Religion, Paranormal Beliefs, and Distrust in Science: Comparing East versus West

Abstract

Studies in Western contexts suggest that religiosity is in conflict with rationality since it relates to paranormal beliefs and distrust in science. East Asian cultures, known to be holistic and tolerant of contradictions, may, however, not experience this conflict. Using the International Social Survey Program, we analyzed data from Buddhists, Protestants, and Catholics in South Korea (Ns = 358; 391; 135), as well as Catholics and Protestants in Austria and Denmark (Ns = 715; 1,545). Results confirmed a positive association between religiosity and paranormal beliefs among dominant religious group but not among Korean Christians. Moreover, whereas religiosity in the West correlated positively with distrust in science, the opposite held for religious Korean groups. Religiosity mediated the relationship between paranormal beliefs and distrust in science among all dominant religious groups but in opposite directions in East and West. These findings bring a new cross-cultural perspective on the religion-science relationship.

When and why people think beliefs are “debunked” by scientific explanations of their origins

“…Our analysis additionally found a main effect of explained belief, F (1, 445) = 4.24, p = .040, (explanations for atheism were regarded more skeptically than explanations for belief in God across most conditions) and a main effect of participant's belief, F (1, 445) = 25.68, p < .001, (theists were more skeptical of all scientific explanations, consistent with past results showing that theists in the United States have less trust in science and scientific explanations; e.g., Clobert & Saroglou, ; Cacciatore et al, ). Finally, there was a significant interaction between mechanism type, participant's belief, and presence/absence, F (1, 445) = 5.83, p = .016, , which appears to reflect that, regardless of the belief being explained, atheists were somewhat more skeptical of abnormal presence explanations (i.e., displaying an abnormal pattern of brain activity) than normal presence explanations (i.e., displaying a normal pattern of brain activity), but were somewhat less skeptical of abnormal absence explanations (i.e., displaying a lack of an abnormal pattern of brain activity) than normal absence explanations (i.e., displaying a lack of a normal pattern of brain activity).…”

The Immoral Landscape? Scientists Are Associated with Violations of Morality

“…If anything, a more representative sample of Americans should have even more negative views of scientists. Moreover, given that attitudes towards science vary around the world [ 48 , 49 ], we anticipate that people’s intuitive associations with science would also vary accordingly.…”

Not All Skepticism Is Equal: Exploring the Ideological Antecedents of Science Acceptance and Rejection

“…Third, we included a measure of religious orthodoxy to tap into religious conservatism (next to the religious identity and belief in God measures). Arguably, the incompatibility of science and religion should be particularly strong for the religious orthodox because orthodoxy implies viewing religion as the main source of truth ( Clobert & Saroglou, 2015 ; Dawkins, 2006 ; Evans, 2011 ; Jensen, 1998 , 2009 ; Rutjens et al, 2016 ). As such, we expect religious orthodoxy in particular to be a strong predictor of general faith in science.…”