Moral Inferences Based on Religion

If I know nothing else about a person other than that he/she graduated college from Harvard, I safely assume this person is smarter than the average person, more interested in academics and theoretical issues than the average person, harder working than the average person, and more intellectual than the average person.  Based on this assumption, I would then act in a corresponding fashion:  for instance, I would feel more comfortable speaking about intellectual things, articulating my ideas more thoroughly, and proffering more challenging questions.  Surely there are a few instances where this initial assumption would be wrong, but out of 1,000 such people, my assumptions would probably be confirmed on at least 995 people having only known that fact.  Clearly, this assumption would serve me well (as I enjoy intellectualizing early on in a relationship with those who share the interest).  Now, let's assume that the only fact I know about a person is that the person did NOT graduate college from Harvard.  I would not assume the opposite above; that is, I would not automatically assume that someone who did not graduate from Harvard would not be interested in intellectualism and academia.  The individual may have graduated from Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, or any number of places, read philosophy his/her entire life in isolation, or simply have been a erudite in a foreign country, never taking part in American "higher" education.  In all such non-Harvard examples, the person would still very likely be an intellectual like me.  If I only knew the Harvard-inverse fact, I would make no assumption, and I would not change my actions in any way.  Without immediately intellectualizing or engaging in the converse of intentionally avoiding all intellectualization forevermore, I would attempt to learn more about the person, observe and process further information from and about the person, and then proceed in my actions accordingly once I had amassed enough data to make a safe assumption on the intellectual issue.  I could still adjust my assumptions and actions further over time as my perceptions and understanding of the person came into sharper focus.

Now, let's look at what happens when the only thing a person knows about another is whether or not he/she leads first with religion.  Down here in the South, the predominant faith is Christianity and a sizable contingent of folks will lead first in almost everything they do and with every person they meet that they are, in fact, a Christian.  They will tell you first that they "love Christ" or "Jesus is my homeboy."  There is certainly nothing inherently wrong with being a Christian or letting others know, so please don't misconstrue the point that I am herein making.  My problem is with the assumption outside people make once they know one of the two following facts about a new person:

Fact A:  I only know one fact about a new person, and that is that he declares himself to be a strong Christian.
Fact B:  I only know one fact about a new person, and that is that he does not first declare himself to be a strong Christian (he led with something else).


I know so many people that present themselves as strong Christians and are morally inferior to the average person in terms of scruples.  So do you.  How many self-presenting "strong Christians" cheat on their wives?  Lie, misrepresent, cheat, and steal at their jobs?  Are racists? Don't take care of their children?  Shirk their taxes?  Don't pay child support?  Sexually abuse children?  Take advantage of their power and authority?  With an absurd surfeit of possible examples, I think it's easiest to just let your mind pick any supportive illustrations and save me the time, space and effort here.  Yet, based on Fact A above, people will assume that they are with a morally sound individual.  They will trust someone who puts himself under the Fact A umbrella more than they would someone under the Fact B umbrella.  Only knowing this one fact or its inverse, people will also start an individual under the Fact B umbrella off behind the average person morally.  The faulty assumption leads to favorable actions towards a Fact A person and unfavorable actions towards a Fact B person.  Knowing what we do about confirmation bias (people start out with certain rigid beliefs, and when they see a random wide array of facts -- some consistent and some inconsistent with the initial impression -- they will discredit, disregard, or even completely ignore the inconsistent facts and hold onto, stack up, and overvalue the facts consistent with their initial impression), we can only expect the moral judgment gap between a Fact A individual and a Fact B individual to widen dramatically in the eyes of a common person, and, hence, for the common person's actions towards the Fact A and Fact B individuals to also diverge substantially.  Before long, the common person has placed considerable faith in the Fact A person and reserved any faith in the Fact B person (instead, replacing it with scorn and distrust) when, still so early on, the two individuals still should most likely be on relatively equal moral ground.  Many savvy, self-interested (morally unsound) opportunists will also pick up on how the Fact A individuals are treated by newcomers and represent themselves as such, further skewing the accuracy of an initial moral inference based on religion.

This is very troubling for me, for, if you could not already tell, I am a Fact B person.  Evaluate me based on how I treat people, what I aspire to, how I make my decisions, how I react to adversity, but not whether or not I lead off by telling you I'm a self-pronounced "strong Christian."  This will obviously require time, energy, and observational skills -- maybe even some questioning and thought.  So it will not be as easy as the above Fact A/Fact B decision tree, but it will also be far more effective and accurate in both the short and long term.