Religion v Atheism in the Battle for Visual Perception Supremacy

There was an interesting study done at Leiden University in the Netherlands concerning the visual techniques of both atheists and Dutch Calvinists. The point of the study was to prove whether or not religious differences might skew perception. I’m surprised anyone pondered this, of course it skews perception.

The findings show that the Calvinists were able to pick out smaller shapes 30 milliseconds faster than atheists on average.

I have no problem with this, it doesn’t upset me because it doesn’t really prove much. The problem I have is with the conclusions the researchers draw.

My favorite is this one from one of the lead scientists:
“He suggests it may even be a cognitive consequence of their religion and speculates that Calvinists might be more inward looking than atheists because they have lived their whole lives with an emphasis on minding their own business.”

Hmmm, now I’ll be honest, Dutch Calvinism is a little outside of my range of expertise on religion, but, I can say with some certainty that no religion has ever minded its own business.

The conclusions seem decidedly slanted toward religion rather than science. Maybe the atheists were slower because they were taking in the whole picture while the Calvinists faith led them to look for something they believed was there without knowing it.

Personally, I don’t know what this means, or what it might even imply, I just thought it was interesting and that I’d pass it on.