Posted by Helen on: 08.22.2007 /
A new online friend, Bill, invited me to guest post today on his blog, Friendly Christian.
Bill recently ran across Hemant’s story and website, Friendly Atheist. Bill decided he’d like to follow Hemant’s lead and he renamed his blog the Friendly Christian. Hemant mentioned Bill’s blog and a number of atheists went to check it out. Since then, Bill has had a number of atheist visitors and active Christian-atheist conversation on his blog.
This is what I posted on Bill’s blog today.
I’m curious about how differently Christians and atheists (evidently) see the world. The other day Gods Gal was saying she can’t look at the world outside without seeing evidence of God. hoverfrog, writerdd and siamang responded that when they look at the world outside they don’t see God at all. (That conversation is in comments #49-#52 on What If…)
Why do we see things so differently?
Here’s the tricky part. :-) See if you can answer these questions without offending those who see differently from you.
Comment by: Laura M.
1 08/22/07 4:01 AM | Comment Link |A combination of many, many factors including our genes, brain chemistry/pathology, our perceptions of the information we receive from and how we are treated by those we live with and near and those who are our authority figures, the outcomes of our personal life experiences both positive and negative?
Comment by: hoverFrog
2 08/22/07 5:26 AM | Comment Link |I’ve had a go at these over on Bill’s blog but I thought I’d pop over and say thanks for some interesting questions.
Comment by: Helen
3 08/22/07 7:15 AM | Comment Link |Laura I agree - and I love how you said it without judging people.
hoverFrog I responded to you over on Bill’s blog - thanks for stopping by here! Regarding the questions: you’re welcome :)
Comment by: Stephan
4 08/22/07 7:45 AM | Comment Link |I think for many of us it is just the way it has always been, and it’s hard to change. I was raised in a Christian home and never imagined a world in which God did not exist. I simply can’t see the world that way. Others were brought up without this influence and for them it is impossible to see a world in which God exists.
The hard ones to figure out are the ones who have changed their perspective. I don’t think you can generalize an answer. I don’t doubt that some people have a chip on their shoulder and don’t want to believe in God. Others may have simply drifted away from a theistic world view and lost the ability to see God in the world around them. Others may have been pushed away by negative experiences and people. I think the question of why people leave faith is multiple choice, and I don’t even claim to know all of the options.
Since I am a theist I naturally don’t believe that these people have “seen the light” and found the truth by losing belief in all things supernatural.
I don’t believe that God intentionally blinds some people to certain aspects of His character, but I do believe that some people are more attentive to it than others.
To specifically answer the questions above:
The question is a little bit loaded, based on what you mean by “open”. If it means intentionally seeing things a certain way, then, no, I don’t think so, at least not in all cases. As I said above, there are probably some people that don’t want to believe in God, but I’m sure that’s not true of all non-theists. If you mean more sensitive to certain things, then, yes, probably so.
Of course I am. I’m smarter than everyone!
But seriously, I know that is not true. Siamang routinely puts me to shame. I am stunned by Helen’s depth of perception and sensitivity. I’m just smart enough to know that I’m not that smart.
Nope, but some people believe that.
Comment by: Laura M.
5 08/22/07 8:09 AM | Comment Link |Thanks Helen, I actually didn’t notice I’d done that.
Comment by: Rachel
6 08/22/07 8:54 AM | Comment Link |No. I don’t believe that it is possible for ANYONE to be completely objective.
Nope. And I’d be pretty dumb if I did. ;-)
Definitely not! I am most emphatically NOT a Calvinist.
I don’t know. I think Laura’s explanation was pretty insightful.
Comment by: Helen
7 08/22/07 9:10 AM | Comment Link |Stephan, thanks for your comments.
I admit my questions were loaded. I was curious to see how people would handle that.
Since getting into Christian-atheist conversations I’ve decided that “I don’t know why we see differently - it’s a mystery to me” is my favorite answer, because I’d rather not know than jump to conclusions about other people which may be unfair.
Rachel - I agree that we’re all biased. I know bias was my word; maybe another way to say it is, we all have a subjective viewpoint which is inextricably colored by all the individual factors Laura listed.
I’m not saying everyone has to adopt that answer - just that it works for me.
Comment by: Pete
8 08/22/07 9:34 AM | Comment Link |Somewhat. i think bias plays a big role. Though bias is a strong word with negative connotations. I’d say preference or even taste. I prefer to be intelelctual about things when I can, so I tend to see everything that way initially. My revelations usually come from spiritually-minded people and what they reveal to my logic-brain.
Some, yes. Some no. But I don’t think it really has an bearing on this.
No. I don’t think God is in the business of hiding things. The things he wanted us to know–that we needed to know–were usually spelled out clearly. He wants a relationship with us, so why hide from us?
Comment by: Mike Clawson
9 08/22/07 10:20 AM | Comment Link |I said this over at Bill’s blog, and I thought I’d post it here too. I’d agree w/Laura & Rachel and say “none of the above” to your three options. We all see what we expect to see. We all interpret the world through a set of lenses made up of our culture, our experiences, our upbringing, our philosophical assumptions and religious (or non-religious) beliefs, etc. It has nothing to do with one person being smarter than another, or one person being more open to reality than another. It has to do with the set of lenses you’re using.
Or maybe to put it another way, your #1 option is only half-right because we’re all too “biased” to see the other point of view - you, me, all of us - not just one side or the other. It’s not that I’m right and everyone else is wrong (or vice versa), it’s that we’re all inclined to filter reality according to our prior assumptions and presuppositions.
That’s why I appreciate people like you Helen who have tried on both sets of lenses and can often see both sides as it were.
Comment by: Laura M.
10 08/22/07 11:55 AM | Comment Link |Helen, I found this blog from a link in a post Siamang made recently on ebay Atheist. Not exactly ‘friendly’, but interesting, intelligent conversation:
Meek and Mild Atheists?
The name of the blog is Daylight Atheism.
Comment by: Helen
11 08/22/07 1:10 PM | Comment Link |Pete, I agree - why would God deliberately hide from us?
Mike, thanks. I’m fine with ‘none of the above’ as an answer!
Laura thanks for the links. I noticed that blog entry of Siamang’s but haven’t had time to look at Daylight Atheism.
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
12 08/22/07 5:44 PM | Comment Link |Rachel. Yeah! I’m not sure what Calvin himself believed, but my understanding about Calvinism today is that those who ascribe to it really do think really amazingly horrible things like that god chooses some people to go to heaven and some people to go to hell. blechola!
Helen, your “smarter”? question made me pause. Completely apart from the question of christian/atheist, I’m convinced I’m smarter than … most people. I mean of course it depends on how you define smarter. For instance, I seriously lack emotional intelligence–and there seems to be some evidence that emotional intelligence may be pretty darn important in lots of areas. But I mean the sort of modern, twentieth centurty way of talking about “smart”–meaning IQ–I’m up there in the percentiles, although not high enough for Mensa, I’m pretty sure.
But it led me to another question. If we are just talking about IQ, *is* it correlated with “belief in god”? I’m guessing there *is* a correlation–I hypothesize that in the western world, higher IQ is correlated with lower belief in god. I wonder if someone has studied this? I’d be interested to see such a study.
Now I wonder if I have managed to offend anyone =)?
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
13 08/22/07 5:52 PM | Comment Link |I googled “correlation of IQ and belief in god” and found some interesting stuff on the first page. Looks like there’s some evidence for my hypothesis. here’s one:
http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/religious_peopl.html
Comment by: Mike Clawson
14 08/23/07 12:40 AM | Comment Link |For the beginnings of an answer to that question, I’d recommend Peter Rollin’s book “How (Not) to Speak of God”. Or google “apophatic theology” or “via negativa”.
Comment by: Pete
15 08/23/07 8:04 AM | Comment Link |Interesting Mike. I read the pseudo-definition on Wikipedia. It seems like an interesting way to experience God, but not my thing.
And even there, we are learning about who God is (by going over what he is not). That’s not the same as God hiding, i.e. deliberately forcing some to not be capable of seeing him or recognizing him.
Though it is certainly a different way of seeing things.
Comment by: Helen
16 08/23/07 8:56 AM | Comment Link |Benjamin, based on my own experience I’ve run into smart Christians and smart atheists. So it doesn’t seem to me that being smart inevitably leads people into a particular belief or non-belief. I think it probably makes them more thoughtful about their own particular belief or non-belief.
In view of my experience, I’d be wary of any studies claiming a clear correlation; I’d want to know who did them, who was surveyed, whether they ruled out anything else which caused the results more than IQ etc etc.
Comment by: Karen
17 08/23/07 9:05 AM | Comment Link |I’ve not heard of a correlation between IQ and supernatural beliefs, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen studies showing a relationship between education and supernatural belief, in that the more highly educated a person is, they are more likely to reject the supernatural and vice versa.
Comment by: Mike O
18 08/23/07 9:53 AM | Comment Link |While I wouldn’t dispute this, it has always bothered me. Then it occurred to me … maybe it’s a “chicken and egg” thing. Maybe, just maybe, there *is* a negative correlation between education and belief in the supernatural. And we’ve always assumed that it’s teh increased education that caused the decline in belief in the supernatural (increased education results in decreased belief in the supernatural). I propose that the opposite is true … people lacking belief in the supernatural are more educated because they are trying to find a way to explain the natural order of things which doesn’t include the supernatural (decreased belief in the supernatural results in increased education).
It actually makes sense when you think about it. Whether or not there is a supernatural, people who believe in it are more likely to accept things without studying the snot out of it, which by extension would result in them tending to require less education. And people who lack a supernatural belief would tend not to accept things as they see them, which by extension would result in them seeking more education (studying the snot out of it).
I’m not saying either is right or wrong. I’m merely asking which came first? The answer to that question will directly affect the connotations that we derive from the correlation of the two.
Comment by: Mike O
19 08/23/07 9:59 AM | Comment Link |I really liked what Pete said here
We all have a certain bent to how we filter things. And I agree with Pete that it’s wise to listen to people who see it the other way. Maybe they can shed light on something that is outside your field of vision. I know I try to do that with non-Cs - I have learned TONS by listening to people who don’t think like me. It really helps me get a better balance.
Comment by: Steve S
20 08/23/07 10:43 AM | Comment Link |Of course, I think we are defining education here as ’secular western education’ a concept of ‘education’ that would be completely foreign to most cultures that ever existed…
If what we offer people as ‘knowledge’ doesn’t include the spiritual/moral/personal component then it would be a suprising thing if there wasn’t a correlation between that kind of education and disbelief in supernatural…
Comment by: Pete
21 08/23/07 10:54 AM | Comment Link |Good thought, Steve. In a nation where religion isn’t taught–isn’t even allowed to be taught–in the public schooling systems it makes sense that people would tend to get away religion or supernatural beliefs.
I’m not saying we should teach those things. But when you are educated for 7 hours a day from age 5-18, and none of it ever has anything to do with spirituality, God or religion (except maybe in a historical or political sense). And then you pursue a 4,6,or 10 year degree where it’s the same thing. You’re looking at anywhere from 13 to 23 years of life where the primary means by which you were ediucated said nil about spirituality. In that context, those studies wouldn’t shock me at all.
It just means youth pastors like myself need to get on the ball and do a better job making young people aware of God so they can make an informed choice, not a non-choice by default.
Comment by: Stephan
22 08/23/07 11:10 AM | Comment Link |Another factor I would like to see in the education/spiritual beliefs question is income level. People with a better education would have higher income potential, and I think people with a higher income level, and thus fewer unmet physical needs, would have less need for a “higher power”.
I have seen atheists throw out this stat to suggest that “smart people don’t believe in God.” I don’t buy it.
Comment by: Helen
23 08/23/07 5:05 PM | Comment Link |Steve S wrote:
My children have always been in public school. I appreciate how they have been taught such things as ‘respect others’. I consider that to be in the moral/personal realm if not the spiritual.
Furthermore, I would say I’m not aware that anything has ever been taught which invalidates or ridicules belief in God; it simply isn’t addressed. Which I’m fine with. Pete I agree that the best way to deal with faith not being taught in schools is for church youth leaders to teach it the best they can.
Comment by: Paul
24 08/24/07 7:49 AM | Comment Link |Hi Helen, you always ask such interesting thoughtful questions, thank you :)
Your first Q makes me think who isn’t biased? Followed by what is real? And my third thought is well it depends on what I’m looking at. If we’re talking about something awesome in nature than whether i believe God or random chance plus time are behind what I see then my view is going to biased - maybe it will merely reinforce my viewpoint and the explanation/stroy I already have ongoing in my mind as to how this happened.
I think the human story of birth, death, my consciousness of life, why it matters that i care about living and dying, excitment, fear, joy, guilt, reason etc cause within me more uncertainty - how we witness ourselves and our humanity, great acts of couragew, kindness,generousity and petty squables, ugly grudges, hate, selfishness on the other - that make me stop and wonder the most about God. I look in on myself and see the capacity and action for evil like a grumbling headache that refuses to go away. What does that tell me - i think too much? That i prefer looking outward at the world to spot God cos looking inward ain’t that much fun? That two rights don’t repay a wrong?
Is God just a form of therapy? a means to feel better about oneself? a form of projection? a sense of denial? And what about the changes within me, the parts that seem more healed, kinder, more generous, less angry and violent? Is that just coincidence? Or a source of hope for the future me?
You’re 2nd Q on smartness and view - is something i personally doubt. Does view have something to do with intelligence? Jesus seemed to point out to a child and said become like that to enter the kingdom of God - i think that is an invitation to learn, to seek to grow, to ask questions, to be curious, to continue to be aware that what i see may only be what i see now and not how i might see it as i ‘grow up.’ But i also see it as an invitation to wonder, to have mystery as something exciting and to have fun whilst i’m learning.
And of course learning from looking through someone elses window and seeing what they see and why they see it seems a profound on-going lesson. The minute i decide i’m grown up, right, have the full and correct answer and cannot learn anymore is the day i give into the blindness of my own ignorance.
As to your final Q, i wonder if we need to listen to those who see God and don’t attribute it to God. Just because the word God is not used in a sentance or view point does not mean we who claim to follow God can’t listen and learn - that our imagination can be set free and our faith stretched and grown. Instead of ignoring the evidence of the world around it and sticking our fingers in our ears to hear only the description of God we want to hear in creation - lets open our eyes to wonder and our ears to the symphony of the Creator’s creation. Why not evolution over billions of years - is our view of God so small or just our faith that we can’t delight in the thought of God taking eons? And what does that say for our future if we’re still evolving, if creation is still ongoing and we are still invited to be part of it?
I think we should listen to those who look at the world and say this is all we’ve got so we should try to make this the best world we can - as a christian i think that is central to the ongoing creation story and to the narrative of the bible.
Rather than saying heh you can’t see God i say we should thank them for showing us God, for reminding us that we who follow the Christian God have been invited to join with him in caring and tending for creation and seeking to do good to all people. I know i often get distracted back into doing caring only for me and doing what is good only for me, so I for one am extremely grateful for each little wake up call I recieve…
Comment by: Steve S
25 08/24/07 9:07 AM | Comment Link |Sorry Helen, you caught me making blanket statements again!
I do believe that what I said is true as a generalization, but not absolutely.
Schools (especially insitutions of ‘higher learning’) have routinely made statements in past decades declining to address morality and spirituality from the perspective of a ’search for truth.’ THey have become rather an anthropological survery of various ways of doing and being without passing any form of critique or comparison as to which might be better or worse.
There are some issues of morality that are addressed, but others that are routinely ignored, and I don’t think mny educators would be comfortable describing what they are doing as ‘teaching’ morality.
I don’t mean to advocate spiritual instruction in schools (especially public) so don’t hear me advocating that, I was merely pointing out that we have a system of educating people that routinely ignores spirituality and morality as a realm that we can know anything about in an objective sense, why then should we suppose that people who recieve this education would claim to have any knowledge about these realms?
We have ageneral cultural perception that in the realm of physics we can be right or wrong, but in the realm of religion everyone must be right, and in the realm of morality each person has their own set of morals that they should adhere to…
(Sorry,more blanket statements, but I think they are generally true none the less…)
Comment by: benjamin ady
26 08/26/07 7:39 PM | Comment Link |ok,
I stand corrected.
Just want to point out that there is definitely a difference between correlation and causality. Correlation is a lot easier to establish–it’s simple statistics–things either rise together, fall together, or rise and fall inversely to each other, to some degree, or else they don’t. Causality is a lot more complex. The causal arrow can go either direction, or of course both variables can be caused by one or more other variables. I know you guys know this already anyway!
I found a really fascinating article published by a UC undergrad in 2004 which looks pretty well researched (N=77). He has some really interesting things to say. He found for instance that people who self identify as “religious” has significantly lower QSAT scores than those who self identified as “spiritual”, “agnostic”, or “atheist” He found however that this negative correlation seemed to be more about acquired quantitative ability than inherent quantitative ability. I recommend reading the article.
Gosh now I’m so curioius. Want to do further research.
Regan also points out that there is a a substantial body of research out there indicating that religiosity *is* correlated with lots of fairly desirable things like higher marital happiness, lower suicide rate, existential well being, general life satisfaction, etc. etc.
Goes to show me, I guess.
Comment by: Helen
27 08/27/07 4:48 AM | Comment Link |Benjamin, I respect that you’re interested in this.
I find it distasteful, based on my experience, which is that whenever studies like this seem to prove anything, some people jump at the chance to say “See, I knew it! My group is superior to yours!”
If you can explain to me how this sort of research makes the world a better place then I’m open to changing my opinion about it. So far I’ve only seen it used in negative ways.
Comment by: David H
28 08/28/07 11:11 AM | Comment Link |Benjamin, an interesting study. I found it instructive to read the distinction between religious and spiritual.
According to Piedmont, spiritual transcendence is a “personal search for connection with a larger sacredness”
(p. 989), whereas religiousness concerns the social and organizational aspects of relations with the divine. Spiritual transcendence as measured by the STS comprises connectedness (the belief that one is an important link in the chain of humanity), universality (belief in the unity of all life), and prayer fulfillment (the joy and contentment that arise from communion with “a transcendent reality”). I measured religiousness, as distinct from spirituality, in terms of religious background, self-classification,
and behavior.
I can sort of agree with those definitions.
However, the study uses a fairly small sample (77 people) who are in some ways a fairly homogeneous group. While ethnically diverse, they are all college students who were recruited by the incentive of an extra credit in psychology. Moreover, the vast majority are women (who, the author notes, are universally more religious than men). Also, their self-identification as religious and or spiritual seems out of correlation to the larger societal statistics cited earlier in the study (90 percent in larger society vs. about roughly 75 percent of the study group. Finally, while not reported, it would appear that the vast majority were basically American or North American.
Still, results of the study are intriguing. Those who are identified as religious have significantly lower SAT scores than all other groups including those who identify as spiritual.
I’m not sure what it tells us. The author doesn’t appear to grasp for meaning beyond the scope of the study. Still, it would appear (as Helen observed) to give everyone — even those who believe in God but have problems with organized religion — the opportunity to consider religious types as some sort of bumpkins.
It makes me wonder about myself. I don’t have much use for the term religious, but I attend church regularly (I enjoy and find it helpful for me). I am fairly intelligent and occasionally logical. Would I prove those results or simply skew them?
Comment by: Ivan
29 10/22/07 2:48 PM | Comment Link |I wanted to make a comment about an earlier post. I have been an atheist from about 6 years old. Our house was a Christian one, but I had a solid investigative bent and very soon realised there existed no evidence for any kind of God. As a 50 year old that is now much better read I still come to the exact same conclusion of my 6 year old self “Show me the evidence”.
I am not “angry” or in “denial” or have a “chip” on my shoulder. I am simple and rational man that has a very great deal of trouble coming to the same mental outcomes about life,the universe and everything.
One of us must be wrong. I just want to see some evidence one way or the other that opens the subject up. I have yet to find a single thing that supports a Christian or God centred view.
kind regards
Ivan
Comment by: Helen
30 10/23/07 6:40 AM | Comment Link |Hi Ivan, I don’t have any problem with what you wrote.
I also respect that Christians see things differently; they do consider they have enough evidence/experience/reason to believe in God.