In 2011, Dunning and Kruger ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect ) reported on the frequent bias that college students had about how well they did on a college test.
Before the test, the poor students likely had the same inflated opinion of their expertise, so they didn't bother studying as hard as they should have. Therefore their inflated opinion sabotages them, causing failure during the test. Immediately after doing the test, those that scored poorly tended to still over-estimate how well they did. They still didn't realize their lack of knowledge.
Those with good expertise tended to accurately estimate their test grade.
Those who were the most competent in the class tended to slightly under-estimate how well they did.
The following curve is one way to represent this phenomena:
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| Figure 1: Dunning-Kruger Effect |
Since its initial application to college student test results, Dunning-Kruger has been applied to dozens of similar scenarios, where a little bit of knowledge become dangerous, and holds people back from truely learning all they need to know.
Does the Dunning-Kruger Effect apply to Atheists and their bias against Christianity?
Hosea 4:6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."
Some Atheists are highly intelligent. Other Atheists are far less gifted, so they tend to latch onto the arguments developed by the leading experts, and attempt to parrot them without true comprehension. For this discussion, we will focus on the truly intelligent Atheists.
Truly intelligent Atheists, like Lucifer, may have a tendency toward arrogance, pride, self-righteousness, and similar sins. Since Atheists do not believe in Christianity nor Christian morals, there is nothing to hold back or limit or counteract these sinful viewpoints about themselves when circumstances cause these feelings to bubble up.
These Atheists tend to have a jaded eye towards the "sheep" who rely upon God, or those who voluntarily choose to submit to God's commandments (ie. True Christians). Like a petulant child, the Atheists wrongfully believes they know better, and doesn't have to follow all the rules, they can pick and choose as they please. Their un-calibrated internal moral compass, peer pressure, civil fines, and criminal law are the only forces that keep the Atheist in check.
The Atheist tends to mis-interpret God's Holy Bible, and go to unreasonable lengths to create discrepancies where more reasonable interpretations avoid these fabricated problems. Their Biblical knowledge tends to be superficial and/or not comprehensive (ie. some expertise in a few areas, wide regions of no knowledge whatsoever, most areas understood only superficially).
On the Dunning-Kruger curve, Atheists tend to congregate at the "Peak of Self-Deception", wrongfully believing they have Christianity all figured out, falsely believing God doesn't exist, and that their Atheism allows them to dodge the bullet of religion, the "opium for the masses".
The Atheist usually refuses to learn anything more about God and Christianity, as they consider themselves as the world's leading experts. They rest comfortably in that valley where gravity and infinite inertia keeps them in a self-imposed prison.
In spite of their best efforts to prevent it from occurring, some Atheists expand their knowledge about God and Christianity, and get into a Cognitive Dissonance (ie. to ignore the overwhelming facts about God and Christianity, the Atheist would have to self-diagnose themself as insane and out of touch with reality, so they reluctantly admit that God exists, that they don't know as much as what they previously assumed). They rapidly fall into the Valley of Despair.
If the Atheist continues their journey forward (resisting the desire to re-claim their self-delusion), they can slowly build their knowledge of God and Christianity so as to become a "former Atheist".
The true experts tend to have the local maximum for confidence in their comprehension of God and Christianity. As those so-called "experts" become Christians (ie. they convert their book knowledge to consistent implementation of that book knowledge in their daily lives), they eventually leave legalism behind (ie. either "do as I say, don't do as I do", or only book knowledge, but no application in their day-day life), and hopefully develop into True Christians (ie. the heart inside is equally aligned as the outer actions, and the book knowledge, a Trinity of equal Christianity (heart, mind, soul).
Can the Dunning-Kruger Effect be used as an argument or antidote against stubborn, fossilized Atheism?
Does Dunning-Kruger Effect also apply to Luke-Warm Christians (ie. "Once-saved, always saved", or "I do as my Pastor says, so that's all I need to know", "I'm under grace, so the law doesn't apply to me", or "The Old Testament is superceded by Jesus and the New Testament", or "All I have to do is believe in Jesus", etc.) ?
Please give me your thoughts and anecdotes from your life for possible evidence to prove, or dis-prove this theory.
