Many atheists consider themselves to be highly rational people who rate evidence and analytical thinking above religion, superstition and intuition. They might even argue that atheism is the most rational worldview.
But that doesn't make them immune to having intuitive beliefs themselves. Science suggests the link between rationality and atheism is far weaker than is often assumed.
A study my colleagues and I conducted, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that even avowed atheists in some of the most secular countries on Earth might intuitively prefer religion to atheism. We argue this new evidence challenges simplistic notions of global religious decline and the beginning of an "atheist age."
In his 2007 book, Breaking the Spell, the philosopher Daniel Dennett speculated that, although atheists lack belief in god(s), many of them may retain what he dubbed "belief in belief." This is the impression that religious belief is a good thing, and the world would be better off with more of it.
But is this true? Our research investigated belief in belief among around 3,800 people in eight of the world's least religious countries: Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Vietnam.
Continue @ The Conversation.
