Disbelief does not always require effortful rejection of intuitive theism.

Evidence

This hypothesis strikes me as partly true, but incomplete. First, atheism is more widespread and enduring than expected if it was merely driven by effortful rejection of intuitive theism. Moreover, while some nonbelievers, some of the time, may be working hard to overcome theistic intuitions, disbelief does not appear to always require hard or explicit cognitive effort. Many nonbelievers simply do not spend time thinking about religious ideas all that much. Third, this view is too narrow to describe all the different kinds of disbelief that we see in the world—in other words, reflective rejection of theism might be just one flavor of atheism. Once we combine insights about cognitive intuitions such as mind-body dualism and mind reading, with an understanding of cultural learning and cultural evolution, we see that there is, actually, not one atheism but multiple flavors of atheism arising from multiple independent pathways. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 578

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• QUESTION: The ‘multiple independent pathways’ claim is the analytical core here — worth checking which pathway best fits Rodrigues’s apostasy-under-duress case (analytic? InCREDulous?) in the reader’s cross-source argument.
• SEED: The claim that disbelief need not take cognitive effort — many nonbelievers ‘simply do not spend time thinking about religious ideas’ — is a strong counterpoint to the assumption that atheism is always defiant rejection; good foil for readings of apostasy in the novel.

Related

• Atheism has multiple independent causal pathways, not one (similarity 0.92)
• Religious thought defaults while disbelief requires deliberate cognitive effort (similarity 0.87)
• Disbelief requires deliberate effort against natural cognitive dispositions. (similarity 0.86)
• Religious disbelief is linked to a stable analytic cognitive style. (similarity 0.84)
• Atheism lacks the intuitive support that religious belief enjoys. (similarity 0.83)
• Disbelief arises through four distinct psychological and cultural paths (similarity 0.81)
• Religious disbelief correlates with analytic thinking independent of education, intelligence, or demographics (similarity 0.81)
• Religious belief persists through multiple independent sustaining mechanisms (similarity 0.81)
• Analytic thinking style independently predicts lower religious belief. (similarity 0.81)
• Deliberative System 2 thinking introduces doubt and can override religious intuitions (similarity 0.80)
• Religious faith is sustained by multiple independent psychological flames (similarity 0.80)
• Atheists’ unresponsiveness to God primes rules out ideomotor explanations (similarity 0.80)
• Studying nonbelievers’ responses to religious primes requires nonconscious priming and independent belief measurement. (similarity 0.80)
• Memorability alone cannot explain which supernatural agents get worshipped (similarity 0.80)
• Religious belief rests on ordinary cognition that predates motivational influence. (similarity 0.80)