Abstraction and religious belief

[MarcusOfLycia]

I recently read the following statement: "the more abstract thinking a position requires the less likely one is to be religious. This applies to all other fields [including psychology] as far I am aware, such as doctors, engineers, and military personnel".

This is coming from a very... 'militant' atheist (the kind who spends his free time mocking Christians or finding new creative ways to do so). My own response to this is a little complicated, but fundamentally, it involves stating that abstraction is a part of my job all the time (I'm a Computer Scientist). I know full well that abstraction can either help or hurt one's understanding of something because it is, for the most part, simply a construct in one's mind and in many cases completely untestable.

I agree though that in some cases this might happen; the more we rely on our own reasoning to solve problems that may even be beyond our understanding, the less likely we are to be humble enough to say 'maybe I'm wrong'. What's interesting is later on in his rant, he also states: "As far as I am concerned then, Christianity is just another form of death denial, and the greatest lie within the religion is that a Christian can ever attain any level of true humility."

I wonder what 'humility' is possible from someone with this sort of attitude.

EDIT: The first quote was modified a little - and I realized it might be confusing as to the context. Basically the guy who wrote this stuff is a psychology major who is going into theoretical stuff (though, I knew him years ago and he's always been an atheist who mocks Christians). In both instances he is responding to a psychology major working on more practical stuff (counseling in particular).

[narnia4]

I "think" I see a few problems with this but I'll let others respond. Just a few things, correlation doesn't equal causation (there could be other reasons why well-educated people are less religious, anti-religious bias and specifically anti-Christian bias in the "college environment" being one example that springs to mind). Secondly, he'd have to prove that these things are true, aka that military personnel are less likely to be religious, because that really goes against against "common wisdom", the general perception is that there are a lot of religious people in the military.

And I know he's wrong about doctors because I recently read some stats that showed that over 75% of doctors in the USA believe in a God and in some cases were more likely to be religious (more likely to be Buddhist or Jewish than the general population, for example).

Even if what he says is true, in America there would still be a higher number of religious people than not.

[Echoside]

my grandfather is a successful researcher, engineer, MIT grad, ex military, has worked with many prominent physicians of the last century. And he's a christian. I think all of the fields you mentioned have been covered

[Kurieuo]

I recently read the following statement: "the more abstract thinking a position requires the less likely one is to be religious. This applies to all other fields [including psychology] as far I am aware, such as doctors, engineers, and military personnel".

the person who says such a thing has never seriously taken the time or day to delve into theological issues.

[MarcusOfLycia]

Yeah... I don't think he knows much about theology at all. He makes claims at the end of atheist philosophical statements that he (to quote as accurately as possible) "I wouldn't want to worship a god with the character of the god in the bible anyway. Just look at what he did in the old testament". He seems to really enjoy reading and showing off things he disagrees with with Scripture and theology, but its all at the very surface of understanding. I have serious doubts as to his reading of prominent Christian theologians and philosophers throughout the history of Christianity.

I'm still caught on the fact that he thinks there's a direct correlation between working on something abstract and being an atheist (and notes that working in practical things would make one more likely to be someone who believed in the supernatural). Maybe its just a personal opinion, but I've always felt that since the practical realm is where we have the most contact with real, actual, concrete things, it should be foundational in our thinking. Otherwise, what's the point of abstraction anyway? To think big thoughts that are not falsifiable? Heh... sounds like the accusations Christians receive by the same people.