Is religious ignorance rational?
By Ilya Somin
February 6 at 2:30 pm
At the Times of Israel website, Israeli writer Avi Woolf uses my work on rational political ignorance to try to shed light on public ignorance about religion, particularly among Jews:
(M)y experience tells me that a focused NJPS-style survey of Jews’ knowledge of Jewish history and religion would reveal large if not enormous gaps in said knowledge, regardless of whether the Jews are Orthodox, secular or anything in between.
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As Woolf recognizes, ignorance about religion is far from an exclusively Jewish phenomenon. Surveys show widespread religious ignorance among adherents of most other faiths as well.
I agree with Woolf that there are important commonalities between religious ignorance and political ignorance. Much ignorance about religion clearly is rational for exactly the reason he indicates: Most people don’t have the interest, time, or expertise needed to learn as much about religion as clergy or theologians do. At the same time, ignorance about religion is in some ways less rational than ignorance about politics. For the individual voter, there is only a tiny chance that his political knowledge will make any difference to electoral outcomes. By contrast, individuals seeking salvation have good reason to learn about religion, regardless of whether others choose to do so or not.
If believing in the right faith or following the right religious laws is the road to eternal salvation, then there is a huge potential payoff to learning about religion. It’s more than just a matter of life or death. Life after death could be at stake too! There is also good reason to study religion even if you don’t care about eternal life, but just want to be a good and moral person. It could turn out that the only way to achieve that is to follow the dictates of a particular faith.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/02/06/is-religious-ignorance-rational/
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