The Devil made me do it

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Anyone else have really psycho religious parents who don't believe in neurology?

can I get aman yes I hate it.

Yes, I have a religious parent who seems to think that autism and vaccines are connected; but I'm religious myself and love science and logic, so I don't see what being religious has to do with it. You can be completely non-religious and still buy into all the autism quackery.

Religious is not a synonym for illogical, people.

Unfortunately the two seem to go together often though.

But the OP did say PSYCHO religious parents, not just religious parents.

You mean parents who think autism is really the devil and not a neurological condition? I am happy to report no one in my family believes that. I, personally, do not believe in the devil. IMO people use Satan and the devil to excuse their own behavior and to scapegoat what humans and nature are capable of.

Not really; I think the idea that religious people are illogical is more of an illusion that comes from the sheer prevalence of religion in general. In the United States, about 85% of the population is a member of some religion, and more than 90% believe in some form of God. So, if you're saying that "lack of logic is more commonly found with religion", you have to remember that religion itself is so common that most illogical people will be religious even if it's completely left to chance. In various polls I've seen religious people as being either equally or slightly more likely to be college-educated or to have advanced degrees (though not very much more--a difference of 5% or less in the cases where it was significant) than those who are unaffiliated with any religion. One would assume that to get a degree, one must have some access to logical thought. So... I really don't think being illogical has anything to do with religion at all. There are logical and illogical people in both groups.

Illogical atheists will blame autism on vaccines... illogical religious people might resort to blaming demons. I really see no difference in the level of the refusal to think in an organized fashion.

There is an article on Nature called "Leading scientists still reject God" ( http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html ) that states that a research done with a poll of scientists members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) found that most of the scientists from the Academy rejected the idea of God. According to the research:

65.2% of the biological scientists from NAS don´t believe in God.
79.0% of the physical scientists from NAS don´t believe in God.

Only 5.5% of the biological scientists believe in God. For physicists and astronomers the number is 7.5%. The percentage of matematicians from NAS that believe in God is 14.3%.


The article is from Nature Vol. 394, No. 6691, p. 313 (1998)

Doesn't mean that being logical causes you to reject religion, though. I think it may simply mean that people who are extremely focused on the material world are both more likely to be atheists and more likely to become scientists.

In my home congregation, I am feeling more and more alone in my convictions that the earth is billions of years old, and that present life evolved from earlier creatures. Well, I still have my wife to keep me company in my godlessness.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer