01-27-2010, 09:21 PM
Quote:Thanks for that link. A lot to speculate on there. Like why the education anti-correlation, is it school or is it intelligence? Why is so little of the shift from literal to figurative rather than to fictional?I suspect the proximate cause is region. The worst educated regions are the most religious, and vice versa. Whether *that* is causal, I don't know. My guess is that the answer is yes, and that the causation runs both ways, in a loop. But that's just a guess.
As for figurative-over-fictional, I've met a lot of very educated people who, for reasons I strongly suspect are social, have lost their strong belief, but still maintain a vague vestige of it, rather than switching to full unbelief. Most theists are willing to let you off the hook if you say something mealymouthed about religion, but a flat denial elicits a rather different response.
-Jester