Fundamentalist Antihumanist Personality Disorder

I might expound more fully on "Fundamentalist Antihumanist Personality Disorder" in the future. In the meantime, we have all encountered those who make their attitudes our problem.

I stumbled across an old post about The Need for Absurd Belief Among Fundamentalists on the Breaking Spells blog. It discusses, amongst other things, the fact that fundies are desperate to attack segments of scientific knowledge.

I read it with interest because I am fascinated — and dismayed — by what I regard as the Fundamentalist Cognitive Disorder*. This is often linked to the Fundamentalist Antihumanist Personality Disorder.**

The final line of the post reads:

""Eventually, perhaps, the spell of religion will be broken.""

I decided to convert my response into a post.

Let’s hope! Religion continues to support damaging and outright dangerous cognitive and behavioural disorders.

I completely agree that fundies are terrified of knowledge — whether it’s science or the expert conclusions of unbiased biblical scholars. I also agree that this rigid thinking is the result of childhood indoctrination. Why else would IDiots be fighting to insinuate creationism into secondary science curricula?

I think that the motivation is not merely habit — it is highly emotional. It is also deliberately anti-factual, and, most important, illogical. They are trained into illogic and this fallacious thinking is reinforced by Bible quotes.

Successful religions have set up clever reward and punishment systems. Community is the most mundane motivation, but is probably essential for many. An eternal afterlife with a loving SkyDaddy who punishes one’s enemies is an obvious incentive. The flip side is the prison door. They fear what they are instructed to fear.

However, based on long observation of how some fundies think, I conclude that much of the emotional appeal lies in certainty and the assurance that religious-rule-following renders one RIGHT and morally SUPERIOR. (Excuse the caps. They seemed appropriate.)

It always reminds me of prefects in a school playground. Not a highschool playground. Not a primary school playground in North America. No, a school playground for children up to age 11. That’s the moral level at which these authoritarianism-oriented folk function.

Ugh!

* and ** : not official terminology

* and ** Disclaimer: not all fundies, religionists other than fundies, the occasional atheist.

Liberal plasticity, Conservative rigidity

I have been thinking about right-wing cognition, and have developed a theory based on the fact that the moderately clear dichotomy between conservative and liberal (moral) thinking probably has a fairly simple genetic-developmental explanation. That is, relatively few genes predisposing to one or the other cognitive style.

1. It has been demonstrated that willingness to obey authority is genetically inherited. Such willingness would have conferred a survival value after city states had arisen – disobey at your own peril.

2. It is has also been repeatedly demonstrated that conservatives are more likely to be less educated and to be staunchly religious church-goers.

3. It is also known that the brain is plastic in that it can recover many functions after head injury. However, people do not recover equally well after head injury.

4. Personality disorders are notoriously difficult to treat (modify) and dogmatic thinkers typically fare poorly in talk-therapy. Liberal thinkers fare comparatively well. Some dogmatic thinkers are extreme left-wingers because that was their parents’ political affiliation. However, dogmatic thinkers are more likely to be right-wingers.

5. Conservative church-goers are more likely to exhibit emotional, black-and-white thinking, and to be bigoted. They are more likely to be ESJ than NP. They are notoriously closed-minded and strongly resist reconsidering any of their early beliefs and assumptions. It’s as though they are not even able to modify their early pathways. (This is the reason that right-wingers are fighting to corrupt early school education.) Conservative fundamentalists react very emotionally and personally to any questioning of their beliefs – either by taking offence, or by personal attacks on the questioner.

6. Liberal thinkers tend to move from facts to theory (induction). New facts lead to a logical re-evaluation of theories, particularly for scientists. Conservative thinkers tend to move from emotionally satisfying dogma to distortion of facts.

So, here’s my theory about a genetic predisposition to right-wing thinking. It’s basically a matter of generally lesser brain plasticity. Conservative brains are genetically predisposed to be less able to readjust (be plastic) than are the brains of liberal thinkers. It’s also likely that higher education trains the brain to be more plastic.

It's no accident that mythical Eve's mythical fruit was plucked from the mythical Tree of Knowledge.

I’d be fascinated to see a comparison between cognitive styles in those who recover well or poorly from similar head injuries, or between cognitive styles and other measures of plasticity.

When is thinking not Thinking?

Research has confirmed my suspicion that church attendees are more likely to be ESJ on the MBTI.

Self-report that an individual makes decisions on the basis of thinking does not necessarily indicate that the individual's thought processes are logical or effective. Since people are aware that intelligence is socially valued, they are probably more likely to exhibit a bias for overreporting themselves as Ts. Most people are likely to overestimate the effectiveness of their thinking, in some areas at the least. One presumes that Sarah Palin fondly imagines that her thought processes are logical. An ill-informed, illogical, or magic-thinking thought is still a thought. So, S combined with T may be selectively ineffectual in promoting critical thinking. Data suggests that superficial, illogical, and emotional thinking are prevalent problems.

more .....

Religiosity und Moralkrankheit

The Germanic neologism translates as "moral illness". Does the squawking chicken come before the rotten egg, or vice versa?

"It is commonly held that religion makes people more just, compassionate, and moral, but a new study suggests that the data belie that assumption. In fact, at first glance it would seem, religion has the opposite effect. The extensive study, “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies,” published in the Journal of Religion and Society (JRS) examines statistics from eighteen of the most developed democratic nations. It reveals clear correlations between various indicators of social strife and religiosity, showing that whether religion causes social strife or not, it certainly does not prevent it."

"The question is one of causation, and there is no clear answer. Whether religion leads directly to dysfunctionality, or religions merely flourish in dysfunctional societies, neither conclusion from this study flatters religion. The first tells us that religion is a hindrance to the development of moral character, and the second that religion hinders progress by distracting us from our troubles (with imaginary solutions to real problems). This study is complicated enough that I do not think that we can draw definitive negative conclusions about religion. But we can at least conclude, contrary to popular belief in this country, that it is not a given that religious societies are better, healthier, or more moral. What we can be clear about from this study is that highly religious societies can be dysfunctional, whereas by comparison secular societies in which evolution is largely accepted display real social cohesion and societal well-being. "

Religious Belief & Societal Health : New Study Reveals that Religion Does Not Lead to a Healthier Society, by Matthew Provonsha

More: Sexism and Religiosity . Inverse Correlations . Delusion inversely correlated with FLQ .

What's in a Label?

Sam Harris' AAIC remarks certainly provoked discussion! (See What's in a Name?)

Reading blogosphere reactions led me to some thoughts on the topic of labels, worldviews, and approaches to message promotion.

Harris said that atheism is not a worldview. I would agree that atheism does not inhere a single worldview, though I do think that statistical clusters of approaches to thinking about the world are implied by the labels.

Conflating two opposing philosophical terms, I'll call the most frequently associated cognitive style 'rational empiricism'. That is, 'rational empiricists' formulate their worldview by emphasizing a combinination of logic and evidence. This is not to say that all agnostics or atheists arrive at doubt about supernatural claims through cognition, but it does seem likely that a greater proportion of those who approach the world this way will also be atheistic. The data on the relationships between lack of religiosity and IQ/education/scientific-attitudes supports this view.

Linguistically speaking, people use labels positively, negatively, or neutrally as simplification tools (jargon), as membership signals, and/or as position indicators. Labels are not only useful but highly likely to be applied by others. A label will be applied with negative connotations whenever we leave the choice solely up to our opponents.


If I say that I am an atheist, you quickly know that I am not a theist and more likely to be a 'rational empiricist' who is also against religious violence, pseudoscientientific mumbo-jumbo, and creationism in science classrooms.

Whenever I have debated such topics with a theist, they usually detect that I am atheistic from my position and I don't need to spell out that I am an atheist, or liberal, or pro-choice, or whatever else is under discussion. Particularly in a written medium where tone is not a clue, we do assess the writer's philosophical position if we are not sure whether they are being serious or satirical.

A religionist might decide that my being an atheist necessarily indicates that I am also guilty of a variety of religionistically-concocted-sins, presenting me with the opportunity to directly address the fallacious thinking beneath those religionist-labels.

I think that much of the reaction to Sam Harris' remarks related to the fact that he suggested that we hide from all labels, particularly the atheist label–"go under the radar"–which seems simultaneously a cop-out, a concession to theistic manipulation, and a loss of the rally to membership.

I really think thatHarris' message at the AAC was superfluous. I think that Harris, and some who are defending his statemenst, are missing the point that atheists always had the right to choose not to join a group of fellow atheists, not to come 'out' as atheists either socially or in debate, and not to emphasize atheism in lieu of rationality and evidence when debating about religion or creationism.

Elsewhere: Ellen Johnson responds to Sam Harris . Ellen Johnson responds to "The End of Atheism" . Sam Harris - pussyfooting to theists?! . Letter to a non-atheist New Atheist . What Label for People Like Us? .

Sam Harris' response: Response to My Fellow "Atheists", on Richard.Dawkins.net : and response to Harris' response: Sam Harris seems like a nice fellow, but very confused . “Cult” is the new “fundamentalist” . Fundamentalism .

AAIC 'o7: Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the AAIC : Dan Dennett at AAIC '07 :



agnosticismatheismcreationismeducationempiricismfallacies of logiclogicreligionSam Harris