This simply means that researchers found that people who learn to discern patterns subconsciously rather than consciously tend to be more religious than those who learn to discern patterns consciously. It's an interesting finding. Perhaps they view their own acquired knowledge as coming from a "divine source" since they were not aware of the learning process? It poses some interesting questions.

From the article: "This is not a study about whether God exists, this is a study about why and how brains come to believe in gods. Our hypothesis is that people whose brains are good at subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment may ascribe those patterns to the hand of a higher power," he adds.

"A really interesting observation was what happened between childhood and adulthood," explains Green. The data suggest that if children are unconsciously picking up on patterns in the environment, their belief is more likely to increase as they grow up, even if they are in a nonreligious household. Likewise, if they are not unconsciously picking up on patterns around them, their belief is more likely to decrease as they grow up, even in a religious household.

The study used a well-established cognitive test to measure implicit pattern learning. Participants watched as a sequence of dots appeared and disappeared on a computer screen. They pressed a button for each dot. The dots moved quickly, but some participants -- the ones with the strongest implicit learning ability -- began to subconsciously learn patterns hidden in the sequence, and even press the correct button for the next dot before that dot actually appeared. However, even the best implicit learners did not know that the dots formed patterns, showing that the learning was happening at an unconscious level.

The U.S. section of the study enrolled a predominantly Christian group of 199 participants from Washington, D.C. The Afghanistan section of the study enrolled a group of 149 Muslim participants in Kabul. The study's lead author was Adam Weinberger, a postdoctoral researcher in Green's lab at Georgetown and at the University of Pennsylvania. Co-authors Zachery Warren and Fathali Moghaddam led a team of local Afghan researchers who collected data in Kabul.

"The most interesting aspect of this study, for me, and also for the Afghan research team, was seeing patterns in cognitive processes and beliefs replicated across these two cultures," says Warren. "Afghans and Americans may be more alike than different, at least in certain cognitive processes involved in religious belief and making meaning of the world around us. Irrespective of one's faith, the findings suggest exciting insights into the nature of belief."

"A brain that is more predisposed to implicit pattern learning may be more inclined to believe in a god no matter where in the world that brain happens to find itself, or in which religious context," Green adds, though he cautions that further research is necessary.

Having carefully read through it, and with a background in psycholgy, I am still not sure I understand fully what the authors mean by "implicit pattern learning." It makes me skeptical of the whole claim but not confident enough to refute it.
I know from anecdotal experience, most Christians are greatly impressed by the patterns evident in nature and believe them to be strong evidence for god as "designer" of that nature.

But their worship of patterns aside, the implicit pattern learning seems to be something intuitive and subconscious. Perhaps the lack of conscious reasoning is the relevant factor? It is not that they recognize patterns that is relevant but that they do so intuitively, unable to declare a reasoning process in how they do it. The religious after all, are quick to attribute things they don't understand to miracles, God, etc.

All this leaves me wondering "so what?" Most are still either taught religious faith or not. It is hard to separate out how much experiential factors determine religiosity vs something innate like this pattern thingy.

Questionable

Not a lot! This is pseudo science and completely worthless. I am guessing that had they taken a similar sized group of atheists the result would probably have been much the same...just proving that regardless of ethnicity or belief system the cognitive ability of the human brain is remarkably similar.

No control group, no random assignment, self selected groups, could it get more invalid? And the researcher holds a doctorate in divinity. Biassed much?

It shows that religious dimwits are nonetheless still dimwits

Unconscious learning is what happens to you when all those around you are talking about god and all the nonsense they believe is related to a god. This is how religious denominations are born and why we have so many churches. When I was a teen a man left our church because nobody believed him when he was prayed for and claimed he was raised from the dead. (True story.)

Unconscious learning pervades all ignorance. It is that "stone wall" that perpetuates the ills of society. Much is being written about uncovering one's hidden belief system and cleaning it out. Too bad there is no curriculum early on in schools teaching the art of thinking. That could change the world.

Looks like junk science to me.

This seems very flawed to me. If only people with religious beliefs were tested, how do they know how they compare to the non-religious mind?

That it's a shitload of crap considering the source is a jesuit university.

I’m not conscious of what others are unconscious of.

The results would be a lot more relevant if they blinded for religious belief. All these participants already identify as religious, but the study didn't note how they measured degree of belief. The correlative link is weak.

An even more compelling factor in teaching faith is having it hammered into your head from the time you're six months old. That's how many people learn to believe. Relentless brainwashing starting before you can even understand what they're telling you.

I don't know yet, my unconscious is silent most of the time I'm awake.