{"id":32483,"date":"2025-12-07T03:00:54","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T09:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=32483"},"modified":"2025-12-05T16:23:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T22:23:23","slug":"dunning-kruger-for-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2025\/12\/dunning-kruger-for-religion.html","title":{"rendered":"Dunning-Kruger For Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Dunning-Kruger<\/a> refers to the work of psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, who identified \u201ca cognitive bias that describes the systematic tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Or, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetsgraves.co.uk\/Classic%20Poems\/Pope\/a_little_learning.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the words of Alexander Pope<\/a>, \u201ca little learning is a dangerous thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Most of my social media activity is on Facebook, because that\u2019s where my friends are. I\u2019m on Threads mainly to promote the blog, but early on I stumbled on to a bunch of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2024\/05\/dear-exvangelicals-im-rooting-for-you.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Exvangelicals<\/a> who were deconstructing their religion in much the same way as I did many years ago. I engaged with some of them and the Threads algorithm did its thing. Now my feed is flooded with people on the edges of the religious mainstream.<\/p>\n<p>Which means I see a steady stream of posts by Evangelicals (they label themselves Christians but I never see Catholics or Mainline Protestants in the fight, only Evangelicals) trying to \u201cdebate\u201d atheists and doing a very poor job of it. They present weak arguments based on weak evidence that they learned from preachers whose goal is proselytizing, not education. But they\u2019re 100% certain that they\u2019re 100% right.<\/p>\n<p>And as a quote often <a href=\"https:\/\/quoteinvestigator.com\/2018\/11\/18\/know-trouble\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">misattributed to Mark Twain<\/a> says, \u201cIt ain\u2019t what you don\u2019t know that gets you into trouble. It\u2019s what you know for sure that just ain\u2019t so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2025\/12\/Towne-Lake-11.08.25-050.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-32489\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2025\/12\/Towne-Lake-11.08.25-050-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"photo by John Beckett\" width=\"786\" height=\"524\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>They know nothing of metaphysics<\/h2>\n<p>Their first problem is trying to have a religious argument about topics that belong in other disciplines. Questions about the origins and nature of the universe begin in science, of course. But when we reach the limits of science we move into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2023\/08\/modern-pagan-metaphysics.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">metaphysics<\/a>, not religion.<\/p>\n<p>Metaphysics (\u201cbeyond physics\u201d) are our foundational assumptions about the world and how it works. They form a container for interpreting our experiences, a boundary between what we assume is possible and what we assume is not. Anything that conflicts with our metaphysics is likely to be rejected, because it\u2019s easier to deny the reality of our own experiences than it is to contemplate the possibility that our fundamental assumptions about the universe might be wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone has a metaphysics, but for most people, they\u2019re \u201cwhat everybody knows\u201d and \u201ccommon sense\u201d and \u201cjust the way things are.\u201d They\u2019re what they were taught as small children. They never consider that perhaps their fundamental assumptions are wrong, or that another explanation might be better, or that another approach might be more in line with their values.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not just metaphysics. I see people arguing religion when their question belongs in philosophy or ethics. I see people who argue \u201cthe Bible says\u2026\u201d without ever considering the field of epistemology \u2013 how we know what we think we know.<\/p>\n<p>They don\u2019t know what they don\u2019t know, and their insistence that they have all the answers lines up well with the Dunning-Kruger model.<\/p>\n<h2>They know little about their own religion<\/h2>\n<p>I grew up in a small fundamentalist Baptist church where the preacher hadn\u2019t graduated from high school, much less gone to seminary. Their idea of church history started in the American revival movement of the early 1800s \u2013 anything before that was considered \u201ctoo Catholic\u201d and therefore wrong. They knew nothing of Luther, Calvin, and Wesley. They ignored the historic creeds \u2013 their insistence that \u201cwe need no creed but the Bible\u201d showed a complete misunderstanding of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2019\/05\/a-pagan-creed-for-non-creedal-pagans.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">what a creed is for<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The people who try to start these \u201cdebates\u201d \u2013 most of whom come out of fundamentalist non-denominational or Baptist churches \u2013 have a similar ignorance.<\/p>\n<p>Just from paying attention to the mainstream culture (which was even more Christian then than it is now\u2026 and it\u2019s still very Christian) I knew there was a history I wasn\u2019t being taught. And so I read.<\/p>\n<p>I learned that all Christians were Catholics for the first thousand years, and in Western Europe for another five hundred years after that (it wasn\u2019t until after I became a Pagan that I learned how gradual and uneven the conversion of Europe to Christianity was, but that\u2019s another topic for another time). I learned about the Desert Fathers, Constantine, and the Council of Nicaea, and about Martin Luther and Henry VIII. My parents had grown up Methodist and occasionally mentioned John Wesley, but I had to learn on my own that he never intended to found a new denomination and always considered himself a priest in the Church of England.<\/p>\n<p>I still occasionally encounter people who say \u201cwe didn\u2019t branch off the Catholic Church \u2013 our church has an unbroken line to the \u2018New Testament Church\u2019.\u201d They have no more evidence for their continuity than the Pagans who claim to be direct descendants of the ancient Druids or medieval Goddess worshippers.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re going to recruit for your religion, the least you could do is to learn what it is and where it came from.<\/p>\n<h2>They know nothing about other religions (or the lack thereof)<\/h2>\n<p>Catholics don\u2019t worship Mary. Buddhists don\u2019t worship the Buddha. Muslims don\u2019t worship Muhammad. Pagans worship many Gods and none of them are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2023\/05\/sometimes-there-is-a-devil-in-the-craft.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">the Christian devil<\/a>. The fact that your preacher said they do doesn\u2019t make it true.<\/p>\n<p>More relevantly to their arguments, atheism is not a religion and it is certainly not a \u201cfaith\u201d (\u201cfaith\u201d is not a synonym for \u201creligion\u201d or \u201cdenomination\u201d or even \u201cpath\u201d). Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any God or Gods.<\/p>\n<p>Religion can be non-theistic. There are non-theistic Pagans who revere Nature and find meaning in our Pagan heritage, but do not recognize the existence of any deities. You can even be an atheist and believe in magic (my own three-part definition of magic includes one part that is entirely naturalistic) though most don\u2019t. Most atheists have no religion, because religion doesn\u2019t interest them.<\/p>\n<p>This is perhaps the worst \u2013 and the most offensive \u2013 expression of Dunning-Kruger: people who know a little about a religion (or lack thereof) that isn\u2019t their own and proceed to tell people who\u2019ve been practicing it for many years \u2013 or for their whole lives \u2013 what it really means.<\/p>\n<h2>The other side of Dunning-Kruger<\/h2>\n<p>Dunning and Kruger\u2019s model also points out that people who are quite knowledgeable about a subject tend to be very aware of how much they don\u2019t know. People who are well-informed about their own religion \u2013 much less who know a thing or two about other religions \u2013 tend to be tolerant (if not always accepting) of other people\u2019s religions, because they understand that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2022\/07\/certainty-is-the-greatest-sin.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">religious certainty is not possible<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>An honest religion is a humble religion.<\/p>\n<h2>Avoiding Dunning-Kruger as Pagans<\/h2>\n<p>Pagans don\u2019t proselytize, so I don\u2019t see this kind of behavior from Pagans too often. But I do see it some, and so we need to take care that we don\u2019t assume we know more than we do.<\/p>\n<p>The degree systems of Wicca, OBOD Druidry, and some other traditions are helpful for letting you know where you are on your journey. If you\u2019re in the Bardic Grove, you know for certain there are things you don\u2019t know, because you haven\u2019t been exposed to the Ovate or Druid Groves and their material yet.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re not part of a degree system \u2013 or if you are but you\u2019re dealing with something outside your tradition \u2013 try to remember that virtually all religious and spiritual traditions are deeper and more complex than they appear at first. Remember different traditions often have different metaphysics \u2013 different foundational assumptions about the world and how it works.<\/p>\n<p>If someone says something you think is wrong, look it up before you say anything. Even if they are, do you really need to correct them? There are no prizes awarded for best performance in an on-line religious argument. If they aren\u2019t harming anyone and they aren\u2019t promoting outright misinformation, it\u2019s probably best to mind your own business. We have no mission to convert the world to Paganism and witchcraft. It\u2019s our job take care of ourselves, and to be here to help those who have an interest in such things find their way \u2013 if they ask.<\/p>\n<p>There is a place for debate within the Pagan movement. We did a lot of that about ten years ago. Some of it was ultimately necessary and helpful in refining our beliefs and practices, while some of it just turned friends into enemies. But these debates are only useful among people who share enough common foundations to agree on the starting point. \u201cDebating\u201d people in other religions is a waste of time.<\/p>\n<h2>Beyond Dunning-Kruger \u2013 trying to assure themselves they\u2019re right<\/h2>\n<p>It would be incorrect to blame all the aggressive and poorly-reasoned arguments on Threads on Dunning-Kruger.<\/p>\n<p>While much of this is people who don\u2019t know as much as they think they know, a lot of it is people who\u2019ve been told that the fate of their immortal souls depends on believing the \u201cright\u201d things in exactly the \u201cright\u201d way. Deep down, they aren\u2019t trying to convince atheists to \u201cbelieve in Jesus.\u201d They\u2019re trying to convince themselves that they really really do believe themselves.<\/p>\n<p>And so they insist they really believe the Bible is the literal and inerrant \u201cWord of God\u201d when the evidence shows it\u2019s no such thing. They insist Adam and Eve were historical people when there\u2019s no evidence they were and plenty of evidence they weren\u2019t, because if Adam and Eve weren\u2019t historical people then the doctrine of Original Sin crumbles, and with it, their whole \u201cmetanarrative\u201d of sin and salvation.<\/p>\n<p>And of course, they believe some things \u2013 like being gay is a sin or that women can\u2019t be ministers \u2013 because they want to believe them.<\/p>\n<h2>Education and learning are always good<\/h2>\n<p>I was a smart kid who was very good at school. I was occasionally warned (though thankfully, never by my parents) about the dangers of \u201ctoo much education.\u201d That may have been my first clue that what I was being taught wasn\u2019t quite right.<\/p>\n<p>The more you study, the more you learn\u2026 and the more you realize how much there is you don\u2019t know. That can be scary \u2013 I once had someone tell me \u201cI wish I could go back to when I was a kid and just believed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to accept that our very valid questions about Gods and magic and life and death and what comes after have no certain answers. But better to be honest about our uncertainty than to lie to ourselves and to others and claim we know things that are ultimately unknowable.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m seeing a steady stream of posts by Evangelicals trying to \u201cdebate\u201d atheists and doing a very poor job of it. They present weak arguments based on weak evidence, but they\u2019re 100% certain that they\u2019re 100% right. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":32489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1101],"tags":[2718,587,4,5,4623],"class_list":["post-32483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foundations-and-context","tag-dunning-kruger","tag-fundamentalism","tag-pagan","tag-paganism","tag-threads"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dunning-Kruger For Religion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019m seeing a steady stream of posts by Evangelicals trying to \u201cdebate\u201d atheists and doing a very poor job of it. 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