responded only to great passion under great control, and rarely found anybody up to her standards. Art and literature are created by those who are basically disatisfied, i think.
“Anne Bronte solved her worries about her dissolute brother’s fate after death by deciding that universal salvation was the right thing to believe in. That way no one gets to burn in hell. It’s an altruistic solution to the problem.”
The “Great Awakening” of the mid-19th century touched everyone a little, atheist, theist, agnostic. It was a necessary antidote to the “sinners in the hands of an angry god” banner that runs through so much fundamentalism of any variety.
Give the Brontes a break. When you are dying slowly of consumption, your backyard is the town cemetery, and all your siblings are already there, there’s only so much more bleakness you can take.
Given how religiousity was measured (see Agnostic’s comments above), is anyone surprised that it correlates with conscientiousness? On more this scale, people who read the bible more, and who attend more religious activities are considered more religious, and the paper found that these people also tend to be more conscientious.
Given that this paper doesn’t establish that there’s a linear relationship between religiousity and conscientiousness, it is impossible to draw firm conclusions about Atheism from it, any correlation could be explained simply by differences between believers.
jaakkeli said:
You’re all speaking as if agreeableness and conscientiousness are somehow “positive” traits that atheists should be ashamed to be lacking. Me, I’m happily low in both. There’s a special expression for agreeable and conscientious people and it’s “sucker”…
I totally agree!
I have very low agreeableness and lowish conscientiousness, and see them as very beneficial when critical decisions are called for. I never have a herd mentality or am very much influenced by any social trend. I credit these personality factors as having been useful in Stock Market investments and a host of other situations.
The downside of course is not having m/any friends, but this is a small price to pay for true intellectual freedom.
“Who ever said the world has to be a nice place? Facing the truth has its own quiet dignity.
Life survives despite the ultimate deadliness of Nature.”
Can’t disagree with that. But “quiet dignity”? Last time I heard that term, Elaine on Seinfeld used it to lovingly describe her latest boyfriend’s fact-checking job, in explanation of his indefinable je ne sais quoi.
A bit off topic, but not entirely as it involves unworldy speculation. I read an article in which the author claimed it was more “courageous” to accept that we are all alone in the Universe. Just us’uns and great emptiness.
And I thought, wtf does “courage” have to do with that opinion? Were the people who told Columbus (or whoever) that he’d fall off the ends of earth if he went far enough, courageous? I want to know whether there is intelligent life elsewhere. You don’t discover “truth” by only allowing what you already know. That takes a scientific approach and method, an open mind, inquiry, a sense of possiblity, and a realization of some pretty high strangeness, most of which we are constantly in denial, perhaps to maintain our sanity and dignity.
Beware my friend. Once you’ve wrapped yourself in your quiet dignity, you get very miffed should it ever be ruffled.
individuals high in conscientiousness are more likely to have a “gullible fool” personality
If you mean that the trait Conscientiousness taps into a person’s gullibility, you’re mistaken. Gullibility has more to do with Agreeableness. See the facets of each trait:
Traits and facets
If you mean that we can infer something about gullibility from the fact that a person has religious beliefs, that’s a pretty dubious litmus test in 2007 in the developed world. Ask a person if they believe pumping money into the slums will help cure poverty, if “any child can learn,” if men and women show sex differences in personality and if so whether they’re partly due to biology, if low-class illegal immigrants from Mexico are as capable of upholding civilization as the average American citizen, and so on.
Those are better tests of gullibility, since they are easy to test, and the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. Religious beliefs have a vague untestability to them, so “falling for something that’s clearly baloney” isn’t as obvious here as in the previous cases. Also, organized religion has lost much of its propaganda power by now, compared to all the successful propaganda in favor of the things I mentioned above. It doesn’t require much thinking or boldness to reject religion nowadays — but it does to take a contrarian stance on the issues above (which has the added benefit of being more in line with reality).
Since you didn’t specify which way you intended your comment, I’m not addressing the last two paragraphs to you specifically — just as a way of remarking on another all too common belief among mainstream atheists and skeptics that the things they’re skeptical are the present-day analogue of railing against religion during the Scientific Revolution.
Oh, and to fill in for Greg Cochran, add the further question to the test of gullibility:
Is Iraq as capable of democracy as a Western nation? Or, do typical Iraqi people yearn for democracy to the same extent Westerners do?
If you mean that we can infer something about gullibility from the fact that a person has religious beliefs, that’s a pretty dubious litmus test in 2007 in the developed world. Ask a person if they believe pumping money into the slums will help cure poverty, …
This isn’t gullibility, this is just simplicity. People don’t make this mistake because they’re cleverly manipulated into believing that it works, they make it because it’s a simple mistake. If poverty is lack of money and the government has a lot of money, isn’t there an obvious solution? Most people don’t have the brains to consider the actual results of handing out free money further than that, so they’ll look at you like you’re an idiot if you suggest that it’s not that simple.
Your other examples aren’t that convincing, either – most people are fully aware of gender differences, they just hide it, because you’re just not supposed to talk about this stuff in public. Even the most fuming feminists I’ve ever known will reveal that they’re well aware of biological gender differences once they’re alone with me, but if we’re talking in a larger, mixed group, they’ll be in battle mode and will take exactly the same lines from me as attacks. Generally, the only ones exhibiting gullibility here are the socially retarded guys who can’t see past the logical level of communication (and I’m saying this as a former social super-retard) and who’ll then believe that they have some superior understanding of reality when they really are just unable to recognize it when others are pretending to not know stuff.
An even better test of gullibility is to ask if democracy has anything to do with the Iraq War or if the casus belli is legitimate.
Of course Middle Eastern nations are capable of democracy. Fifty years ago you were otherthrowing them.
Re: Conscienciousness and gullibility
I would definitely put myself on the lazy end of the spectrum, am not very religious, and am probably less ‘spiritual’ than many militant atheists.
I would tend to think that more consciencious people would be willing to put their effort/resources into something even if they did not get much reward, or even if there was a good chance of no reward. I have a hard time putting effort into anything that I don’t get clear results from…for example, I can do even fairly advanced ‘bookwork’ physics (do a problem, get a reasonable answer, feel like I’ve made progress), but I’m a disaster when it comes to an open-ended project where it’s harder to measure progress or results of effort.
My guess is that people who are more religious and spiritual are less likely to expect material results from their efforts, and are thus less lazy/more consciencious.
mc
Beware my friend. Once you’ve wrapped yourself in your quiet dignity, you get very miffed should it ever be ruffled.
Oh I don’t know. Especially if it means new knowledge. Science has taught us that there is nothing more fascinating than being proved wrong.
I’d trade a kilo of dignity for a gram of real knowledge anytime.
I’d like to think it’s because the real commitment of the rationalist is to truth-at-any-price.
“Am I the only person who’s increasingly sceptical of papers that just provide tables of correlations?”
Social Science law 14:
“Convenience dictates that all statistical relations are linear in nature by default.”
“I’d trade a kilo of dignity for a gram of real knowledge anytime.”
That’s good to know. Happily knowledge and dignity are not mutually exclusive.
The downside of course is not having m/any friends, but this is a small price to pay for true intellectual freedom.
Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. Of course a contrarian is no freer than anyone else, he’s just driven in a different direction.