Religion. I was born & raised a devout Baptist Christian (and creationist). But in the past 5 months, I've read about 50 books and hundreds of web pages and decided that agnostic atheism [1] and evolution make more sense.
Hopefully I didn't just devolve this into a religion argument...
[1] "Agnostic atheist" == I can't say for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I will live my life on the assumption he is not there.
Same here, only the other way. After being an atheist my entire life, I got more interested in religion over the past few months. After listening to dozens of hours worth of podcasts, and reading a few books and academic journal articles, I've decided that there is such a thing as a "primary religious experience." Furthermore, it's pretty clear that while academia can verify that this experience exists, science can't really go much further than that, at least in its current state.
As to whether this experience is caused by contact with god, or the sacred, or whatever, I'd put myself in your same "agnostic atheist" camp. Only I'd say that I'll approach some future experiences on the assumption that God is there. (Not that I'm going to go out and become super religious or anything, but being able to suspend disbelief once and a while is the key to making things fun, whether it's watching Star Wars or reading about Mysticism or whatever.)
That's the real take away I think, that in the same way most people don't like math because they were "mathematically abused" as kids, most people don't like religion because they were religiously abused as kids. When actually learning about religion is kinda fun and intellectually interesting.
The feeling of "spirituality" is certainly universal; after all, so many people have it that it would be absurd to call it purely a cultural construct. However, as far as we can tell, the generation of these feelings is not associated with any external sensor, the way that the experience of seeing is connected with your eyeballs. In all probability, the feeling of religiosity is mind-bound phenomena, much like love and awe, and are not capable of detecting any real external phenomena.
On another note...
I'm an atheist, but I wasn't religiously abused as a kid. I just am interested in science. The fantasies of others is considerably less entertaining than understanding the nature of the universe.
"In all probability, the feeling of religiosity is mind-bound phenomena, not capable of detecting any real external phenomena."
That's an interesting use of the word probability.
Can you justify that position using arguments qualitatively different than those used to justify the opposite position? (That the full-blown mystic experience is qualitatively different than anything that science has ever explained before or any experience generated from within the body, and thus there is no reason to believe that it's necessarily scientifically explainable or endogenous.)
As I said I'm actually more or less with you, I just see the logic of what the other side is saying.
(tl;dr Science can explain these experiences, but people just don't find the explanations satisfying.)
Many folks, religious or not, believe that many powerful experiences (like love or religion) aren't scientifically explainable. However, I think it's because such explanations aren't emotionally satisfying. Such explanations are usually either proximate (i.e. mechanistic) or ultimate (evolutionary.) and people just don't like that.
To use love as an example:
Proximate explanation: When two individuals have different MHC profiles, they are more likely to smell good and be attracted to each other. This attraction can sometimes lead to sex. After orgasm, the hormone vasopressin is released which causes a warm fuzzing feeling in both partners. After repeated instances of sex, there is a learned association of this nice feeling and being with the other person leading them to hang out with each other a lot.
Ultimate explanation: individuals which pair bond, resulting in biparental care, produce offspring which are more likely to survive to the next generation than those which do not.
But no one likes to think about that when they're snuggling up to their mate.
"Religiosity" isn't so cut and dry as love. The proximate explanation of spirituality is fairly well established by science i.e. religious experiences can be induced artificially with drugs (psychobilin) or electrical stimulation of the brain. The ultimate explanation I think is less convincing than for love. Most evolutionary psychologists consider religion a byproduct of adaptive psychological traits, such as superstitiousness (associating negative events with some cause- it's more costly to fail to learn what causes negative events than to associate unrelated events) and agency (a similar explanation- it's adaptive to assume that most things are caused be agents, i.e. a rustle in the leaves is a hungry predator, not the wind. If we assume it's the wind and it isn't, we're in trouble, but not if it's the other way around.)
I buy the existence of religious emotions, for instance a sense of wonder and awe when confronted with astronomy or a newborn child.
My problem isn't with religious education (I didn't get one).
My problem is belief in any ideology. Political or religious.
That is, people having certain opinions about how the world is built from internal emotional experiences. Especially when they know that lots of other people have internal emotional experiences which says they are wrong.
I used to think that Dawkins & co's books were just preaching to the choir. Yeah, I found them fun to read and nod along, but I didn't believe they'd change anyone's mind. I assume that this isn't an issue of logic, and when you're not dealing with logic for the most part, no logical argument would be sufficient.
Reading posts like these do make me believe that it's possible to change minds, if people are willing.
(I'm not saying those books aren't useful; they give a sense of legitimacy to those who don't side with religion and this is important.)
Well, religion and intelligence have been shown to be inversely correlated. Perhaps 'intelligence' is the wrong word; educational level might be better.
For example, only 7 percent of the members in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences believe in a personal god [1]. I forget the numbers for the general public of the US (I don't have the book with me), but it was the vast majority who believed in a personal god.
Of course: grains of salt, correlation vs. causation, etc.
I don't think being an atheist requires a certain level of intelligence, but I do think that people of a certain level of education have been taught to think critically about everything they read/learn/work with, which probably bleeds over into their personal life.
[1] Victor J. Stenger. Has Science Found God? p.78
In my experience and from statistics I have seen there is little correlation between intelligence and religious inclination. For example Donald Knuth is strongly religious. (Evidence: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/things.html. ) But can anyone honestly deny his intelligence?
That is not to say that there is no correlation. In general educated people are more likely to be exposed to thoughtful commentary on atheism, and are therefore more likely to consider the idea. But the correlation seems to be with exposure, and not propensity to be convinced by it.
A modicum of research reveals that 'The authors reported a correlation of 0.60 between atheism rates and level of intelligence, which is “highly statistically significant.”'
Yes, it is statistically significant. But it can't tell the difference between educated people being more often exposed to the ideas of atheism, and being more likely to find them convincing.
The furor over creationism vs. evolution indicates that even if the ideas themselves are not well exposed to uneducated people, some of the basic building materials and one of the frameworks of the discussion is there.
Most Christians (globally) care little about how man came into being and do not think either ideas have any impact on their faith.
It is the hardcore creationists who like to make out all Christians agree with them, and the hardcore underdog atheists who like to make out that all Christians are against them.
I don't know any Christians, and I know many, who believe that evolution and the bible are mutually exclusive ideas. They simply are not. And I wish both Atheists and Creationists would stop claiming that both ideas contradict each other.
Hopefully I didn't just devolve this into a religion argument...
[1] "Agnostic atheist" == I can't say for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I will live my life on the assumption he is not there.