(June 3, 2021 at 1:56 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: To answer your question, I would say that to the extent that the expressed beliefs of others allow us to categorize them as belonging to a group different from ours, it will automatically and insidiously alter our opinions of them. And there are a number of ways in which these biases begin to emerge: Ingroup favoritism, ingroup overexclusion, outgroup homogeneity effects, the list goes on.
I think this is a key factor in discussions of belief. In so many cases, a belief is not an isolated assent to a proposition, but one aspect of group identity. Then the fact that one is a member of the group affects one's thinking in other ways. This is true for religious people and atheists as well. A person might feel drawn to one or more characteristics of a group, and then once he's joined let the group fill in all the rest of his beliefs.
So it becomes a package deal. You start with the idea that we need some kind of ultimate justice in the world, so you join a church and end up subscribing to a detailed theological system.
Or you have a general dislike of religion and its effects, so you begin to identify as an atheist and end up repeating the slogans you hear.
Probably people who identify with a group are also likely to feel entitled to claim for themselves the characteristics they see the group as having. So for example a very bad person might think that Christians are the group of good people, and since he's a Christian he's allowed to think of himself as good. Even though he's bad.
Likewise someone who can't think well and is ignorant of history might think of atheists as the group who reasons well and knows history. So by identifying as an atheist he can feel smarter than others, even though he's dumb.
