Do you find it plausible that if your atheist friends took up religion, they would become less negative? Perhaps to the degree obtainable by associating with those with a more positive outlook, but I don’t think that’s the predominant cause of the corresponding attitudes.
It sound to me that what you describe as a positive attitude is being high on the Agreeableness Big Five trait, which happens to be the strongest predictor of religiosity of the five:
“Kosek (1999), MacDonald (2000;0, and Taylor and MacDonald (1999) found that measures of Agreebalenes and Conscientiousness were positively associated with measures of religios involvement and intrinsic religios orientation.MacDonald found somewhat differet patterns of correlatios acroos the Big Five, depending on the domain of spirituality examined. A factor labeled “Cognitive orientation toward spirituality” was related to Extraversion ad Openness only. A meta-analytic review (Saroglou, 2002) found that religiousness is consistently associated with high Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and low Psychoticism, where it is unrelated to other Big Five Traits.” (Handbook of personality: theory and research).”
Going against this conclusion is the fact that the correlations aren’t high. Agreeableness correlates with religiosity about r = .25. But your description makes it sound like your religious friends are at one pole of this trait and your atheist ones at the other.
No question that in general high Agreeableness is easier to live with, both for oneself and one’s associates. (I say this while I’m low on Agreeableness.) But the Big Five Traits are bipolor: neither pole is an unmitigated benefit. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that low agreeableness is a trait more propitious for pursuing rational conclusions regardless of where they lead, that is, for epistemic rationality. You, however, seem obviously high on Agreeableness, you might say an anomalous atheist. Since similarity leads to liking it isn’t surprising that you prefer the company of the Agreeable Christians. (Even low Agreeables such as I, might prefer Agreeables for personal association—Agreeableness is essentially “likability”—although perhaps not so much that we’d be willing to go to church for the experience. When I was a child hereditary atheist, some friends brought me to a meeting of the “Ethical Culture Society,” which tries to obtain the benefits of religion without supernaturalism. I didn’t like it—the experience was too Agreeable for me.)
Do you find it plausible that if your atheist friends took up religion, they would become less negative? Perhaps to the degree obtainable by associating with those with a more positive outlook, but I don’t think that’s the predominant cause of the corresponding attitudes.
It sound to me that what you describe as a positive attitude is being high on the Agreeableness Big Five trait, which happens to be the strongest predictor of religiosity of the five:
“Kosek (1999), MacDonald (2000;0, and Taylor and MacDonald (1999) found that measures of Agreebalenes and Conscientiousness were positively associated with measures of religios involvement and intrinsic religios orientation.MacDonald found somewhat differet patterns of correlatios acroos the Big Five, depending on the domain of spirituality examined. A factor labeled “Cognitive orientation toward spirituality” was related to Extraversion ad Openness only. A meta-analytic review (Saroglou, 2002) found that religiousness is consistently associated with high Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and low Psychoticism, where it is unrelated to other Big Five Traits.” (Handbook of personality: theory and research).”
Going against this conclusion is the fact that the correlations aren’t high. Agreeableness correlates with religiosity about r = .25. But your description makes it sound like your religious friends are at one pole of this trait and your atheist ones at the other.
No question that in general high Agreeableness is easier to live with, both for oneself and one’s associates. (I say this while I’m low on Agreeableness.) But the Big Five Traits are bipolor: neither pole is an unmitigated benefit. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that low agreeableness is a trait more propitious for pursuing rational conclusions regardless of where they lead, that is, for epistemic rationality. You, however, seem obviously high on Agreeableness, you might say an anomalous atheist. Since similarity leads to liking it isn’t surprising that you prefer the company of the Agreeable Christians. (Even low Agreeables such as I, might prefer Agreeables for personal association—Agreeableness is essentially “likability”—although perhaps not so much that we’d be willing to go to church for the experience. When I was a child hereditary atheist, some friends brought me to a meeting of the “Ethical Culture Society,” which tries to obtain the benefits of religion without supernaturalism. I didn’t like it—the experience was too Agreeable for me.)