Tag Archives: Dual Cognitive Theory

Thinking Styles and Religious Belief

Jonathan Morgan

Left and right brain hemispheres sketchy doodlesDid you know you have two minds?  Over the past decade, psychologists and cognitive scientists have been slowly building a consensus around this idea.  They talk about it in different ways.  Some say we have a rational mind and an intuitive mind.  Others argue (and I think they’re right) that both minds are rational, so it’s better to say “reflective” and intuitive.  Regardless of what you call them, the theory is becoming more and more persuasive.  It’s established enough to earn the psychologist Daniel Kahneman a Nobel Prize in economics!  He, by the way, just called them System 1 and 2- not super creative.  If this is how our mind is organized, where do religious beliefs, or religious experiences, fit in?

Continue reading