Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn't Jason Slone

Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn't

Jason Slone

Last annotated on Thursday September 21, 2017

124 Highlight(s) | 98 Note(s)

Yellow highlight | Location: 95

CHAPTER
Note:1@@@@@@

Yellow highlight | Location: 96

"If you ask two people of the same religion one question, you'll get three answers."
Note:UNA DOMANDA DUE ROSPOSTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 99

people invent their own versions of religion

Yellow highlight | Location: 100

why are there so many different, competing, contradictory versions of it, even within one single religion?
Note:PERCHÈ TANTE VERSIONI

Yellow highlight | Location: 110

the generation and transformation of religious representations by individuals is not always harmless. Consider religious violence.
Note:VIOLENZA

Yellow highlight | Location: 113

how could these particular individuals twist their religion's teachings to such horrific ends?
Note:TERROROSTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 131

religious behavior is constrained by the cognitive mechanisms involved in everyday nonreligious behavior.
Note:UTILITÀ DELLA RELIGIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 142

Abductive reasoning involves constructing general principles as explanations for particular events, such that if the principles are true, the event or phenomenon in question is explained.
Note:ABDUZIONE.... RAZIONALIZZAZIONE... LA VIA DI MOLTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 149

abductive reasoning is efficient-it does the most work with the least effort in the shortest time. It explains everything that needs to be explained at the moment
Note:PERCHÈ ABDUCTIVE?

Yellow highlight | Location: 157

The Early Scientific Study of Religion
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 158

using science to study religion isnot uncontroversial
Note:CAMPI DIVERSI?

Yellow highlight | Location: 160

Science is descriptive-it

Yellow highlight | Location: 161

Religion, on the other hand, is prescriptive-it

Yellow highlight | Location: 161

Religion deals with the "ought"

Yellow highlight | Location: 162

Science deals with the "is"

Yellow highlight | Location: 169

In other ways, however, religion and science are quite alike. Both require basic cognitive mechanisms to process data
Note:SIMILITUDINI

Yellow highlight | Location: 182

religion could be studied from an "outsider's" perspective, thus ignoring the truth or falsity of its claims.
Note:VISTI DA FUORI

Yellow highlight | Location: 378

CHAPTER
Note:2@@@@@@@@@

Yellow highlight | Location: 379

"While we believe V, people F believe X, and people H believe Z."
Note:MULTICULTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 380

Contemporary scholars of religion also tend to value multiculturalism.
Note:ccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 381

it seems to go without saying that religion is "cultural."
Note:RELIGIONE.... SOLO CULTURA

Yellow highlight | Location: 382

Religions of America; Religions of India; Japanese Religions; The Islamic Tradition; New Religious Movements; and so on.

Yellow highlight | Location: 397

the idea that societies shape individuals is an old one dating back to Marx, Durkheim, and Weber.
Note:I PADRI DEL CULTURALISMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 400

The Standard Social Science Model
Note:ttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 595

CHAPTER
Note:3@@@@@@@@

Yellow highlight | Location: 598

the object of the action is imagined.
Note:TIPICO DELLE RELIGIONI

Yellow highlight | Location: 599

"representations.

Yellow highlight | Location: 608

cognitive scientists believe that religion is a by-product of the processes of ordinary human cognition.
Note:BY PRODUCT

Yellow highlight | Location: 609

religious representations emerge quite naturally

Note | Location: 609

ccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 612

The Cognitive Revolution
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 615

Chomsky argued that human beings learn language from culture because of the way the brain works not because of the way culture works
Note:RIVOLUZIONE CHOMSKY

Yellow highlight | Location: 618

children learn to speak and comprehend language by memorizing and imitating
Note:ASSUNTO PRE CHOMSKY

Yellow highlight | Location: 622

Chomsky did not fully accept this "self-evident" process, though.
Note:ccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 627

it doesn't explain how one knows how to put the words together in the first place.
Note:METTERE INSIEME

Yellow highlight | Location: 628

language speakers in all cultures have a fairly comfortable grasp of syntax.
Note:SINTASSO CONNATURAYA

Yellow highlight | Location: 642

I. If you cheat you'll get ...2. No! Don't you even ...3. What is the name of that man on that TV show who ...4. Life is like a box of .. .
Note:FINISCI PLA FRASE

Yellow highlight | Location: 643

you are able to come up with words to finish my thoughts. How can you do that?
Note:ccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 645

If language acquisition is word by word, then fragments could not be completed
Note:CONFUTATO IL COMPORTAMENTISMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 651

human brains are very active in the language process.
Note:CERVELLO E LINGUAGGIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 653

Chomsky postulated that the brain must come prewired
Note:INNATO

Yellow highlight | Location: 660

scholars could "map the mind"
Note:DA ALLORA...

Yellow highlight | Location: 663

the brain is chock fill of structures that constrain the way humans behave.
Note:IL PUNTO CENTRALE

Yellow highlight | Location: 664

Cognition, Culture, and the Study of Religion
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 668

Dan Sperber's book Rethinking Symbolism

Yellow highlight | Location: 669

the proper object of the study of culture should be the mechanisms that produce and transmit symbols rather than the meanings
Note:RUOLO DEL SIMBOLO

Yellow highlight | Location: 675

religious systems are susceptible to cognitive analysis because they are products of mind-brain processes.
Note:MENTE E RELIGIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 686

a supernatural explanation is likely to be invoked if, for example, a person's terminal illness is suddenly cured (miraculously).
Note:L UOMO INCLINE ALLA CAUSA SUPERNATURALE

Yellow highlight | Location: 692

religious worldviews provide but one mental model among others
Note:MODELLO MENTALE

Yellow highlight | Location: 698

humans instead run through the mental models available to them for the purpose of finding one that seems to work best. This widely used cognitive strategy has been termed "God-in-the-gaps reasoning"
Note:DIO DEI GAP

Yellow highlight | Location: 699

when naturalistic explanations don't suffice.

Yellow highlight | Location: 699

religious ideas are but one of the "multiple sufficient schemata"
Note:UNO DEI TANTI MODELLI

Yellow highlight | Location: 703

The Ritual Form Hypothesis
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 704

participants in religious rituals possessed competency in their understanding of ritual form.
Note:RUOLO DEL RITO

Yellow highlight | Location: 708

ACTOR -s ACTION -s PATIENT
Note:MODELLO COGNITIVO

Yellow highlight | Location: 739

Hyperactive Agency Detection Device
Note:tttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 740

McCauley's publication of Rethinking Religion,
Note:sssssssss

Yellow highlight | Location: 740

Guthrie's Faces in the Clouds
Note:ggggggg

Yellow highlight | Location: 741

humans attribute human characteristics (e.g., agency) to nonhuman things.
Note:ANTROPOMORFISMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 741

voices in the wind,

Yellow highlight | Location: 741

Mickey Mouse,

Yellow highlight | Location: 741

Earth as Gaia"

Yellow highlight | Location: 746

we are overly sensitive to the existence of agency in our world,
Note:AGENTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 751

you don't instinctively think "Uh oh. That's a rock!" You think it's a bear.
Note:OMBRA NERA NEL BOSCO

Yellow highlight | Location: 753

Guthrie.

Yellow highlight | Location: 754

The reason for why we overattribute agency in our world is because it is advantageous to do so.
Note:IL VANTAGGIO DI ANTROPOMORFIZZARE

Yellow highlight | Location: 755

mistake bears for rocks would be deadly.
Note:ccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 757

religion involves the attribution of agents in the world
Note:RELIGIONE E ANTROPOMORFISMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 758

religion is a form of anthropomorphism.

Yellow highlight | Location: 760

Counterintuitiveness and Cognitive Optimum
Note:ttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 762

Enter Pascal Boyer's

Yellow highlight | Location: 764

Boyer has shown that religious concepts are constrained cognitively by intuitions we have
Note:INTUIZIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 773

human cognition provides us with an intuitive ontology
Note:ONTOLOGIA INTUITIVA

Yellow highlight | Location: 776

some thoughts are more "natural"

Yellow highlight | Location: 786

i. Natural objects (e.g., rocks)2. Artificial (i.e., made by humans) objects (e.g., chairs)3. Plants (e.g., flowers)4. Animals (e.g., dogs)5. Humans
Note:ENTI INTUITIVI

Yellow highlight | Location: 796

These representations are counterintuitive; they are nonnatural but learnable
Note:DIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 799

It seems that people find "weird" (by the standards of ontology) facts interesting.
Note:FATTI STRANI

Yellow highlight | Location: 806

One of the reasons why religious ideas have such widespread appeal is that they are interesting (i.e., attention grabbing),
Note:IDEA INTERESSANTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 811

Modes of Religiosity
Note:ttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 812

Harvey Whitehouse

Yellow highlight | Location: 814

religions tend to diverge into either a "doctrinal" or an "imagistic"
Note:DOTTRINA E VISIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 835

Theological Correctness: What People Really Think
Note:ttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 840

Justin Barrett's research on "theological correctness"

Yellow highlight | Location: 849

people sometimes generate representations that contradict what they profess to believe
Note:CONTRADDIZIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 853

For example, though professing to believe that God can do all things at one time, participants in the experiments represented God as, like humans, having to complete one task before attending to another. In the minds of the research participants, God answers one prayer in one part of the world and then moves on to the next,
Note:ESEMPIO SIMULTANEITÀ

Yellow highlight | Location: 858

humans possessing multiple levels of representation.
Note:PIÙ LIVELLI

Yellow highlight | Location: 858

know one thing in one context but represent it differently (even contradict their deeply held "beliefs") in another context,
Note:CONTESTO

Yellow highlight | Location: 869

theology involves postulations about those agents.
Note:TEOLOGIA

Yellow highlight | Location: 876

Metatheory and the Category of Religion
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 878

"What theory supports what counts as a category?"
Note:COME DEFINIRE LA RELIGIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 879

umbrella is something that keeps the rain

Yellow highlight | Location: 881

zebra is a striped horse.

Yellow highlight | Location: 884

What if the zebra had red and green stripes instead of black or dark brown and white or buff?
Note:DEFINIZ DI ZEBRA

Yellow highlight | Location: 887

fulfill "necessary and sufficient conditions."

Yellow highlight | Location: 891

What makes a bird a bird?
Note:PROBLEMI

Yellow highlight | Location: 892

what makes a person a person.
Note:PROBLEMI

Yellow highlight | Location: 895

humans categorize objects in the world through the use of prototypes.
Note:PROTOTIPI

Yellow highlight | Location: 902

A penguin is a bird, but "less so" than say a parakeet or a jay.
Note:UN PÒ MENO

Yellow highlight | Location: 904

religion might be more fruitfully construed prototypically than classically.
Note:PROTOTIPO E DEF CLASSICA

Yellow highlight | Location: 907

it easier to evaluate whether Theravada Buddhism is more or less a "real" (i.e., prototypical) religion.
Note:IL BUDDISMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 908

it most certainly is. Despite the existence of strands of nontheism in Theravada theology,
Note:LO È

Yellow highlight | Location: 909

widespread representation of the Buddha as a superhuman agent.
Note:SUPERHUMAN

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,081

Harold Kushner's

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,081

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,082

the belief in God should not be threatened by the reality of evil
Note:TEODICEA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,084

problem of "theodicy."

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,293

he takes a novice to the track and asks that person to pick a horse for him.
Note:METODO X SCOMMETTERE SUI CAVALLI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,294

"Beginner's luck" seems to work
Note:LA FORTUNA DEL PRINCIPIANTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,296

luck.

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,301

Luck beliefs come to us quite easily.
Note:CREDERE NELLA JELLA E NELLA FORTUNA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,307

The list of "luck beliefs" is extensive.
Note:PORTAFORTUNA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,308

Radford and Radford's Encyclopedia of Superstitions (1969) is 264 pages long.

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,315

people not only believe in luck but also performrituals they believe (or hope) will improve their luck.
Note:RITUALI

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,523

cultural theories of religion are impoverished by a lack of understanding of how the mind works
Note:SPIEGA CULTURALE E SPIEGA COGNITIVA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,529

people spend most of their time thinking abductively
Note:RAZIONALIZZARE... O AGGIORNARE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,531

cognition that constrain religious behavior.
Note:COSTRETTI DAL CERVELLO

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,532

intuitive ontology (what kinds of things are in the world),
Note:PRIMO FATTORE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,532

intuitive causality (how do those things work),
Note:SECONDO FATTORE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,532

intuitive probability (how are those things likely to work).
Note:TERZO FATTORE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,534

theological incorrectness is a natural by-product of the cognitive tools
Note:TH INC

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,535

incorrectness is, in most cases, not only natural but also harmless. If a person is playing golf and attributes a high (i.e., bad) score to bad luck, so what?
Note:TH INC INNOCUA

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,558

religion is a natural by-product of cognition,
Note:CONCLUSIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,559

substantive studies of religion ought to include not just theology and ethnography but also cognitive psychology.
Note:STUDIARE LA RELIGIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,569

defining religion prototypically allows for a truly comparative enterprise.
Note:COMPARARE

Yellow highlight | Location: 1,576

blank
CASO

Divertirsi a rompere l’incantesimo

Divertirsi a rompere l’incantesimo

RELIGION FROM THE OUTSIDE – The Scientist as Rebel – Freeman Dyson

***

Trigger warning: – atei di professione – la religione da dentro e da fuori – credere di credere – la religione fa male o bene al mondo? – la religione a scuola – amore e terrorismo

***

BREAKING THE SPELL of religion is a game that many people can play. The best player of this game that I ever knew was Professor G. H. Hardy, a world-famous mathematician who happened to be a passionate atheist.

Note:HARDY: ATEO DI PROFESSIONE

There are two kinds of atheists, ordinary atheists who do not believe in God and passionate atheists who consider God to be their personal enemy.

Note:DUE TIPI DI ATEISMO

Paul Erdös was another world-famous mathematician who was a passionate atheist. Erdös always referred to God as SF, short for Supreme Fascist. Erdös had for many years successfully outwitted the dictators of Italy, Germany, and Hungary, moving from country to country to escape from their clutches.

Note:IL SUPER FASCISTA

And now comes Daniel Dennett to take his turn at breaking the spell. Dennett is a philosopher. In Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon1 he is confronting the philosophical questions arising from religion in the modern world.

Note:DENNETT

Why does religion exist? Why does it have such a powerful grip on people in many different cultures? Are the practical effects of religion preponderantly good or preponderantly evil? Is religion useful as a basis for public morality? What can we do to counter the spread of religious movements that we consider dangerous? Can the tools and methods of science help us to understand religion as a natural phenomenon?

Note:LE DOMANDE DI DENNETT

Dennett defines scientific inquiry in a narrow way, restricting it to the collection of evidence that is reproducible and testable. …He does not accept as scientific the great mass of evidence contained in historical narratives and personal experiences. Since it cannot be reproduced under controlled conditions, it does not belong to science. …

Note:COS’È LA RICERCA SCIENTIFICA PER DENNETT

He quotes with approval and high praise several passages from The Varieties of Religious Experience, the classic description of religion from the point of view of a psychologist, published by William James in 1902. …James is examining religion from the inside, like a doctor trying to see the world through the eyes of his patients. …He studied the personal experiences of saints and mystics as evidence of something real existing in a spiritual world …

Note:WILIAM JAMES

For Dennett, the visions of saints and mystics are worthless as evidence, since they are neither repeatable nor testable. Dennett is examining religion from the outside, following the rules of science.

Note:ESPERIENZE NON BRIPETIBILI

He explains them tentatively as products of a Darwinian competition between belief systems, in which only the fittest belief systems survive. The fitness of a belief system is defined by its ability to make new converts and retain their loyalty. …it has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of the beliefs. …

Note:COME SPIEGARE LE RELIGIONI

He observes that belief, which means accepting certain doctrines as true, is different from belief in belief, which means believing belief in the same doctrines to be desirable. He finds evidence that large numbers of people who identify themselves as religious believers do not in fact believe the doctrines of their religions but only believe in belief as a desirable goal.

Note:CREDERE DI CREDERE

The phenomenon of “belief in belief” makes religion attractive to many people who would otherwise be hard to convert. To belong to a religion, you do not have to believe. You only have to want to believe, or perhaps you only have to pretend to believe. Belief is difficult, but belief in belief is easy.

Note:VOGLIA DI CREDERE

He quotes Alan Wolfe, one of the sociologists who study American religious organizations and practices: Evangelicalism’s popularity is due as much to its populistic and democratic urges—its determination to find out exactly what believers want and to offer it to them—as it is to certainties of the faith.…

Note:EVANGELICI E POPULISMO

Like Hardy and Erdös, Dennett plays the game of breaking the spell by making religion look silly. Many of my scientist friends and colleagues have similar prejudices. One famous scientist for whom I have a deep respect said to me, “Religion is a childhood disease from which we have recovered.” There is nothing wrong with such prejudices, provided that they are openly admitted.

Note:DIVERTIRSI A ROMPERE L’INCANTESIMO

In a long chapter entitled “Morality and Religion,” he blames religion for many of the worst evils of our century. He blames not only the minority of murderous fanatics whose religion impels them to acts of terrorism but also the majority of peaceful and moderate… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:FANATISMO E GUERRE

He quotes with approval the famous remark of the physicist Stephen Weinberg: “Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion.” Weinberg’s statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:SIMMETRIA?

The main point of Christianity is that it is a religion for sinners. Jesus made that very clear. When the Pharisees asked his disciples, “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” he said, “I come… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:LA RELIGIONE DEI PECCATORI

I see no way to draw up a balance sheet, to weigh the good done by religion against the evil and decide which is greater by some impartial process. My own prejudice, looking at religion from the inside, leads me to conclude that the good vastly outweighs the evil. In many places in the United States, with widening gaps between rich and poor, churches… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:UN BILANCIO

Dennett, looking at religion from the outside, comes to the opposite conclusion. He sees the extreme religious sects that are breeding grounds for gangs of young terrorists and murderers, with the mass of ordinary believers giving… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:IL BILANCIO DI DENNETT

I see religion as a precious and ancient part of our human heritage. Dennett sees it as a load of superfluous mental baggage… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:EREDITÀ O ZAVORRA?

in the end,” he says, “my central policy recommendation is that we gently, firmly educate the people of the world, so that they can make truly… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:SCELTA INFORMATA

To give the recommendation a concrete meaning, the meaning of the little word “we” must be specified. Who are the “we” who are to… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:MA CHI EDUCA CHI?

“We” might be the parents of the children to be educated, or a local school board, or a national ministry of education, or a legally established ecclesiastical authority, or an… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:GENITORI? SCUOLA? ESPERTI?

The control of education is the arena in which political fights between religious believers and civil authorities become most bitter. In the United States these fights are made peculiarly intractable by the legal doctrine of separation of church and state, which forbids public schools to provide religious instruction. Parents with fundamentalist beliefs have a legitimate grievance, being… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:SCUOLA

When public education was instituted in England in 1870, eleven years after Darwin’s theory was published, Huxley was appointed to the royal commission which decided what to teach in the public schools. Huxley was himself an agnostic, but as a member of the commission he firmly insisted that religion should be taught in schools together with science. Every child should be taught the Christian Bible as an integral part of English culture. In recent times the scope of religious instruction in England has been extended to include Judaism and Islam.… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:SOLUZIONE HUXLEY

The teaching of religion in public schools coincided with a decline of religious belief and a… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Note:ESITO DELL’INSEGNAMENTO CONGIUNTO

Dennett also advocates more intensive research on religion considered from a scientific point of view. Here again, we can all agree with the recommendation, but we may disagree about the meaning of “research.” Dennett limits research to scientific investigations studying religious activities and organizations as social phenomena. In my opinion, such research, looking at religion from the outside, can be helpful but will never throw much light on the central mystery. The central mystery is the perennial sprouting of religious practices and beliefs in all human societies from ancient times until today. My mother, who was a skeptical Christian like me, used to say, “You can throw religion out of the door, but it will always come back through the window.”

Note:NON SOLO SOCIOLOGIA

Let me state frankly my own philosophical prejudices in opposition to Dennett. As human beings, we are groping for knowledge and understanding of the strange universe into which we are born. We have many ways of understanding, of which science is only one. Our thought processes are only partially based on logic, and are inextricably mixed with emotions and desires and social interactions.

Note:AFFERMARE IL MISTERO

To understand religion, it is necessary to explore it from the inside, as William James explored it in The Varieties of Religious Experience.

Note:STUDIARE DA DENTRO

The sacred writings, the Bhagavad Gita and the Koran and the Bible, tell us more about the essence of religion than any scientific study of religious organizations.

Note:IL SACRO

We can all agree that religion is a natural phenomenon, but nature may include many more things than we can grasp with the methods of science.

Note:NATURA E SCIENZA

The best source of information about modern Islamic terrorists that I know of is a book, Understanding Terror Networks, by Marc Sageman.2 Sageman is a former United States foreign service officer who worked with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Chapter 5 of his book, he describes in detail the network that planned and carried out the September 2001 attacks on the United States. He finds that the bonds holding the group together, during its formative years in Hamburg, were more personal than political. He concludes: “Despite the popular accounts of the 9/11 perpetrators in the press, in-group love rather than out-group hate seems a better explanation for their behavior.”

Note:AMORE E TERRORISMO

We have no firsthand testimony from the young men who carried out the September 11 attacks. They were not as highly educated and as thoughtful as the kamikaze pilots, and they were more influenced by religion. But there is strong evidence that they were not brainwashed zombies. They were soldiers enlisted in a secret brotherhood that gave meaning and purpose to their lives, working together in a brilliantly executed operation against the strongest power in the world. According to Sageman, they were motivated like the kamikaze pilots, more by loyalty to their comrades than by hatred of the enemy.

DAL MALE COMPIUTO IN NOME DELLA RELIGIONE COMPRENDIAMO MEGLIO IL BENE CHE PUÒ FARE.