Clark raises a good point, the story was messy. The 18th and 19th centuries in the US were a complex period, of constant intellectual flux and experimentation. My point was the old, established structures, such as state religions, which had united everyone under an uneasy banner, were gone. People were free to go their own way, which they did.

Skepticism, sometimes politically and emotionally driven cynicism of the sort that motivated scoffers at the early camp meetings, appeared alongside what could honestly be called cults demanding devotion to alpha type charismatic leaders. Reading Clark’s post, Ethan Allen immediately came to mind as a perfect example of an early American skeptic. Was his skepticism caused by sober reflection or was it the anguish of a troubled man who never reconciled himself to his father’s death?

I’d only say that while culture, politics and social class play a deterministic role, in an open system like the US, I suspect cognitive style and religious choice are strongly correlated. To use an indigenous dichotomy, it’s a case of “head religion” vs. “heart religion”

Of course I’m far, far from an expert or even necessarily well read on the era. It just seems from even my superficial knowledge that things were a bit more complex than that.

Simultaneously with this freeing up, we see the development of low-church Protestantism, which does not have a space for quiet skeptics or rational thinking. If you read the conversion narratives of the Great Awakening era types, or read more current literature, you see that Emotionalism and Intuition are crucial, there is little patience for the rationalizing of the earlier church fathers. This is not the relatively easy-going Catholicism of Erasmus or High Anglicanism, which provided some space for people, whose cognitive abilities are reflective as opposed to intuitive.

It seems that, thanks to the intellectual freedom made possible by the Enlightenment, the two types of cognitive approaches went their separate ways, and there is no longer any middle ground. Counter-intuitively, the Enlightenment, as made manifest in the American Congress, is also responsible for creating tolerance. But how long will this last? Perhaps I make the point too strongly, however.

That’s Wright’s take on why people are religious, too. In the appendix of his book he lays out his summary of the cognitive science. Here is most of it, would be interested in what you (and everyone else) agree/disagree with:

http://www.evolutionofgod.net/excerpts_appendix/

as an example of the tendency toward religion, consider the north korean regime. this long-lived ostensibly communist society has basically deified the the kim family.

only skimmed the book. it’s plausible. the cognitive stuff is what really interests me, and what i think we have a good handle on. higher order theorizing about religious cultural structures is a little less solid, though i think that’s where you have to go to characterize the phenomenon.

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Also, Lord Byron’s head was 2200cc and his daughter, Ada Lovelace, wrote the first computer program (after translating a paper on Babbage’s difference engine). Just sayin… We may have gotten physically weaker as a species, but we’ve also been doing more caesarians as of late.

http://men.webmd.com/news/20040413/scientists-explain-aha-moments

How much of that is due to evolutionary pressures leading to a default cognitive apparatus leading to “common sense” intuitions and how much is just what one learns from society (and unfortunately cartoons) is hard to break out. However breaking out those effects seems pretty important.

Regarding Wright I’ve not read him although I have read the books Razib mentioned in the other thread. (In fact I first encountered Razib doing a reading club on cognitive science where In Gods We Trust was first suggested to me) I think they make a pretty compelling case although there are still a lot of issues one has to tease out.

The other issue which I think Miguel starts to get at is that cognitive structure isn’t just an issue of genes. Rather the brain is developing as children learn thus the environment has a big impact on brain development. (Look at feral children who basically can’t learn language if not educated in time) Now of course it’s not an absolute “fixed” vs. “dynamic” situation the way it’s sometimes portrayed. Even things difficult to change (say due to childhood trauma) can be modified. And there are studies now suggesting that adults can learn language better than thought. (Remember the old claims about learning language before 9 and after 9) So it’s much more a continuity rather than structure vs. data. Still when teasing out the place of intuitions all this makes it quite complex since it is hard to separate environment from what’s innate to humans due to evolution.

“In this regard, the sensus divinitatis resembles perception, memory, and a priori belief. Consider the first. I look out into the backyard; I see that the coral tiger lilies are in bloom. I don’t note that I am being appeared to a certain complicated way (that my experience is of a certain complicated character) and then make an argument from my being appeared to in that way to the conclusion that in fact there are coral tiger lilies in bloom there. (The whole history of modern philosophy up to Hume and Reid shows that such an argument would be thoroughly inconclusive.) It is rather that upon being appeared to in that way (and given my previous training), the belief that the coral tiger lilies are in bloom spontaneously arises in me. This belief will ordinarily be basic, in the sense that it is not accepted on the evidential basis of other propositions. The same goes for memory. You ask me what I had for breakfast; I think for a moment and then remember: pancakes with blueberries. I don’t argue from the fact that it seems to me that I remember having pancakes for breakfast to the conclusion that I did; rather, you ask me what I had for breakfast, and the answer simply comes to mind. Or consider a priori belief. I don’t infer from other things that, for example, modus ponens is a valid form of argument: I just see that it is so and, in fact, must be so. All of these, we might say, are starting points for thought. But (on the model) the same goes for the sense of divinity. It isn’t a matter of making a quick and dirty inference from the grandeur of the mountains or the beauty of the flower or the sun on the treetops to the existence of God; instead, a belief about God spontaneously arises in those circumstances, the circumstances that trigger the operation of the sensus divinitatis. This belief is another of those starting points for thought; it too is basic in the sense that the beliefs in question are not accepted on the evidential basis of other beliefs.”

It would be interesting to do the test over again and instead ask about the legitimacy of inductive reasoning (which is intuitive, but can’t be defended rationally/non-circularly) or the legitimacy of the proposition that you are not a brain in a vat (which is intuitive, but can’t be defended rationally), or the legitimacy of solipsism etc. etc. etc.
Imo, Reflective people, *insofar* as they are at odds with those who give intuition benefit of the doubt, might get lucky here and there… but in reality, more often than not, I think they are the ones who miss out and get the wrong answer.

P.S. Plantinga and others would argue that reflective thought does in fact get you to God as well, even if most laymen (esp. Christian laymen) don’t do it with respect to their theism.

But the two are different things – talking Portuguese is intuitive for me (while writing in English requires some reflection), but is not natural or innate (some small changes in the History of some centuries ago, and i will probably talking in Arabic or Spanish). In the same way, beliving in God could be intuitive for someone who was educated in a religion that this don’t necessarly mean that is “intuitive” in the sense of “natural”.

“Moreover, both studies demonstrated that intuitive CRT responses predicted the degree to which individuals reported having strengthened their belief in God since childhood, but not their familial religiosity during childhood, suggesting a causal relationship between cognitive style and change in belief over time.”

This could go in favor of what really bieng “intuitive” is not belief in God, but belief in what your parents and social environment teached you.

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/
http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xge-ofp-shenhav.pdf