The Power of Habit and Religious Beliefs : Habit-reactionary people need understanding.

I just finished the book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and you can find it here. It is a very readable book for those who don't like science stuff because it is too technical, too wordy, or whatever. Frankly, you will find as much interesting storylines in a story about science as with a fiction about teens in Paris and mystery novels. 

So I finished the book while I was on vacation in Phoenix, Arizona.  Lots of reading in the pool when I couldn't take the sun anymore.  When you have been in the Arizona in the summer you learn to take a modest dose of sunshine when your skin is unused to the persistent consistent sunshine. Then you accept the burn and hide in that shade.

Anyways, I was thinking of a way, as I stared at the rippling waves, of how to apply what he talked about when it comes to habits.  And it occurred to me that one way was to try and use it to explain why people react the way they do when someone questions their faith. I believe, in the sense of educated guess about how it might impact the discussion, that if more investigation was done into the process of the reaction then people that do react that way can understand why they act the way they do. When those people want to self explore those feelings it would be in the greater good to give them the facts about a very natural emotional response.

Back to the book. I don't want to steal his thunder but to explain my point I will summarize. Read his book.  What is interesting about how habits work, as discovered by real lab experiments with rats all the way up to humans, is that the habits are not a bug of brain operation, they are a feature.  According to the computational theory of mind, your brain is a computer programmed by your DNA and evolved through adaptation.  What that gooble dee gook means is to save power - like when your laptop or desktop goes into standby mode - it made a hardware module that specializes in running your body through repetitive actions that you have learned so your brain doesn't have to do all the work. 

Habits are formed by doing some action, triggered by a cue, and then at the end getting a reward.  A scientist found that all habits have three components: a trigger, a routine (the memorized action), and then at the end when the action/routine completes successfully - a reward.  It's the reward that causes the brain to remember that routine that worked when that specific trigger appeared.  Think Pavlov's dog and salivating when food and a bell wringing were put together.

So when you see someone react to a discussion questioning their faith, it's because they are following a habit with some of the brain copying a set of actions that got a reward.

Where do religious people get the trigger to defend their faith? Church.
What routine is memorized by people about defending their faith? Church sermons.
What is the reward at the end of the routine?  The acceptance and approval of the congregation. The praise of the priest/pastor.

This phenomenon was lamented by atheist luminaries like Richard Dawkins who commented strongly that it seemed every time a religious person was faced with unflattering information about their church or their faith that it seemed their brains turned off.  I have seen many TV shows, debates, and book promotion interviews by Richard where some religious person would completely ignore the truth he spoke.  It must be very frustrating and why he doesn't like confronting people like that.  Too true Richard! Here's a great video example of his response! I love South Park because the creators are very honest about what they talk about and here they just let it happen.

People programmed to respond by habit are not thinking. That's the problem. What needs to happen in the case of convincing people to review their own beliefs is to substitute a new routine so they can rationally question why they believe what they do. Or to change the reward at the end. Those are the methods recommended in the book. Please read the book if you want to help people

The problem, the real struggle for those people is that they have been programmed for years, since infancy in most cases, to believe what they believe.  Instead of scorn or ridicule, perhaps we need to be understanding of the dilemma they face - the cognitive dissonance and inner turmoil - that makes it hard for them to change their minds.  I think that the method of Bill Nye was the right one to make.

Bill Nye was very polite when he spoke to Ken Hamm.  He stuck to the facts.  He responded rationally to the arguments made by his debate opponent. His goal was not to convert die-hards but people that aren't so committed to the ideas. I think he did a great job!

Don't be strident, rude, or mock habit-reactionary people. If science is better and based on facts then let the facts speak for themselves.  Science can win out not when you attack them, but when they are gardening or fixing a car and the ideas you presented to them are rolling around in their minds they will think about them calmly and without judgement.  If science is better then