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Is religion the prime source of anti-intellectualism?

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Rhetoric 7 Jan 5
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16 comments

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0

Religion is the main source for deciding that fact learning is just too difficult = it's easier to "believe" and "have faith", than to search for a real truth. Religion has bogged down progress and civilization.

0

when you spend 1 hour out of 5 hours in school studying irrelevant tripe it has to effect how much you are able to learn about the important parts of life [ like history and the sciences]

0

Nearly a millennia of Dark Ages is proof enough for me to answer a big fat YES. I theorize that (in reflection of Ray Kurtzwell's predictions) that people would already have a life expectancy of 2 or even 300 years if one particular belief had not happened (you know).
Wow, listening to Alice in Chains (loud) while browsing this site is so coool... hehe

1

I said it depends. In NH there are non-religious rednecks who are trumpsters like my ex and his friends.

0

Definitely in this day and age. All you've got to do is watch a few 'flat earth / Apollo fake moon landings ect Utube videos to see this. And whenever a Utube video is presented featuring Geological themes just look at some of the comments ! Truly 'brain dead' creatjionists responses. It's mostly in the US of A that this situation is observed although we have them here in Australia as well. Also do a search on the Internet by typing in 'The dumbing down of America' and you'll see mentioned one of the main causes of anti-intellectualism is the religious 'mind set ' of the USA.

1

No. Lack of education.

skado Level 9 Jan 5, 2018
1

There is no blame to being stupid, but using religion to prove how ignorant you are, and to convince others to follow your stone aged ideas is criminal, especially when attenrive children might be turned into Christ Zombies.

1

No, the prime source for being anti-intellectualism is not being consistent with acknowledging the evidence.
I see this all the time with UFOs. Debunkers will constantly leave out a piece of evidence to fit with in a belief system.
If you want an answer to your question, I'll leave this interview of John Michael Greer by Alex Tsakiris to point out that why you see this anti-intellectualism.

5

It is a prime source of anti-intellectualism, but certainly not the only one. Extreme commitment to ANY political, religious, economic, or social dogma is also a prime source. l

8

Anti-intellectualism is principally due to a lack of education.

1

I think that one of the main sources of anti-intellectualism is the search for meaning that many people undertake and settlement for ' answers' offered by New Age Philosophy.

0

Obviously yes. There's a large body of data that explores the subject. My masters thesis explores the subject.

7

It's not the source, but rather an unfortunate product thereof. "God did it" is a surprisingly effective tool for quelling a restless mind. It works on an emotional level rather than a cognitive one, and that's why it succeeds in the face of conflicting evidence.

2

It's the prime promoter of anti-knowledge.

2

Currently. There have been times in history when the religious were the only ones advancing any intellectual activity. This is largely, I think, because we've got our society to a point where religion is no longer a social glue.

i was thinking about the middle ages

3

It depends. Isaac Newton was definitely religious, but he qualifies as an intellectual. Gregor Mendel, who is usually credited as the founder of genetics, was an Augustinian monk. There's also a long tradition of academic learning in Judaism and Islam (and, no doubt, in other religions too).

Jnei Level 8 Jan 5, 2018

Your examples are accidental contributions to science.

  1. Isaac Newton believed in alchemy not science.
  2. For Mendel genetics was a means to an end.
  3. Many religions have pseudoscientific beliefs that shy away from actual science whenever it is inconvenient to their presuppositions.

A fair point.

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