I wouldn't call believers in the paranormal "religious." And I tend to raise my eyebrows a bit at questionnaire-based research. However, I would like to read the actual study if I can locate it.

Though I have the same skepticism of questionnaire-based research as Anonomo, I still have to say...not at all surprising results.

I reject this study on the basis of the 'scientists' comparing religious belief to autism. They obviously have a poor understanding of autism so can hardly be qualified to comment. In my direct experience, autistics have a better grasp of scientific facts that drive volcanos and other natural physical and biological phenomena than 'ordinary', ie not autistic, people, without any need to ascribe 'human-like' characteristics.

Further, recent studies have shown that plants do communicate with each other and do have what we would ascribe as 'feelings'. It has long been known that ivy is sentient but recently science has discovered that plants have the ability to communicate across distances quite easily, they also have the ability to 'pool' resources to aid an ailing relative of the same genus and they also appear to do better when not raised in isolation.

This article is very biased using terms like bullshit believers and claiming the term to be scientific, ie used by scientists. It is also very misogynistic stating that women are more likely to be 'believers' and so have less 'natural intuition'. I always thought women were famous for their 'intuition' or was that done away with under the name of sexual equality?

I notice only finnish people were studied and no controls were used, therefore this study does not meet the criteria usually demanded by the non-believing scientists on this board so I do not understand why more people have not called this study out. The article is incorrectly titled as it should read "believers in religion and the paranormal in finland understand the world less than non-religious finns".