icehorse

Well I'm also a big fan of the Dalai Lama, but he's clearly an outlier, a wonderful outlier, but an outlier none the less. In general, most religious thinking is based on that particular religion's large set of dogma. (Most not all.) While scientific thinking is mostly the attempt to look at problems with as little dogma as possible. I would say that most people are "moderately religious" and in Western culture moderately scientific. What interests me for this particular thread is those people who would categorize themselves as "very religious" AND very scientific. Those people exist, and I'm wondering what their cognitive load is like as they switch back and forth between disciplines?

Good point - it seems intuitive that an agnostic or moderate would experience less load than someone more devout. In general I'm interested in the whole idea of "devoutly religious scientists" and how they juggle those two competing domains.

Hi Guys, I wasn't sure where to put this question - here or in the brain science forum, sorry. Full disclosure, I'm a big fan of Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, basically I'm very concerned about how religion is affecting the world. So here's the question: Given that religious discussion must be predicated on dogma, and that scientific discussion must be predicated on a lack of dogma, do people who are both religious and scientifically minded experience a sustained, cognitive load burden in day to day life as they switch back and forth from religious situations to "scientific" situations? (In this context, we could call jobs like programmer or sys. admin. "scientific".)

Hi Guys, I wasn't sure where to put this question - here or in the religion, sorry. Full disclosure, I'm a big fan of Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, basically I'm very concerned about how religion is affecting the world. So here's the question: Given that religious discussion must be predicated on dogma, and that scientific discussion must be predicated on a lack of dogma, do people who are both religious and scientifically minded experience a sustained, cognitive load burden in day to day life as they switch back and forth from religious situations to "scientific" situations? (In this context, we could call jobs like programmer or sys. admin. "scientific".)