Critical Thinking Blog #4

In the last Jacoby readings we were presented with, she writes about junk thought and how it effects anti-rationalism. Jacoby suggests that junk science is presented to the public as facts, smothered in scientific language, but rooted in opinion opposing real science. Many junk sciences include the supposed differences in male/female brains, the made up "post-abortion" syndrome and the power of prayer. One of the biggest things that upsets me is that heavily religious people swear by the power of prayer and consider it to me the all-power cure for anything. Anyone of my friends who decided to become religious study the bible like a textbook, take it everywhere, highlight phrases, and sit and preach. What they also all have in common is a serious lack of motivation to do anything else. They dropped out of school, don't really have a decent job, and just live in a bubble. They claim that God will show them the way and until then they feel like they do not need to do any work at making their lives better. They feel that if they pray, they are good people and things will just work out. It's amazing to me how easily people can be brainwashed by this form of junk thought. Jacoby mentions a study in the reading where extensive research was done on cardiac patients and monks and nuns praying for them. Millions of dollars were spent and the patients made no progress. They answered after the study saying that more research is to be done, that God always answers prayers and that sometimes the answer is no. What a load of crap. People see that research doesn't add up to the thesis and they still bank on prayer saving them. I don't think people are aware that the mind is very powerful and that prayer and religion just gives people something to lean on. Prayer and religion just gives people an excuse to never take irresponsibility for their own actions. My point isn't to bash religion, my point is to iterate how powerful junk thought is. People will believe what feels good to them. Jacoby's take home message is that anti-rationalism is playing a huge role on us stupid Americans. Through junk thought, pseudoscience, and unrealistic claims, people are mislead to believing all kinds of useless information. In more ways than not, we are creating our own ignorance.