If you're going to be unreligious, it's likely going to be due to reflecting on it and finding some things that are hard to believe.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that skepticism towards religion often arises from deep reflection and rational questioning.
Daniel Kahneman highlights that a shift away from religious belief typically stems from a critical examination of religious tenets, leading individuals to grapple with elements of faith that may seem implausible. This introspection can be a significant step in understanding personal beliefs and aligning them with oneβs rationality and experiences.
In practice
During a debate on belief systems, I referenced Kahneman's quote to emphasize the importance of critical thinking.
We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.
The average investor's return is significantly lower than market indices due primarily to market timing.
Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.
Laziness is built deep into our nature.
Through some combination of culture and biology, our minds are intuitively receptive to religion.
You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.
When this awareness grows, dreaming stops, by and by. When this awareness grows, the wheel moves slower and slower, because there is no point. You never move, so what is the point of travelling the whole earth? You remain the same; then desires slow down. One day it happens: the wheel is as silent, as unmoving as the hub. That is the point when enlightenment happens.
The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
I thought I might find the real me in Oxford. Civil rights made me accept being a black intellectual. There was no such thing before, but then it was something. So I became one.
The significance of man is that he is insignificant and is aware of it.
When you step further into the story you came to live, not only does the mythic territory open, but the deep self moves and the world of imagination and meaning comes towards you.
If you look throughout human history ... the central epiphany of every religious tradition always occurs in the wilderness.
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