Why does intellectuality weaken faith and sometimes foster it?

Intellectuality and religiosity are controversial concepts in terms of their relationship. Numerous studies suggested that intelligence and exposure to higher education reduce religiosity. Others posited, religiosity is positively associated with these factors or is unresponsive to them. The author asserts a dynamic model to address this ambiguity. Individuals make a choice when they are young, between holding a certain belief or disbelief on the one hand, or being a skeptic on the other. Subsequent intellectual achievements strengthen the chosen paradigm and makes a person's belief or disbelief stable but increases or decreases the suspicious belief based upon the situation. Intellectual development distort the internal consistency of the "dogmatic map" and people react to this distortion in different ways to make the dogmatic map consistent again. Believers ignore the distortion in favor of dogma, in the hope of a future solution or re-organize their dogmas to fit their intellectual achievements. Skeptics generally abandon their dogmas they suspect and begin to establish an independent cognitive map. Across the study, this model was tested through in-depth interviews with 53 subjects. The findings suggested that, increasing or decreasing belief and therefore to some extent religiousness; is an enhancive or reductive reading of the initial choice made in favor of doubt.

Mustafa Emre ÇAĞLAR