Religions evolved to take the credit for good stuff
Paul W has another good comment on Ben’s post (from 2009 is it?). It’s about social science that purports to show that religion>happiness, and where the holes are.
One of the most robust findings in all of psychology is that people tend think their own children are above average. Should we then conclude that the large majority of children are above average?
Another of the most robust findings in the social sciences is that people tend to think that their own cultures are superior, and that the central, distinctive tenets of their own religions are true, and that the comparable distinctive tenets of others’ are false.
The robustness of a finding may not reflect ground truth, but pervasive systematic biases.
That’s what I’d tend to expect of anything about religion, because religions evolved to take the credit for good stuff, avoid any responsibility for bad stuff, and make themselves seem indispensible.
Why yes, so they did.
I’m presuming that the math sign “>”(greater than) in this context, means ‘produces’.
Paul W hasn’t demonstrated that there are any ‘holes’ in the methodology,simply that there might be. People are culturally biased, so what? I could equally well argue, that atheists, are psychologically biased against religious belief and can’t accept the idea that the faithful might indeed take comfort from, and be happier, because of their religious beliefs.
The last sentence, which characterizes religions as entities, is completely banal-Dawkins’ memes have escaped and taken on a life of their own.
To avoid misunderstanding,I’m an atheist(despite a religious education) my condition is probably genetic. The notion that believers would be happier if they abandoned their delusion and entered the light of reason is probably an atheist conceit.
@Russel W
And not a notion that I have heard expressed by atheists before.
I might argue that the religious might live more meaningful, full filled lives if they stopped deluding themselves, but that does not imply happiness,
I would argue that those forced to share the public space with the religious would lead happier lives if the religious stopped imposing their values on others. Whether they abandon their delusions is of less importance.
The notion that believers would be happier if they abandoned their delusion and entered the light of reason is probably an atheist conceit.
The notion that drug users would be happier if they abandoned their drug usage and entered the light of sobriety is probably a prohibitionist conceit.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Religions evolved to take the credit for good stuff http://dlvr.it/F1TrF […]
Yeah, I don’t believe I’ve seen any atheist argue that atheism leads to happiness. The prominent atheists I see argue that if a person abandons their religious delusions…then that person will have abandoned their religious delusions. These atheists argue that there are real-world benefits to not being deluded. But happiness? No, I’ve never seen anyone argue that.
Obviously the risk of misery and distress caused by religious beliefs increases with the intensity of those beliefs. Hard-core fundamentalists are capable of inflicting great misery and suffering on themselves (and others), while wishy-washy Anglicans and Episcopalians — to consider Christian sects only — are no more into self-harm than most atheists. In fact we can probably postulate a causal relation: the less you care about your own suffering, the more likely you are to be a fundamentalist of one type or another.
What this means is that as well as the many clear-cut cases of people defecting from religion to no religion, we should expect to see a gradual slide away from the more restrictive aspects of all religions as people gain more education and more self-respect. And this seems to be the case. The number of people who have openly declared their atheism is way less than the number who have simply stopped going to church, for instance. (And if changing from fundamentalism to Anglicanism makes you happier, are you going to attribute it to ‘religion’? I suspect you might.)
Treating ‘religiosity’ as a binary all-or-nothing condition can cause us to miss important changes like this. Any questions relating to religion should use some kind of sliding scale.
The idea that religion and general irrationality causes misery and injustice is indeed the premise from which we gnus have proceeded to criticise religion.
As I think most are aware, the horror and injustice of the 9/11 attack did not just kill three thousand innocent people but traumatised a nation and beyond.
We need to take into account the psychological pain inflicted by injustice as well as physical pain. ‘Victims’ suffer psychological pain long after their physical attack, hence why we need systems of justice and the need to minimise acts of injustice or acts of terror on a society.
An average Pollyanna Christian, for example, may well use their religion to delude themselves away from the injustices and persecution that their religion produces, especially within a secular environment that allows them such freedom. But this is not the lifestyle of Christians or other religions where religion actually holds power.
Conformation bias is probably the de facto reason for people holding religious beliefs. This is not the case with rational atheists, because atheism is not a delusion from which to build an insular world view from criticism.
Our aims are not to decrease suffering as such, but to decrease injustice and unreason. Then by consequence, much of the irrational causes of suffering will diminish, and people are then free to choose whether they want to live a life of happiness or a life of misery.
Excellent point.
There is also the problem that until recently, the vast majority of this sort of sociological research took place in the United States, with the subjects being Americans. Although this may come as a shock to many in the “flyover states”, Americans are not necessarily representative of the world population as a whole.
The “religion makes you happy” finding is far less robust in more secular European countries than it is in the US. Surprise surprise, being non-religious in a country where that puts you in an extreme minority, one that is regularly referred to with disapproval, well golly gee willikers, you think that might negatively affect one’s happiness? It’s quite possible that the “religion makes you happy” result is just a spurious signal from the rather trivial and obvious finding that “conformity makes you fit in”.
“Suffering is the key to happiness” Dostoevsky
He was a christian, naturally.
Speaking only for myself, I became much happier once I let go of my Catholic-bred guilt.
Andy@5-
I have seen the opposite argument that ignorance is bliss. Reality is just reality. Bliss is a separate attribute.
No, I think the atheist conceit is that reality has fuck all to do with what makes people happy.
Russell W:
I don’t think that’s putting it right. Survey and methodologies and data interpretation generally do have “holes” in them, and the question is generally how big and worrisome the holes are. I’ve clearly demonstrated, in several long comments there, that there are “holes” in the methodology—very well-known cognitive biases that are well-known to introduce various errors in various directions in both subjective recognition and later recall of affective states.
(That is why beeper sampling studies were invented, after all—because of well known theoretical and practical problems with conventional surveys—not just with recall after long delays, but with recall even after short ones, and with attribution errors even in real time, with no delay at all.)
What I haven’t demonstrated is that the evident holes do turn out make the particular numbers in this study wrong. Maybe for some reason the biases don’t come into play, or aren’t strong in the relevant cases, or mostly cancel out.
That is not my job. It’s not my job to show that their methodology doesn’t work—it’s theirs to show that it does, despite good reasons to suspect that it doesn’t. (Many of which were demonstrated by Kahneman himself, along with Tversky, in the 1970’s.) Notice that Kahneman et al. don’t make any strong claims about how well their methodology actually does work—just that it’s somewhat less subject to some known biases than typical survey methodology.
This is a new methodology in serious need of better validation, and I suspect Kahneman himself would admit that. (How could he not?) Some of the reservations I voice are stated in his paper, others are common in his own earlier work, and most are common in the current literature. (E.g., stating that the “dose response” Jean alludes to may be a mostly incorrect mischaracterization of a correlation, which could be due instead to self-selection effects.) Some are common problems of accidental bias in statistical studies.
The particular study in question also quite clearly not even using a demographically valid sample for most the purposes of the discussion over at Talking Philosophy. (And in some published literature as well, e.g., in Layard’s book.) The subjects are all gainfully employed women in Texas, polled about <i>a single work day</i>, and if you don’t realize that introduces several significant biases right there, you don’t know enough about women, Texans, Sundays, and religious practice.
Those are holes, too, although mostly in people’s overinterpretation of the results—Kahneman et al themselves don’t claim the kind of generality some people read into it.
If you think the holes aren’t serious enough to worry about, actually make that claim and defend it. if not, don’t pretend they’re not there, and criticize me and my motives for pointing them out.
Well, sure you could. That’s why I keep saying that the paper in question doesn’t really support any strong and interesting conclusions about religion, even the “obvious” ones that happen to flatter my current beliefs. (E.g., that religion evidently isn’t as happy-making as just hanging out with friends, or even just chilling out alone.)
Don’t just say I haven’t made my case, without even saying clearly what case you think I’m making, and exactly what you think is wrong with that case. (There are a lot of things going on in that thread, and I suspect you’ve misinterpreted something.)
Don’t imply that I’m just a cynical atheist dismissing contrary evidence—or if you do, be specific about my concerns, and which specific ones you think are unwarranted nay-saying. That could be interesting.
I didn’t study cognitive science for years just to pick and choose data that suit my prejudices—or if I did, I didn’t know that’s why I did it (or don’t remember that) and I’d like some specific examples of where my concerns are unwarranted.
Yeah, sure, and I could equally well argue that there are <i>some</i> atheists who are shallow, thoughtless twits who reflexively condescend to anybody who takes the evidence more seriously than they do, thinks harder about it, and says something they don’t already agree with.
There are even some thoughtless twits who mischaracterize other people’s positions before dismissively attributing them to bad motives.
You know, come to think of it, I don’t think you could “equally well argue” those things you mention, judging by the way you’ve been arguing.
When I read stuff about cognitive biases I always say (to myself) “Yes…yes…that one, yes…yes…that too…yup…sounds right…I bet I do that…sure…” and so on. The ones that pick out fallibility of memory, especially.
I’m an easy mark. :- )
Steve,
Fair enough, that’s your experience, however I’ve heard and read that attitude ad nauseam.
Paul W ,
Yes, I did misinterpret what you wrote, (1)I appear to have a cognitive bias against smart-arse atheists and (2) I’ve resolved not to consume considerable amounts of butterscotch schnapps and post on this site.
I don’t include myself in the category ‘thoughtless twits’ however,if you think that, you’re making the same kind of mistaken inference that I made from what you wrote, aren’t you?
Russell W.,
I don’t actually think that; I think that you’re usually not that way. I was being a glib overgeneralizing smart-arse for partly parodic effect, and partly because I too get exasperated sometimes and vent. (And I also put in some caveats that I hope were a tipoff I didn’t mean that literally, full-strength, or about specifically your behavior more generally. Just flipping you some shit back.)
No harm, no foul, I hope, and I certainly understand about the schnapps. I think it’s past time for a beer, in fact, and I may end up SIWOTIing under the influence… but I like to live dangerously.
I certainly am. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out why – partly by figuring out what it is that I’m biased against (and then why).
Mind you, there remains a problem even if/when I do accept the idea that the faithful might indeed take comfort from, and be happier, because of their religious beliefs; it’s accepting the idea that therefore everyone should conspire to protect religious beliefs from criticism. I think that’s a big leap, and I have a hard time finding it even plausible.
Paul W
Understood, I can be rather sarky myself, which caused some confusion earlier on this site,Ophelia had to ‘moderate’.
Ophelia,
I entirely agree. I appear to be ‘immune’ to religion i.e. I’m also biased against religious belief, it seems patently obvious to me that religion is nonsense,however there are many highly intelligent, highly educated people who are believers. That is really a fact to consider. There’s no doubt that education and IQ are factors in reduced religious faith, but perhaps not to the extent that some atheists might like to believe.
I suspect that psychology, as much as intellect, has a significant effect in what an individual believes,in other words some people are immune to atheism.
I certainly don’t think that religions need to be protected from criticism,they’re simply ideologies to me, and I would resist any attempts to introduce blasphemy laws or conflate religion and race. I’d remove tax exemptions for religious institutions for example. and I can’t think of any moral or ethical imperative that compells me to ‘respect peoples cherished beliefs’.
Ophelia, I’ve never attempted to reason out why I’m biased against religion, to do so I’d have to imagine being religious and I’d have as much chance of succeeding as understanding string theory. It’s simply the way my brain is wired.