Browsing by Subject "ontological confusions"
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(2019)Objective. The way science and religion relate is a topic of lasting debate and discussion but little research. Thus, people's perceptions of the science-religion relationship remain poorly understood. Yet, the way people relate science and religion to each other seem to be connected to their opinions, attitudes, and choices. The aim of this study was to examine how epistemic cognition, ontological confusions of core knowledge, and the perceived social importance of science and religion predict agreement with four science-religion perspectives: conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration. Method. Participants (N=2256) were adult Finns who had, in an online survey, given their view on whether science and religion are in conflict. The sample was largely nonreligious with 67.2% not belonging to any religious denomination. Three logistic regressions were used to predict the likelihood to hold the conflict, dialogue and integration views, and an ordinal logistic regression was used to examine agreement with the independence view. Age, gender and education were controlled in all analyses. Results. Intuitive thinking style, core ontological confusions, and the perceived social importance of religion decreased the likelihood to hold the conflict view whereas a simple view of knowledge and importance of science increased it. Regarding the three non-conflict views, core ontological confusions increased the likelihood to hold the dialogue and integration views, but decreased the likelihood to hold the independence view. In addition, intuitive thinking style increased the odds to agree with the dialogue and integration views. Moreover, importance of religion increased the likelihood to hold the dialogue and integration views while importance of science increased the likelihood to agree with the independence view. Discussion. Differences in epistemic cognition, core ontological confusions, and the perceived social importance of science and religion affected agreement with the four science-religion perspectives. Therefore, it is likely that the ways people perceive the relation between science and religion could be better understood through further examination of thinking styles, views of knowledge and knowing, category errors, and attitudes.
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(2019)Objectives. In Western Countries, like Finland, religiosity has simultaneously changed and declined. Respectively, nonbeliever identities have increased, but they haven’t received much research attention. Comparisons between believers and nonbelievers have been popular in the past research, and they’ve revealed differences in religious attitudes, intuitive and analytical thinking styles and ontological confusions. The aim of this research was to examine if those factors contribute to differences between groups formed based on nonbeliever identities. Believers were included to the study as a reference category. Methods. The data was collected as a part of the Uncovering the Hidden Nature of Unbelief research project. It consisted of 2112 adult Finns (age 18 to 84) who attended a survey. Religious and nonreligious identities were assessed by asking subjects to choose an option they felt most affiliated. Ontological confusions were assessed by the shortened version of the Core Knowledge Confusions scale, and thinking styles with the shortened version of Rational Experimental Inventory (REI). Two other Likert-scales were used to assess Belief to God and religious attitudes. Differences between the identity groups and factors contributing to them were analyzed by multivariate analysis of anova and discriminant analysis. Results and discussion. Most of the participants identified as atheists or agnostics. Differences between identity groups were detected in all of the factors examined: belief to god, religious attitudes, thinking styles and ontological confusions. Based on these differences, the participants were divided into four groups. A combination of belief to god, religious attitudes and intuitive thinking style formed a factor contributing to most differences between these groups. The results indicate that nonbelievers compose perhaps a more heterogenous group than assumed earlier, also when cognitive factors are taken into acknowledge. This is something to be taken into account in further studies.
Now showing items 1-2 of 2