Scientific studies link analytical thinking with Atheism

Yet another study I read is again throwing religion under the bus. Highlights of the article from Scientific America are below:

"People who are intuitive thinkers are more likely to be religious. Getting them to think analytically, even in subtle ways decreases the strength of their belief, according to a new study in Science."

"The research, conducted by University of a British Columbia psychologists does not take sides in the debate between religion and atheism, but aims instead to illuminate one of the origins of belief and disbelief. One of their studies correlated measures of religious belief with people's scores on a popular test of analytic thinking."

"But the researchers went beyond this interesting link, running four experiments showing that analytic thinking actually causes disbelief! "

"Analytic thinking undermines belief because, as cognitive psychologists have shown, it can override intuition. And we know from past research that religious beliefs—such as the idea that objects and events don't simply exist but have a purpose—are rooted in intuition. Analytic processing inhibits these intuitions, which in turn discourages religious belief."

"Harvard University psychologist Joshua Greene, who last year published a paper on the same subject with colleagues Amitai Shenhav and David Rand, praises this work for its rigorous methodology. "Any one of their experiments can be reinterpreted, but when you've got [multiple] different kinds of evidence pointing in the same direction, it's very impressive."

The study also gets high marks from University of California's evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala. Ayala calls the studies "ingenious", and is surprised only that the effects are not even stronger. "You would expect that the people who challenge the general assumptions of their culture—in this case, their culture's religious beliefs—are obviously the people who are more analytical," he says. "Obviously, there are millions of very smart and generally rational people who believe in God. Obviously, this study doesn't prove the nonexistence of God. But it poses a challenge to believers: If God exists, and if believing in God is perfectly rational, then why does increasing rational thinking tend to decrease belief in God?"