Why Do Smart People Fall For Christianity?

[RipVanWinkle]

For a long time the most troubling question I asked myself when I was having doubts about the faith was why smart, educated and mature people will sometimes convert to fundamental christianity, It caused me to doubt my own doubts for years. I've known it to happen to several friends and in one instance to almost a whole Sunday School class. Why? These were college educated folks and many had post graduate degrees. Any ideas? bill

[Ouroboros]

Blindspots.

[Thurisaz]

I've said elsewhere on this site a short time ago already... intelligence cuts both ways. It helps seeing through bullshit but if you have already decided you want to believe something, being smart also makes it easier to irrationalize away all evidence to the contrary.

[Vigile]

Do they?

 

Does anyone convert to xianity that isn't merely responding to youthful & cultural indoctrination?

[Thurisaz]

Sadly yes. If the cultists can get to them when they're vulnerable...

[Vigile]

Sadly yes. If the cultists can get to them when they're vulnerable...

 

Considering their numbers are dwindling and the vast majority of church growth is zero sum (taken from existing churches) I'm not convinced they are obtaining any real converts. The few that do convert are negligible.

 

There are intelligent xians, but they were for the most part indoctrinated before they old enough to develop reasoning skills.

[merck]

I think its good to sometimes have doubts about your doubts. As for why intelligent people believe crazy things, a lot of it has to do with human psychology. We have a desire to belong and this makes us susceptible to group think and conformity. There's a classic experiment where researches would ask a group of people several questions. Unbeknownst to the subject, everyone was in on the experiment and would start to give obviously wrong answers. Just hearing the others confidently giving the wrong answer was enough for the vast majority of those tested to also give the same obviously wrong answer. Throw in some confirmation bias and our desire to assign agency to inanimate objects and it isn't so hard to see intelligent people falling victim to their own psychology.

[midniterider]

For a long time the most troubling question I asked myself when I was having doubts about the faith was why smart, educated and mature people will sometimes convert to fundamental christianity, It caused me to doubt my own doubts for years. I've known it to happen to several friends and in one instance to almost a whole Sunday School class. Why? These were college educated folks and many had post graduate degrees. Any ideas? bill

 

Intelligence does not necessarily move one to be initially skeptical of all things. Wisdom does provide that quality of skepticism but is usually in the form of hindsight. :-) People love to try new things. Unfortunately someone who hasn't been in Xianity probably is not aware that it is a mind trap or at least how bad of a mind trap it really is, until it is too late.

[midniterider]

I think its good to sometimes have doubts about your doubts. As for why intelligent people believe crazy things, a lot of it has to do with human psychology. We have a desire to belong and this makes us susceptible to group think and conformity. There's a classic experiment where researches would ask a group of people several questions. Unbeknownst to the subject, everyone was in on the experiment and would start to give obviously wrong answers. Just hearing the others confidently giving the wrong answer was enough for the vast majority of those tested to also give the same obviously wrong answer. Throw in some confirmation bias and our desire to assign agency to inanimate objects and it isn't so hard to see intelligent people falling victim to their own psychology.

 

Church works like that. The congregation all agree on something absurd...and the newbie starts to agree with them. :-)

[falemon]

Simple, because Christianity employs some of the most evil devices of mind control known to man. The creators of Judaism and Christianity were either incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable or just lucky because the devices can penetrate just about any level of intellectual armour and is protected against even the greatest levels of doubts.

 

I think we as human beings all have a small measure for blind acceptance of a belief, just imagine how unproductive we had to be if we had to understand the complete inner workings of something to accept it as true. Assumption is our friend in many cases. Second to that is our capacity to adopt beliefs of reality from others, particularly people who are influential.

 

If anyone truly explores the Bible and Christianity they will surely see it as false, but they've included mechanisms to suppress that process by making it a sin punishable by disease, death and damnation. The personification of opposing thoughts (Satan) as a living creature causes us to treat our own doubts as an enemy.

 

Christianity exploits the human capacity for blind belief and our ability to exercise our own mental models to control ourselves and entrap us in their system. The personification of the Satan is such a powerful weapon against independent thought.

[Inqui]

Intelligence only counts for so much brain activity. If someone knows what they're doing, they can tap into the human mind in some incredible ways, and some folks make a (damned comfortable) living off it.

 

[Vigile]

Intelligence only counts for so much brain activity. If someone knows what they're doing, they can tap into the human mind in some incredible ways, and some folks make a (damned comfortable) living off it.

 

 

I still contend this is a fake.

[falemon]

 

I still contend this is a fake.

 

Well it happens in Churches on a weekly basis I watched this shortly before de-converting, coincidence

[Yrth]

For a long time the most troubling question I asked myself when I was having doubts about the faith was why smart, educated and mature people will sometimes convert to fundamental Christianity It caused me to doubt my own doubts for years. I've known it to happen to several friends and in one instance to almost a whole Sunday School class. Why? These were college educated folks and many had post graduate degrees. Any ideas? bill

As a Christian college alumnus, I know how it feels to wonder how so many intelligent people put their faith in a fairy tale. The scientists, psychologists, philosophers - - everyone. That worry did not stop me from eventually deconverting, but it definitely made me think twice.

 

I've actually spoken with a few of them about this very issue, and they told me that they made a decision about what to believe after carefully weighing the evidence. And this isn't an example of some aberrant mental function because these are folks who teach epistemology and psychology - - they teach the pitfalls lurking in human cognition. So I think the only option is to take them at their word: they weighed the evidence for and against and decided that it came down on the side of zombie Jesus.

 

There are few myths to debunk here:

- "Christians are automatically stupid" -- they're not. At all.

- "Atheists are automatically smart" -- they're not. At all.

- "Confronted with the same evidence, reasonable people will always agree" -- they won't.

 

I'm not sure what else there is to say. It's been several years since my deconversion and my old professors' decisions don't bother me anymore, but I don't need to explain their choices away as aberrations.

[Akheia]

Smart people, especially educated smart people, can be a lot easier to con. They think they're immune to trickery. Most educations don't include a thorough teaching of fallacies and biases; schools don't generally teach kids how to think critically or how to rationally evaluate information (imagine how disastrous that'd be for the local churches if their school boards--which are composed generally of Christians--began demanding that for the kids!). But you put a few letters after someone's name or a fancy diploma/certificate for their wall, and they suddenly think they've got the tools needed to prevent any scamming.

 

Doesn't matter if it's a multi-level marketing con, a used-car lot, or a religious revival--most cons would way rather see an educated mark show up.

 

http://www.estatevaults.com/bol/archives/2008/03/19/clever_people_a.html

[Vigile]

I still contend this is a fake.

 

Well it happens in Churches on a weekly basis I watched this shortly before de-converting, coincidence

 

Professed atheists reassess their entire life and admit their might be a god?

 

I agree there is some form of psychological influence that is effective on people, but Brown's examples are so dramatic I'm dubious they aren't exaggerated for the purposes of good television.

[raoul]

I'm not sure this answers the question specifically pertaining to the cult but it may show how intelligence shouldn't be equated to rational thought processes. I remember reading about the Wannsee Conference held by the nazis in Jan/1942. The purpose of the top secret meeting was to put together the plans for the final solution of the Jewish people. With German precision they plotted every detail of mass killing down to the specific amount of people that could be killed on any given day. A rational person reading about this could only shake his/her head in dismay, disgust, horror, and a host of other feelings as I did reading the documents.

 

And the MOST horrific fact about this meeting? Most of the participants had DOCTORATES in their various fields of discipline!

 

So, your question about how could intelligent people fall for the xtian cult myths? No different, in my view, than intelligent people falling for the 'inferior' race myths.

[bornagainathiest]

Why?

 

Emotions, that's why.

 

Even cosmologists, philosophers, particle physicists and brain surgeons can be emotionally vulnerable. The Christian mind-virus exploits their emotional weaknesses, co-opting the host's intellectual capacity so that a 'cure' becomes next to impossible. Then it spreads itself thru new vectors - the host's wife, kids, friends, work colleagues, etc. And so we have Pandemic Christianity.

 

BAA

[Guest BBDreams]

For a long time the most troubling question I asked myself when I was having doubts about the faith was why smart, educated and mature people will sometimes convert to fundamental Christianity It caused me to doubt my own doubts for years. I've known it to happen to several friends and in one instance to almost a whole Sunday School class. Why? These were college educated folks and many had post graduate degrees. Any ideas? bill

As a Christian college alumnus, I know how it feels to wonder how so many intelligent people put their faith in a fairy tale. The scientists, psychologists, philosophers - - everyone. That worry did not stop me from eventually deconverting, but it definitely made me think twice.

 

I've actually spoken with a few of them about this very issue, and they told me that they made a decision about what to believe after carefully weighing the evidence. And this isn't an example of some aberrant mental function because these are folks who teach epistemology and psychology - - they teach the pitfalls lurking in human cognition. So I think the only option is to take them at their word: they weighed the evidence for and against and decided that it came down on the side of zombie Jesus.

 

There are few myths to debunk here:

- "Christians are automatically stupid" -- they're not. At all.

- "Atheists are automatically smart" -- they're not. At all.

- "Confronted with the same evidence, reasonable people will always agree" -- they won't.

 

I'm not sure what else there is to say. It's been several years since my deconversion and my old professors' decisions don't bother me anymore, but I don't need to explain their choices away as aberrations.

 

 

This is interesting. So these individuals carefully weighed the evidence and they ended up convinced to follow Christianity, the dominant religion of their culture and those around them. Amazing! Coincidence? I think not.

 

Seriously, these people are influenced by their peers and the culture they are in, to a degree they do not acknowledge. Because they are educated, they can eloquently defend their decisions, but a somewhat more convincing conversion would be someone who weighed all the evidence and decided to worship … Thor. Or Ra. Or Zeus.

[Akheia]

A few years ago I GM'd a game system called Scion set in the Roman Empire. I designed Christianity to have a real god with an actual strategy for increasing his "market share" so to speak. The players actually took the idea and ran with it, evolving a theory that this was a religion whose deity deliberately martyred his followers and allowed them to be tortured and killed to arouse sympathy and pity among outsiders--increasing market share every time a major persecution occurred, making it impossible to stamp out the religion because it simply had so many innocent followers, making it a sort of mind-disease propagated very deliberately by a deity who didn't care a bit about his people's physical well-being, but cared quite a bit about getting more of them into the fold. BAA, your comment made me think of that game with great affection. Christianity really does a great job of propagating itself and resisting eradication, doesn't it?

[Yrth]

This is interesting. So these individuals carefully weighed the evidence and they ended up convinced to follow Christianity, the dominant religion of their culture and those around them. Amazing! Coincidence? I think not.

 

Seriously, these people are influenced by their peers and the culture they are in, to a degree they do not acknowledge. Because they are educated, they can eloquently defend their decisions, but a somewhat more convincing conversion would be someone who weighed all the evidence and decided to worship … Thor. Or Ra. Or Zeus.

Consider someone placed in an atheist environment and culture who then says that, after weighing all of the evidence, they don't believe that God exists. Under your reasoning, their analysis would be more convincing if their decision was different from their starting point. That hardly seems fair. Also, like I said, these are the people who teach things like confirmation bias, etc., so it's really a stretch to say that they aren't aware of the cultural influences and pressures that bear on their decision-making. Seriously, you can't make these decisions into aberrations to serve your own sense of security. Not saying that's what your doing, but it's a pretty common practice for Christians and atheists.

[Guest BBDreams]

This is interesting. So these individuals carefully weighed the evidence and they ended up convinced to follow Christianity, the dominant religion of their culture and those around them. Amazing! Coincidence? I think not.

 

Seriously, these people are influenced by their peers and the culture they are in, to a degree they do not acknowledge. Because they are educated, they can eloquently defend their decisions, but a somewhat more convincing conversion would be someone who weighed all the evidence and decided to worship … Thor. Or Ra. Or Zeus.

Consider someone placed in an atheist environment and culture who then says that, after weighing all of the evidence, they don't believe that God exists. Under your reasoning, their analysis would be more convincing if their decision was different from their starting point. That hardly seems fair. Also, like I said, these are the people who teach things like confirmation bias, etc., so it's really a stretch to say that they aren't aware of the cultural influences and pressures that bear on their decision-making. Seriously, you can't make these decisions into aberrations to serve your own sense of security. Not saying that's what your doing, but it's a pretty common practice for Christians and atheists.

 

For sure, people are influenced by the culture they live in and the people they associate with.

 

Just because people teach these things does not mean they are immune to them - we are all, constantly, prone to confirmation bias.

 

If you haven't read Michael Shermer, put his book 'Why People Believe Weird Things' on your list. I cannot remember exactly how it went, but when asked about why people did (or did not believe) one tends to think one's own beliefs are for rational, intellectual reasons; but think that others believe for emotional reasons.

 

Edited to add: ah, see this which was just posted by Antlerman on a contemporaneous thread:

at the 2:50ish mark, 'the drive to belong' is perhaps the strongest, in humans and in many other animals. It is where we find our most profound purpose for our lives, whether serving our brothers in combat and maybe laying down our lives for them (or for our bothers in terrorism, see Scott Atran, the anthropologist who studies terrorists). Rationalize away the incoherence of Christianity and find yourself belonging to a large community of like minded- like 2+ billion or so)

[Vigile]

This is interesting. So these individuals carefully weighed the evidence and they ended up convinced to follow Christianity, the dominant religion of their culture and those around them. Amazing! Coincidence? I think not.

 

Seriously, these people are influenced by their peers and the culture they are in, to a degree they do not acknowledge. Because they are educated, they can eloquently defend their decisions, but a somewhat more convincing conversion would be someone who weighed all the evidence and decided to worship … Thor. Or Ra. Or Zeus.

Consider someone placed in an atheist environment and culture who then says that, after weighing all of the evidence, they don't believe that God exists. Under your reasoning, their analysis would be more convincing if their decision was different from their starting point. That hardly seems fair. Also, like I said, these are the people who teach things like confirmation bias, etc., so it's really a stretch to say that they aren't aware of the cultural influences and pressures that bear on their decision-making. Seriously, you can't make these decisions into aberrations to serve your own sense of security. Not saying that's what your doing, but it's a pretty common practice for Christians and atheists.

 

Not sure I understand your analogy here. But I agree with BBD here. Cultural influence is clearly a major factor here. You don't see midwest white people converting to Islam and you don't see Pakistanis converting to xianity.

 

No reasonable person believes in a 2000 yo zombie without first being culturally condition to do so.

[♦ ficino ♦]

I'm reasonably smart, but I have to confess that the picture of the multiverse that BAA and others provided on other threads, universes rising and falling through infinite space and time, seems rather frightening. I'm such an insignificant blip. To imagine a god on the lines of a big human, for whom I am an ultimate object of concern, makes the universe/multiverse seem less impersonal and somehow, more comforting. Plato talks about the little child inside the man... even smart people get emotional needs met for a while by belief systems like Christianity.

[RipVanWinkle]

I am definitely convinced that intelligent people are and have been throughout history (2,000 years) converted to Xtianty. Some of the Xtian "saints", like Augustine, Aquinas, etc. were very smart. Of course they lived before the enlightenment, so they were at some disadvantage.

 

But a related question is: What makes us who deconvert different from those in the vast majority who don't? We can throw a lot of self complimentary reasons about. But what is at the heart of the issue? bill