Why do People Believe in God(s)?

blinding · 04-10-2009 09:37PM

Murphys agent is not as good as gods agent.

If Murphy had a good agent then we would all believe in Murphy.

philologos · 04-10-2009 09:52PM

Malty_T wrote: »

I'm not going to drag this into a child doctrination thread, but surely you'll argee that the child is vulnerable to believing anything? And a scientologist would find it easier to convince him/her than the likes of you?

If put under undue coercion perhaps. This isn't an argument against the propensity to gain faith and belief, it is an argument against it's abuse. It doesn't render it absolutely bad.

Malty_T wrote: »

It is! Ask yourself, which responds first your emotion or your rationale?

That's only if you believe emotions to be a bad part of human experience. Personally I think human emotion is valuable as it is what ensures that we care for each other. Such opposition to emotion is unhealthy, and ultimately an unrealistic expectation of mankind.

I don't share your view that reason is more important than emotion always. Both have their purpose.

Turtwig · 04-10-2009 10:42PM

Jakkass wrote: »

I don't share your view that reason is more important than emotion always. Both have their purpose.

Where have I said that reason is the more important?? That is not my view, and it never will be.

If put under undue coercion perhaps. This isn't an argument against the propensity to gain faith and belief, it is an argument against it's abuse. It doesn't render it absolutely bad.

No, it's not against its abuse it's simply a question of who do you think has stronger views an adult or a child and who do you think easily goes back on them?

That's only if you believe emotions to be a bad part of human experience. Personally I think human emotion is valuable as it is what ensures that we care for each other. Such opposition to emotion is unhealthy, and ultimately an unrealistic expectation of mankind.

Why is it only true if you believe emotions to be bad? Emotions have their uses, but they are not always for good. Where exactly are going with all this, I haven't said that we should completely ignore all our emotions; that would be just downright stupid. All I have merely done is pointed out that link between emotion and reason and how ,sometimes, emotion acts where in hindsight it shouldn't.

Jakkass, I'm not sure what you're trying to disagree with here, if you could clarify that it would be nice. It seems, you're just trying to state your opinion, your own beliefs. My main purpose for this thread is simply to state the science that is out there trying to understand our brains.

Húrin · 04-10-2009 11:58PM

Max Power1 wrote: »

Thats quite an oxymoron there!

SO the bible is the truth and relates to your life does it?

I think this categorical, almost evangelical certainty that all religion is false is ridiculous given that atheists are a small, mostly privileged minority in both global human society and history.

According to most atheists, logical thought only ever leads to atheism. You guys are not perfect thinkers - face it. You're as conditioned by your secular western culture as much as any theist.

Wicknight wrote: »

I think you just demonstrated why asking them probably won't help very much

So answers like Jakkass' are useless or false because they don't fit into your ideological view?

Turtwig · 05-10-2009 12:14AM

Húrin wrote: »

According to most atheists, logical thought only ever leads to atheism. You guys are not perfect thinkers - face it. You're as conditioned by your secular western culture as much as any theist.

Why introduce the strawman?
I've highlighted your section in bold, because I'm pretty darn sure that we acknowledge it, sadly for the fundamentalist religious person they probably don't.

I think this categorical, almost evangelical certainty that all religion is false is ridiculous given that atheists are a small, mostly privileged minority in both global human society and history.

Aww, pity that it's only what you think...show us some evidence please that atheists are privileged folk..

So answers like Jakkass' are useless or false because they don't fit into your ideological view?

Well that was addressed to wicknight, but as for me I like to try and stay ideological free:). At least I'm trying....

Húrin · 05-10-2009 12:57AM

Malty_T wrote: »

Why introduce the strawman?
I've highlighted your section in bold, because I'm pretty darn sure that we acknowledge it, sadly for the fundamentalist religious person they probably don't.

If an atheist categorically rules out the possibility that someone could believe in God due to reason, as Max Power1 appeared to say to Jakkass, then he is proclaiming his interpretation of reason to be flawless, and the other's to be flawed.

Speaking of strawmen, why the implication that Jakkass or anyone else here is a fundamentalist (which is unfortunately these days a term of abuse rather than a statement of fact).

Aww, pity that it's only what you think...show us some evidence please that atheists are privileged folk..

If you rank countries by belief in God and church attendance, European countries tend to show the least enthusiasm for religion, and African countries tend to show the most participation. I thought this was common knowledge.

Turtwig · 05-10-2009 01:08AM

Húrin wrote: »

If you rank countries by belief in various God(s) and church attendance, European countries tend to show the least enthusiasm for religion, and African countries tend to show the most participation. I thought this was common knowledge.

Yep, my apologies, I thought you were talking about middle to upper class developed world citizens. Yes, definitely, I'll agree that in a place like Africa religion is a necessary motivation to survive: Imagine telling someone who has 8 kids and all of them are sufferring from malnutrition, that there is no purpose, whatsoever, to living other than to experience the wonders and majesty of this world.. this is why in my view Religion will never go away altogether.
I'm still going to reiterate though that the 'privileged' in 1st world countries aren't the only atheists.

If an atheist categorically rules out the possibility that someone could believe in God due to reason, as Max Power1 appeared to say to Jakkass, then he is proclaiming his interpretation of reason to be flawless, and the other's to be flawed.

Well, Max did vote 'No' to Lisbon :P

Speaking of strawmen, why the implication that Jakkass or anyone else here is a fundamentalist (which is unfortunately these days a term of abuse rather than a statement of fact).

Where has this implication being made regarding anyone here? Seriously, you've got to stop thinking so negative..

Húrin · 05-10-2009 01:21AM

Malty_T wrote: »

Yep, my apologies, I thought you were talking about middle to upper class developed world citizens. Yes, definitely, I'll agree that in a place like Africa religion is a necessary motivation to survive: Imagine telling someone who has 8 kids and all of them are sufferring from malnutrition, that there is no purpose, whatsoever, to living other than to experience the wonders and majesty of this world.. this is why in my view Religion will never go away altogether.

Exactly. If you said that to such a person it would only increase their misery. If you said the same to a rich person who has the world as their oyster it will make them feel free, happy and powerful. However neither observation makes the claim (bolded) true.

I'm still going to reiterate though that the 'privileged' in 1st world countries aren't the only atheists.

I didn't say they were.

Well, Max did vote 'No' to Lisbon :P

thanks

Where has this implication being made regarding anyone here? Seriously, you've got to stop thinking so negative.

You must have said the f-word for a reason because nobody else did.

eoin5 · 05-10-2009 01:24AM

Malty_T wrote: »

Yep, my apologies, I thought you were talking about middle to upper class developed world citizens. Yes, definitely, I'll agree that in a place like Africa religion is a necessary motivation to survive.

Necessity is the mother of all invention.

Turtwig · 05-10-2009 01:31AM

Húrin wrote: »

You must have said the f-word for a reason because nobody else did.

Might want to read the context in where I said the F-word, it had nothing to do with labelling Jakkass or anyone here a fundamentalist.

Exactly. If you said that to such a person it would only increase their misery. If you said the same to a rich person who has the world as their oyster it will make them feel free, happy and powerful. However neither observation makes the claim (bolded) true.

Of course we don't know whether it is true or not, but it is a good incentive to have religious beliefs isn't it? I struggle to see how the rich person would feel powerful, S/he is simply nothing but a tiny miniscule entity that has no power in the grander schemes of things they are simply deluded into thinking they have power. I do not know what is the truth, but I find it very hard to believe that this ferocious world was created solely for our existence.

Zombrex · 05-10-2009 09:47AM

Húrin wrote: »

So answers like Jakkass' are useless or false because they don't fit into your ideological view?

No, they are useless because they are filtered through Jakkass's perception of himself, and as such are subject both to him presenting his views possibly in a more favourable light (which we all do) and also him not being aware of the tricks his mind may be playing on him (which effects us all)

I wouldn't expect someone to accept on face value the reasons I claim to believe or hold to some position either, and I imagine neither would you.

Dades · 05-10-2009 10:02AM

Húrin wrote: »

You're as conditioned by your secular western culture as much as any theist.

I have to disagree with this.

People become atheists despite society not because of it. How can atheists be a product of any society where we are still very much in the minority?

CerebralCortex · 05-10-2009 10:32AM

Dades wrote: »

I have to disagree with this.

People become atheists despite society not because of it. How can atheists be a product of any society where we are still very much in the minority?

@Hù;rin

When I think of my experience I was conditioned by both my catholic upbringing and hollywood, movies and tv was stronger and I'm now trying to undue the damage of those media. I came to a-religiousity becuase of the pure hypocracy of people who practice and preach them and the sheer lunacy of the beliefs themselves. I came to atheism on my own and quite reluctantly. I only wish I was born into a secular society.

Goduznt Xzst · 05-10-2009 12:21PM

Jakkass wrote: »

It's also nice to believe that atheists have a monopoly on logical thinking, but this isn't the truth either.

Húrin wrote: »

According to most atheists, logical thought only ever leads to atheism. You guys are not perfect thinkers - face it.

Logical thought does not inherently lead to Atheism, logical thought leads to doubt in ones owns opinions of the currently unknown. Once you accept this you can then expand it to all areas of your life. Which Religious dogma is correct for humanity is a pretty big unknown would you not agree (leaving aside the gaping holes concerning the true origins of this dogma)

So the logical thinker assumes a position of doubt in regards to Religion.

As an aside for both of you, how do you go about discerning what criteria a person needs to meet to fully understand the supposed inspired writings of a deity? Can merely anyone read the bible and understand what this deity intended to be understood? Given a group of contemporaries who have all read the Bible and formulated varying understandings of it's true meaning and what the deity was thinking when he inspired it how do you go about choosing which understanding is correct?

Sam Vimes · 05-10-2009 12:28PM

Húrin wrote: »

If an atheist categorically rules out the possibility that someone could believe in God due to reason, as Max Power1 appeared to say to Jakkass, then he is proclaiming his interpretation of reason to be flawless, and the other's to be flawed.

I can kind of see how reason alone could be used to bring someone to choose belief in a God over non-belief using things like the cosmological argument or the ontological argument. Things like "something cannot come from nothing" can seem very convincing. I don't agree with any of those arguments and they are each flawed in their own special way but I can see why people might accept them.

But any "rational" arguments I've seen for a God pretty much end at the concept of a deistic God. Anything beyond that involves someone looking at one of thousands of books which all make completely unsubstantiated supernatural claims, which all proclaim themselves to be the one and only truth and deciding that this one is true and that all others are false. Even within religions there are sects within sects within sects and there is no way someone can objectively look at all of the different permutations and combinations and decide that one is so much more likely to be true than any of the others that they will dedicate their lives to it. The best they can say is that it "makes sense to them", that it intuitively "feels right" or that it most closely matches their own view of the world, none of which are rational reasons. The last one explains the tiny number of converts between religions but of course if a religion happens to match my world view that in no way indicates that it's more likely to be true than any others, it means it matches my world view and no more.

Occasionally you'll hear people come out with nonsense like the idea that it is so unlikely that a particular group of people lied or were deluded that it is more logical to believe that someone rose from the dead but such statements are just that, nonsense. Such logic is only ever applied to their story and the fact that claims like that are made and widely believed all the time is ignored. Statements like that are not the rational reasons by which anyone ever came to accept a belief, they're desperate straw clutching attempts at justifying a belief they already hold

If one particular sect of one particular religion was objectively more rational than all of the others we would be seeing a massive exodus from all religions to that particular sect but the fact that we see a statistically insignificant drift both to and from all religions indicates that people are just picking the one they like most or have some other reason like marrying someone from that religion. It's no accident that the overwhelming majority of religious people have the same religion as their parents.

philologos · 05-10-2009 01:14PM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

If one particular sect of one particular religion was objectively more rational than all of the others we would be seeing a massive exodus from all religions to that particular sect but the fact that we see a statistically insignificant drift both to and from all religions indicates that people are just picking the one they like most or have some other reason like marrying someone from that religion. It's no accident that the overwhelming majority of religious people have the same religion as their parents.

This isn't true by any means. It's also a reason why rational choice theory has ultimately failed in political science. People do not choose things purely on the basis of reason. Even if one faith was more rational than the rest, people would have emotional reasons for not joining said faith, or that the conclusions could be inconvenient in contrast to their current lifestyle.

Godunzt Xzst wrote:

As an aside for both of you, how do you go about discerning what criteria a person needs to meet to fully understand the supposed inspired writings of a deity? Can merely anyone read the bible and understand what this deity intended to be understood? Given a group of contemporaries who have all read the Bible and formulated varying understandings of it's true meaning and what the deity was thinking when he inspired it how do you go about choosing which understanding is correct?

Do we need to go through what exegesis and hermeneutics are again?

Sam Vimes · 05-10-2009 01:33PM

Jakkass wrote: »

This isn't true by any means. It's also a reason why rational choice theory has ultimately failed in political science. People do not choose things purely on the basis of reason. Even if one faith was more rational than the rest, people would have emotional reasons for not joining said faith, or that the conclusions could be inconvenient in contrast to their current lifestyle.

Rational choice theory has failed in political science because the best way to run a country always has been and always will be a matter of opinion, just like which religion to pick. You're right to say that people have emotional "reasons" in both politics and science, this could be amply seen in the recent Lisbon debates where a select few people simply refused to accept that our EU guarantees were legally binding despite the overwhelming evidence that they are and the complete lack of anything but an appeal to an extremely unlikely possible future event to suggest that they're not, the event being the idea that the ECJ would somehow rule "the decision is legally binding" to mean something other than "the decision is legally binding".

There will always be the stubborn few in any area of inquiry but anyone who came into the forum genuinely wondering if those guarantees were binding left accepting the clear evidence that they were. It was only those with an extreme mistrust of anything in any way associated with Fianna Fail who didn't, those who didn't want to believe. You see it even in science, where all of the evidence points one way and the vast majority of scientists accept it but there are always the few who won't. You can never achieve total consensus.

But with religion the opposite is true. We don't see the vast majority moving towards the consensus that one particular sect of one particular religion has the most rational basis and only the stubborn few refusing to accept the overwhelming evidence, with religion it's the ones who change who are very much in the minority. And that's because there is no way to use reason alone to pick one religion over all others, it's all emotional "reasoning", ie not reasoning but picking one based on how closely it matches your world view. And of course your world view closely matches christianity because you were raised surrounded by christians, who gave you that world view.

philologos · 05-10-2009 01:49PM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

But with religion the opposite is true. We don't see the vast majority moving towards the consensus that one particular sect of one particular religion has the most rational basis and only the stubborn few refusing to accept the overwhelming evidence, with religion it's the ones who change who are very much in the minority. And that's because there is no way to use reason alone to pick one religion over all others, it's all emotional "reasoning", ie not reasoning but picking one based on how closely it matches your world view. And of course your world view closely matches christianity because you were raised surrounded by christians, who gave you that world view.

Ad populum argument first and foremost. A majority doesn't determine something to be more rational than another.

Again, Sam it's you disregarding what any theist has had to say about their own acceptance of faith. You claim it is all emotional, yet in reality I thought about what I was doing and researched what Christianity entails, and why it is closer to the reality than not. If you aren't willing to at least concede that much then we aren't discussing what is really behind what theists decide. Again, it's highly presumptuous and farcical to suggest that we do not know what our own thought process was.

As for how closely Christianity matched my worldview, that's nonsense considering I didn't have a worldview before I read the Bible. I.E I was an agnostic, it was only after I started to see what Christianity was really about that I saw changes in how I regarded the world.

Again, this is about what you want to be true, rather than what actually was the case.

Turtwig · 05-10-2009 02:03PM

Jakkass wrote: »

..

Ad populum argument first and foremost. A majority doesn't determine something to be more rational than another

Indeed.

Jakkass, if one looks hard enough for meaning in a telephone book they will find it.

Sam, is not saying that faith is all emotion based, he is saying that faith depends more on emotion than reason. This has been scientifically proven, so you can disagree all you like but

Sam Vimes · 05-10-2009 02:07PM

Jakkass wrote: »

Ad populum argument first and foremost. A majority doesn't determine something to be more rational than another.

It doesn't necessarily no but your argument was that some people use emotional reasoning to prevent them accepting rational positions and I pointed out that when something truly has a rational basis, when something is objectively true and has been clearly shown to be, these people are always in the minority and it's always some bias, either political or religious, preventing them from accepting the evidence. This is not the case with religions where the vast majority stick with the religion of their parents which suggests that no one has any more rational basis than any other. You can argue that some people have emotional reasons for not accepting the hard evidence that your particular branch of your religion is objectively true but not that 95% of the world have such reasons and that you don't, that you were lucky enough to be born into the religion that has the most rational basis

Jakkass wrote: »

Again, Sam it's you disregarding what any theist has had to say about their own acceptance of faith. You claim it is all emotional, yet in reality I thought about what I was doing and researched what Christianity entails, and why it is closer to the reality than not. If you aren't willing to at least concede that much then we aren't discussing what is really behind what theists decide. Again, it's highly presumptuous and farcical to suggest that we do not know what our own thought process was.

What christianity entails is essentially irrelevant in terms of life lessons etc, all that matters is how likely it is to be true and until its supernatural claims are shown to have any more basis than any of the other millions of supernatural claims it can't be rationally chosen over all others. You can read about how a christian should live his life and decide that you think it's the best way but there is no way that one old book can offer sufficient evidence to objectively show that its claims of the laws of nature being broken are all true (except the ones that we have decided are metaphorical) but that all of the other books that make similar claims are false. It becomes especially fuzzy within religions when you have disagreements like the nature of the trinity, whether the bread and wine actually turn into the body and blood of christ, whether Mary was a virgin etc. Then you have different interpretations of passages depending on which sect you happen to belong to. None of these sects have any hard evidence to show that they're right and everyone else is wrong.

Jakkass wrote: »

As for how closely Christianity matched my worldview, that's nonsense considering I didn't have a worldview before I read the Bible. I.E I was an agnostic, it was only after I started to see what Christianity was really about that I saw changes in how I regarded the world.

What's nonsense is the idea that you were a completely blank slate until you read the bible. You were raised by christians and surrounded by christians so the chances of you becoming, for example, a Mormon were greatly diminished no matter how convincing their claims might be

Goduznt Xzst · 05-10-2009 02:07PM

Jakkass wrote: »

Do we need to go through what exegesis and hermeneutics are again?

As you did not reply to the main body of my post I'm going to assume you agree with it.

I'm not looking for you to explain what exegesis and hermeneutics are, I'm asking you to explain how one of the current Biblical understandings that you accept is more accurate than another (you do accept that exegesis is not exact and always open to reinterpretation) Are you open to accepting reinterpretations and accepting that your current understanding of the Biblical texts could be fundamentally wrong?

The main issue with exegesis is that it starts off from a position of presumption. You presume that humans are capable of truly understanding the thoughts of a Deity, even if it did inspire the Bible. Without knowledge of the author external to the source material you can never fully know that what you are interpreting was written by a God or merely by a mad man in a cave.

Turtwig · 05-10-2009 02:21PM

I linked to the US version, because the blasted UK version has no reviews available yet
Probably going to be my next read after TGSOE,

Book on the empathy shown by animals towards one another, that helps to destroy the view that all animals are bloody thirsty savages and inhumane.
Why do so many religions present the view that humans are the superior and therefore the only moral kind?

Zombrex · 05-10-2009 02:30PM

Jakkass wrote: »

Even if one faith was more rational than the rest, people would have emotional reasons for not joining said faith, or that the conclusions could be inconvenient in contrast to their current lifestyle.

That is probably true but at the same time you don't get half the worlds population believing the a different theory of electromagnetism, or thinking that Holland won the 1982 World Cup.

If two people claim that they have rationally picked a religion based on a clear headed assessment of the evidence for the truth of said religion and both of them pick very different religions, you know there is something other than rational assessment going on there.

As Sam says you weren't a blank slate when you came to assess Christianity. Pretending otherwise is again a reason why asking you why you picked Christianity is not very enlightening.

philologos · 05-10-2009 03:46PM

Malty_T wrote: »

Sam, is not saying that faith is all emotion based, he is saying that faith depends more on emotion than reason. This has been scientifically proven, so you can disagree all you like but

You really need to stop saying this when things are actually contested. Emotion and reason play in all decisions. I'd like you to cite if you are going to make such claims though.

Godunzt Xzst wrote:

The main issue with exegesis is that it starts off from a position of presumption. You presume that humans are capable of truly understanding the thoughts of a Deity, even if it did inspire the Bible. Without knowledge of the author external to the source material you can never fully know that what you are interpreting was written by a God or merely by a mad man in a cave.

Generally it involves researching the culture and the language behind the text so as to gain a more meaningful understanding as to what it originally meant. For example if one reads the footnotes in the opening passages of Genesis concerning mankind, one will find that a lot of terms have certain meanings in the original language that have been lost in translation.

I don't presume that humans are capable of understanding the thoughts of God, but rather that God is capable of revealing Himself in human terms. The Bible is a limited revelation, there is much about God that we cannot know.

philologos · 05-10-2009 03:47PM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

What's nonsense is the idea that you were a completely blank slate until you read the bible. You were raised by christians and surrounded by christians so the chances of you becoming, for example, a Mormon were greatly diminished no matter how convincing their claims might be

Considering I was an agnostic prior to reading the Bible for myself, I.E I wasn't sure, or I didn't have as deep a knowledge as I do now.

As to the nature of what my parents taught me faith wise, I know for myself what they taught me, and I do not need to justify myself before you. Claiming I am dishonest about my own life isn't helpful in any means to the discussion. I experienced a change in how I saw the world after reading for myself that I didn't have before. If you wish to doubt that that is fine, but I have lived it.

Sam Vimes · 05-10-2009 03:51PM

Jakkass wrote: »

Generally it involves researching the culture and the language behind the text so as to gain a more meaningful understanding as to what it originally meant. For example if one reads the footnotes in the opening passages of Genesis concerning mankind, one will find that a lot of terms have certain meanings in the original language that have been lost in translation.

All that shows you is what you think the original authors meant, heavily biased of course by your own preconceptions of god. It doesn't show "that humans are capable of truly understanding the thoughts of a Deity" and the point remains that "Without knowledge of the author external to the source material you can never fully know that what you are interpreting was written by a God or merely by a mad man in a cave."

Zombrex · 05-10-2009 03:56PM

Jakkass wrote: »

Considering I was an agnostic prior to reading the Bible for myself, I.E I wasn't sure, or I didn't have as deep a knowledge as I do now.

People tend to pick the first religion or set of religions they are exposed to unless there is a particular reason otherwise, as most religions "tick the boxes" so to speak for what people are looking for.

You grew up (I imagine) in a culture and society steeped in Christian tradition, it is hardly surprising that when you came to look at Christianity it made sense to you. It would have been more surprising and interesting if it hadn't, and you had chosen to go looking at other religions.

Sam Vimes · 05-10-2009 04:02PM

Jakkass wrote:

Considering I was an agnostic prior to reading the Bible for myself, I.E I wasn't sure, or I didn't have as deep a knowledge as I do now.

As to the nature of what my parents taught me faith wise, I know for myself what they taught me, and I do not need to justify myself before you. Claiming I am dishonest about my own life isn't helpful in any means to the discussion. I experienced a change in how I saw the world after reading for myself that I didn't have before. If you wish to doubt that that is fine, but I have lived it.

I'm not saying you're being dishonest, I'm sure you believe what you're saying but the fact remains that your entire thought process was built around christianity by virtue of being brought up by christians and surrounded by christians so the fact that you went on to find the bible convincing is hardly surprising.

You and I both know that the world follows certain natural laws and if anyone came along claiming to have broken them our first response would be skepticism, we would ask him to prove his claims. As rational people we employ this reasoning in all aspects of our lives, to all claims, to all movements, to all books. But you make an exception for one 2000 year old unverifiable book, You read a few paragraphs within its pages and that is enough for you to believe that, while every other claim of the supernatural in history is false, these ones are true. No matter how you dress it up, there's a lot more than dispassionate rationality going on there.

Jackobyte · 05-10-2009 04:06PM

Max Power1 wrote: »

id say youll find its a mixture of "comfort belief".

I didn't believe in God until a death in the family but then i found comfort
in the belief, Logic tells me no but you want to believe in something bigger than yourself...

Turtwig · 05-10-2009 04:39PM

Jakkass wrote: »

You really need to stop saying this when things are actually contested. Emotion and reason play in all decisions. I'd like you to cite if you are going to make such claims though..

Well firstly, you should have copped on by now that NOBODY here has made such a claim. In fact the science is telling us that is IMPOSSIBLE to make any decision without using some emotion. I was merely explaining a basic reason behind confirmation bias and decision making. Jakkass, what you have been arguing or trying to argue I do not fully understand yet, please state it, because otherwise it just seems like you want to contradict things that I haven't actually said.

Jakkass, why do people who are obviously wrong ....feel so certain that they are right????

Anyhu you asked for sources. Why emotion plays a greater part in our reasoning than we'd like to think..
First recommendation would be this Book..
It basically outlines that people need to understand emotions better and shows how emotion and reason are interlinked.By understanding the process that generates decision making we can learn to have better control over them.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070215144329.htm
Quick google of rational decision making versus emotional yielded the above and many other examples that all state the same thing...we feel more decisions than we base them on logic.

I'm afraid I can't think of anymore right now, I will add them though Jakkass, have no fear... I can remember examples of experiments though (And I think I've mentioned others before in previous posts in other threads).

"A bat and a ball together cost €1.10, the bat cost €1 euro more than the ball...how much does the ball cost?"
Say what you think it is, then work it out mathematically on paper if needs be;)
[Common Sense isn't looking so good now is it? The answer btw, is 5 cents, assuming my maths are right :P]

If you were to offer a €100 between two people, and give one person the entire sum with the added stipulation that he must share at least €10 with the other person, would the other person accept the €10? Most people do not take the €10, even though they have just being given free money.

Why do People Believe in God(s)?

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