Elaine Pagels: Religion Is Deeper Than Rational Thought

Elaine Pagels, author of Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation, discusses the influence and persistence of faith and religion in the 21st century and how faith is deeper than rational thought.

[daroay]

ELAINE: if you read this... you are an inspiration. Thanks for resurfacing old wisdom.

[charlesweldy]

Without rational thought, what do we have but chaos? Without rational thought, you can believe anything..

[maninspired]

Yes, clearly emotion and feeling alone (void of rational thought) has advanced society so well. Good luck with that.

[Pythagoras]

No she means deeper, as in having a greater potential to yield insight, holistic awareness

[devlincolleen]

Pagels didn't actually say others are ignorant, she was referring to the fact that it's been suggested by others that *she* (Pagels) is ignorant. Watch the first few minutes again, and it should be clearer what she actually said.

[socksumi]

She's underestimating the depth of rational thought.

[jiberish]

Reactions from people here, who think that she really said what the title says, should give you an idea of why they are not the same thing, even essentially.
To get the full understanding of what she is actually saying, you have to listen carefully to the end.
She is talking about how the beliefs and traditions go beyond just rational thinking. (or what they would claim is rational thinking)
Just listen to 1:38 - 2:39, and remember when she says "this book" she's not talking about Antonio's.

[jiberish]

To be even more clear...
She is saying that religious beliefs and traditions are a lot like Descartes' Error.
In that they are driven not just by any form of rational thought, but mostly by emotions.

[ancientocc]

What is this, why so many dislikes!? It is interesting video!

[bizzee]

I think that people very often do not behave rationally, but I think that they often do think rationally too. For example, people are getting things like instant runoff voting passed to help break the virtual monopoly that the Dems an Repubs have on US politics. The way that voting is set up right now is that a vote for a 3rd party candidate amounts to a vote for their least favored option between the Dem and the Pub. Instant runoff voting can help people feel more comfortable voting 3rd party.

[ignoranttwat]

"It doesn´t give a deeper understanding than rational thought - or any understanding at all for that matter"

Yes it does. How could you possibly say that Gnostic Christianity, Sufi Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism don't give us deeper understanding of the world, without being almost completely ignorant of them?

[TheAnubisDrake]

That is the modern equivalency of judging a book by it's cover. Just because it goes by the name 'preview' and 'video', instead of 'cover' and 'book', doesn't make it any less true that this is what people are doing here.

[LeGioNoFZioN]

no she did say "much of religious tradition is deeper than rational thought", meaning it is guided by emotional response more so than rational thought, so what is exactly no true about that statement ? do you think religious tradition is more grounded in rational thought or emotion ? people on here often don't think before they comment.

[LeGioNoFZioN]

...there is something disturbing about people commenting on the deepness of religion vs rational thought when they haven't actually listened to the arguments put forth by the person featured in the video

[eldogglife]

Beliefs and faith can be achieved without rational thought but religion requires thought though we can argue its rationale. I theorize that someone a very long time ago concluded that religion is the opiate of the masses and therefore he/she/they constructed elaborate concepts which merge faith/beliefs with religion in order to control people who would rather obey than think. Religion is not deeper than rational thought, it's devoid of it.

[LeGioNoFZioN]

I never said any criticism vexed me, only the stuff that had nothing to do with what she argued, I would agree with your assesment of what she is saying on the other videos FORA posted moreso than this one. I'm religious, I disagree with most of what she argues, yet it wasn't me frothing at the mouth it was so called atheists and other cultured religion haters who were truly angry. that got to me. In this video she isn't arguing anything, only citing other work in relation to her own.

[voltcorp]

no. she said that "rational thought is MORE guided by emotion than we think" and that "religion (by not being conceptual) is deeper than rational thought".

[rokkvi]

So when I´m talking about philosophy, to prevent misunderstanding, I´m talking about 'pure philosophy', the philosophy you´d study at a university or basically philosophy without following it up with scientific research.

[LeGioNoFZioN]

thank you for being one of the few to criticise this video rationally

[voltcorp]

The problem is that religious thought is not able to access any parts of the mind which rational thought can't. Any limitations that you may argue rationality has, the same applies to religion, because it's born out of the same primal, emotional brain. It's not like spiritual thinking somehow magically circumvents our human limitations. Religion is not "deeper", it's just less reasonable. And according to Ms. Pagels, admittedly so.