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10th April 2012

“The tendency to cling on to our beliefs, and even to strengthen them, in the face of disconfirming evidence is often a real and dangerous problem.”

Andrew Brown

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 at 1:00 and is filed under QOTD. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Responses to “10th April 2012”

  1. Xhim Says:
    April 10th, 2012 at 3:55

    Very true. And the more a person invests himself in his belief system, the harder it is to change. According to Barna polls, the vast majority of professing Christians “converted” before their 18th birthdays.

  2. jhm Says:
    April 10th, 2012 at 11:58

    One interesting question this brings up is the difference between this effect in, say, the academe, where new ideas generally await a new generation, and religion (read: long standing tradition) wherein if a bias manages to last a few generations, it becomes immune to this churn.

  3. Sinjin Smythe Says:
    April 10th, 2012 at 12:51

    What are the Barnar polls? And what is Jim talking about?

  4. Sinjin Smythe Says:
    April 10th, 2012 at 12:52

    Spell check?

  5. Xhim Says:
    April 10th, 2012 at 14:11

    Barna is a pollster who specializes in polling religious, esp. Christian trends. He’s the source of info like, Christian divorce rates are statistically no different from the society at large.
    My comment is to confirm Brown’s: all of us at this site have invested ourselves in our own belief system, more than, say, a 15 year old has in his. The 15 year old is much more likely to change his views than us senior citizens who have been defending our beliefs for decades.

  6. Sinjin Smythe Says:
    April 10th, 2012 at 15:54

    The Associated Press 12/30/99 1:31 AM Eastern
    http://www.divorcereform.org/mel/rbaptisthigh.html

    BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Baptists have the highest divorce rate of any
    Christian denomination, and are more likely to get a divorce than
    atheists and agnostics, according to a national survey.

    …

    The levels vary among non-Christian groups, Barna reported. Jews have a
    divorce rate of 30 percent, while atheists and agnostics have a
    relatively low rate of 21 percent, according to the survey.

  7. Christian Gifts Says:
    April 21st, 2012 at 16:27

    Christian Gifts…

    […]Atheist QOTD » Blog Archive » 10th April 2012[…]…