Queen's study finds religion helps us gain self-control

[MarkCharles]

44. I appreciate how some may feel insulted by descriptions

of what makes up many religious beliefs, and what phenomena can go on when people use religiously-based beliefs to stand in the way of actual scientific fact-finding.

Let's just look at some examples. The belief in a geocentric universe, and the punishment Galileo suffered as a result of religious belief clouding and fogging a mind as great as the Pope.

Another example would be Mormonism's teachings about black people before 1974.

Religious belief today that gay people are under the spell of Satan.

Would you prefer we call them "fables" or "fairy tales" or "wives' tales" or just plain bunk?

There are thousands of religious beliefs and other "customs" and "wives' tales" that have been challenged by science. I suspect hundreds more of them remain in practice, and many religious believers hold those beliefs as if they were scientific facts.

I have never said that scientific thinking CANNOT take place in the minds of religious believers, but we have lots of evidence from history and from right here, that there is a willingness to place religious beliefs in front of actual scientific evidence and to use it to confuse and confound the rigorous discipline which makes up sound scientific investigation. (Example: having a belief in the power of religion and wishing to test for truth, without proper neutral observations or null set placebo controls).