Atheism

After reading the article, I really can’t be bothered to read the study. Here’s some favorite parts:

there was a growing hypothesis that religiosity might act as a protective factor against cognitive decline, especially in the elderly. This notion stemmed from observations that religious involvement could offer social engagement and mental stimulation, potentially buffering against the cognitive impairments commonly associated with aging.

Okay, reasonable and compatible with other studies I’ve read about the importance of socialization, friends, and a support network. However, THAT’S A FACTOR YOU SHOULD CONTROL FOR. You can do a study on religion and socializing, or you can do a study on socializing and cognitive decline. You have at least one too many factors here.

I thought the author might disentangle it in the paper (I didn’t catch it in the article, but I bailed out early). But then the author comes up with this beauty:

Religiosity (although there have been negative impacts on humanity and human lives undoubtedly) seems to have a lot of (secular) merit too – otherwise it wouldn’t exist.

Whaaaaaaaaaat? Does Ebola exist because it has some merit to it? Or does it exist because it has merit TO EBOLA? That cancer growth you have going isn’t there to help you out. It’s fucking you over and it doesn’t care if you die. I can’t begin to express just how wrong this is.

Here’s just a couple of alternative explanations.

1. Religiosity is an unintended consequence of the evolved human capabilities for pattern matching, social learning, and hyperactive agency detection. The human brain is susceptible to this kind of meme (original sense) in the same way a human cell is susceptible to a virus, and like viruses religions will evolve in competition with each other and their environment.
2. Religions are omnipresent because they are useful, just not necessarily to those that believe in them. They are sure useful to the leaders and priests, though. This usefulness to the powerful creates a social structure that privileges the religious, giving positive selection on religiosity as a result.

Note: They’re not competing explanations. They’re compatible.

Then she laments that there’s no good work on it and most of it happens in America and she’s looking at more secular countries like Western Europe and … Israel. Now, a lot of Jews in Israel don’t consider themselves “religious,” but being a Jew in a Jewish community and especially in a Jewish country where being Jewish is pretty much the entire point. You get all of those benefits the researcher ascribed to religion - community, socialization, and so on. I’d count that as “religious.”

Honestly I didn’t get much further and wouldn’t bother with the paper just on the basis of this article with those quotes from her. And ten years to write it?! Did I read that right? I have no idea how this one got accepted.