religion, educationA comment by DampeS8N came up in another question that in their experience educated religious leaders are more open to critical discussion of religion than the average follower. I have had a similar experience.
I was wondering, if anyone knew of research pertaining to this issue.
I know of research suggesting that people more open to pursuing higher academic degrees tend to be more open to new experiences, and have higher need for cognition. And that these traits are correlated with an ability to be incisive in even sensitive discussions. What I’m looking for are particular pieces of research that have explored tighter links along the chain from religious education to reasonable discussant of religious issues.
While personal anecdotes are alright (as long as they are of people you have personal experience with and not you just ranting about televangelists and Ray Comfort or the pope), I really am looking for solid research with easily searchable citations.
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Relevance to atheism: I argue it is related in as much as who atheists generally have less in common and more to discuss with theists, and having good discussion would be better than bad ones for all involved. Thus knowing this would help improve the debate quality.
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There is variation in all populations. There may also be variation between populations, in this case, between how reasonable the clergy of different religions are. Still that does not mean there are not statistical regularities that can be pieced apart. Feel free to speak at whatever level of generalization makes you feel more comfortable, and feel even more free to do so if you have data to back you up :).
My evidence is all anecdotal. I’ve never seen a specific study on it, and I’m not sure how one would ever happen, given the respective biases of science and religion.
Depends on the Church. Many churches require a certain amount of education to be a priest, and so the person you’re dealing with will be informed and reasonably secure in his beliefs. He’ll have had to debate them, and listen to other sides, etc, etc. Some of the best discussions of atheism I’ve had, I’ve had with priests. They understand the arguments, and tend not to be emotionally vested in the answer. It’s academic to (some of) them, so they can discuss it rationally.
On the other hand, you get crazy redneck southern baptist street preachers who don’t know nuthin but the good book! And they’re batshit crazy, and you won’t get anything rational out of them. Often though, they’re completely uneducated. Baptists roll that way.
So sure, I’d say it relates to education. Catholics are very conservative, and yet, as far a science goes, very liberal. It’s because catholic priests have very high education requirements: they have the respect for knowledge that a lot of education instills.
Too broad of a question. Different denominations have differing degrees of orthodoxy, fundamentalism, or fanaticism.
In the U.S. alone, you might find a perfectly reasonable Lutheran parishoner in Pennsylvania, and a completely fanatic Baptist preacher in Georgia. Or an open-minded Unitarian reverend in Massachusetts and a fire-and-brimstone churchgoer in Texas.
I don’t even think you can link academic degrees to reasonableness, because it’s not all that hard to get a “divinity degree” which is the equivalent of a professional echo chamber for theist teachings.
I don’t have any actual evidence to put forth, so this is entirely anecdotal. I would have to say no. I have experienced both laity, and clergy who are open/closed to religious discussion. However, this may be caused because I come from a mainly LDS/Mormon area (utah), and the clergy are picked out from the laity without any special training (at least not until they are selected, and the training mainly consists off how to operate what they’ve been assigned to). Well, there are a few exceptions of clergy who have to go through training before they are selected, but this is rare.
I don’t know of research, but it matches my experience. The more you know (even if it pertains to religion), the more enjoyable it is for me to talk to you.
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