Unconscious learning underlies belief in God, study suggests

Here is the paper which is open access:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18362-3

8 Likes

What about people who have firm faith in God for a large part of their lives and then become atheists or agnostics in their 30s or 40s?

I have never associated athiesm with a mental inability. Perhaps the study has some kind of selection bias involved?

Interesting questions! I will hazard a guess there is a difference between intuitive and learned pattern recognition. That wouldn’t represent inability, but rather learning a new way to think about things as a person ages.

I have never associated athiesm with a mental inability. Perhaps the study has some kind of selection bias involved?

That could be too. I’ll try to give it a more careful read later.

1 Like

It could be true that Individuals who can unconsciously predict complex patterns, an ability called implicit pattern learning, are likely to hold stronger beliefs that there is SOMETHING WHICH creates patterns of events in the universe. and also true that the SOMETHING WHICH is usually thought to be God. Personally, I believe that the SOMETHING WHICH is the God of the Bible. I hold that the Bible is a faithful witness to the work of God in the world, something that I address on my blog at agesofjoy.blogspot.com. I also believe that I experience God’s influence on my life and in my consciousness. I became occasionally aware of a sense of His presence when I began learning about God as a child. I became unshakably aware of His presence when and since accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord on the night of December 31, 1987. Only as I studied Scripture and science at Caltech did I become convinced in how faithfully God has witnessed to Himself through His Creation, through Scripture, and through how He has worked over the course of human history.

1 Like

Apophenia gonna apophene… :wink:

2 Likes

They finally discover the cognitive bias?

2 Likes

Hi Ashwin. That is a fair question. In my own experience, being 50 now, I think it is not uncommon for people, even with a firm faith in God, to have unbiblical expectations of God. They really want to see God’s blessings continually poured out on their lives when in reality God is calling them to suffer and endure for His Name’s sake in some way or as a way to conform them to His image. They become discouraged - God doesn’t come through for them they way they want Him to, when they want Him to, so they allow their faith to be choked out. Some people abandon God in the same way they abandon a career path they once thought was so great or a marriage or a friendship. Just my thoughts.

One could just ask a 50-something atheist though, instead of asking random theists to speculate on other people’s state of mind? Just a thought.

4 Likes