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#24: I absolutely agree. I disavow anyone calling anyone stupid for what they believe. It takes time and effort to properly research something as large a topic as religion. I did it when I was a teenager and had the time and intellectual curiosity. Researching and learning about a wide range of topics made my conclusions inescapable.
The issue of intelligence comes into play only to the extent that one who is more intelligent tends to pick up details and connections between details easier and faster than others. No reason why someone with a lower IQ can’t come to the same conclusions if they are willing to be open to going beyond the rhetoric they were taught when young. It only might take a little longer.
Questioning doesn’t take intelligence, only the will to grow. NOT questioning, however, shows a lacking that hopefully can be overcome.
#30 – Benji,
Sorry, the abundance of evidence currently available really does support global warming. Comparing something founded on a wealth of scientific data to religion proves that you have a real lack of understanding of one or both of the terms “science” and “religion”.
Imagine a world without religion? Not hard. Look to Stalin and Mao. Uncle Dave red again.
“You know I agree with you about the desirability of getting rid of religion. But, how do you explain that 7% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, the top science brains in our nation, believe in some religion?”
It is not impossible, but damn near, to find 100% consistency in any group. And I would like to point out that you are tacitly (and not-altogether accurately) using ‘membership in the NAS’ as a proxy for ‘proof of uniformly high intelligence.’ They are not the same thing.
Considering that there are quite a few scientists that do not integrate scientific thought and principles fully into all aspects of their lives, but rather, have a wall between their work and their personalities, and some of them are not exceptionally intelligent, but ARE exceptionlly good at using the tools and principles of science AT THEIR WORK and not necessarily in their personal lives, that number is not impressive at all.
Kurt Wise, a creationist, brainwashed from childhood to preach creationism (theres a clue for you), nonetheless was “intelligent” enough to study under Gould at Harvard and get a PhD.
Or take the case of Dr. Marcus Ross. He, as with Dr. Wise, is a member in good standing of many scientific organizations, including the NAS. He actually believes that “God” poofed into existence every living thing 10,000 years ago. Now, based on your criterion, NAS membership, he is a de facto “top scientist.” Yet by the criterion of anyone with the capacity for dispassionate, objective, rational thought, he is clearly an idiot, no other word fits better.
The human mind is amazingly complex. One thing it can do, automatically, is protect it’s belief systems from the unconsciously perceived “threat” of rational examination by walling them off. But ultimately, this still does not occur in those at the far right-hand side of the g curve. Plot religious belief against g and I predict with absolute certainty that you will find a peak value of g that can coëxist with superstition, and that will be a near-brick wall cutoff. Above a sufficiently high level of reasoning ability virtually all unreason is dismissed.
And being able to do good, even very good, science quite obviously is not proof of reasoning abilities that meet that level.
By the way, you should complete the thought of this old communist slogan. ‘Imagine if there was no country’
Everyone should first owe their loyalty to THE PARTY.
“Questioning doesn’t take intelligence, only the will to grow. NOT questioning, however, shows a lacking that hopefully can be overcome.
”
Totally agree, Dave. Good thought for both sides of the fence. Questioning one’s religion is a prime factor in self growth.
A quote from #26:
<>
“We” can’t do any such thing. You can only purge a deity from your own braincase. Takes years. You probably can’t do it. Sorry.
93 percent call themselves atheists? But “atheist” is the wrong terminology altogether. Ain’t no such thing. Gettin’ nowhere here with you “atheists.”
#29 – tollybong
MOST excellent. Bravo! Kudos! Other-expression-of-enthusiastic-approval-and-agreement as required!
BELIEF has tangible, perceptable-even-to-idiots rewards, in the form of FEELINGS. Why else is logic so commonly referred to as “cold” and “sterile”?
Any bozo can (and does) think “I MUST be right! I’m SO SURE! I just “KNOW” it!” – and has never had it made clear to them the absolute fact that no matter HOW convincing your “feelings”, they constitute proof of NOTHING. If logic says – as one branch of it, mathematics, does – that 2+3=5, then you must accept it, no matter how strong your conviction that it is otherwise. Your sense of conviction, of being certain that you are right, is subjective and a product of neurochemical activity in your brain. Math is objective, external, common-to-all-of-us reality. It is correct and you, despite your unshakable convictions, are therefore absolutely wrong.
Intelligence, in no small part, is the ABILITY, the COURAGE to FACE THE FACT THAT YOUR BELIEFS DO NOT DETERMINE, OR EVEN NECESSARILY REFLECT, THE ACTUAL STATE OF THE REAL WORLD.
That one thing, right there, is THE thing that mankind must overcome.
“I feel God’s love in my heart.”
No, you don’t. You think you do, and you haven’t learned enough to understand the difference. And surrounded by other, equally emotional, equally insecure and frightened, equally unintelligent sheep, you “know” that since more of you believe it, it MUST be true, since reality is determined by majority vote. 🙂
“2+2=4”, my last. Duh!! 🙂
The quote from #26 that bombed last time:
«So, how do we get rid of the vile despicable thing that is religion?»
“We” can’t. Most people like their deity just fine, TYVM.
Ol’ Deity is wedged down into the skull really deep. Sure, he’s a useless piece o’ shite, but he ain’t leavin’
#34 – Catberos,
Sorry, I think I’ll still give more weight to membership in NAS than to a score for something the scorekeepers and inventors of the test can’t accurately define and that you choose to call intelligence.
g has no real meaning until psychometricians can define what the hell they’re looking for.
But, that’s a discussion for a different topic. I see that you need to think that your atheism makes you more intelligent than members of the NAS. It doesn’t. BTW, I can’t find any reference to that freakazoid PhD actually being in the NAS.
I’d suggest to you Catberos that you stop being so insecure and looking for such reassurance. You’re pretty intelligent. You probably are, as you claim, in the top 330,000,000 brains on the planet. That doesn’t make you that special. Get over yourself.
When you do, perhaps you’ll realize that there actually are people more intelligent than you that, for reasons I can’t explain, believe in god. I am totally perplexed by this personally. But, an observable fact needs no explanation. It simply is. We may want to explain it so that it makes sense. However, even if neither of us can, it doesn’t make it false.
#40 – tollybong,
You’re probably correct. Still though, I’m just guessing since I don’t fully know the minds of every intelligent species on the planet that the concept of god will likely die with humanity … and fairly soon at that.
What a sad and forlorn world it would be.
No cities and nations.
No buildings larger than mud huts.
No master works of art or music.
No science or matematics.
No merchants.
No Epic Poetry.
No writing or reading.
No Davinci or Michelangelo.
No Homer or Socrates.
No Democracy or Republics.
Yes just stones, grunting and trees. Just like
apes.
Cursor_
M Scott –
Very nice, Annie Oakley; set up your ad hom straw men on the fence and pick ’em off, 1-2-3. Very impressive. 🙂
I don’t “need” to think that my strong agnosticism – NOT ‘atheism’ – makes me anything. Knowing that the Abrahamic deity and every one of it’s offshoots and derivatives is a fiction invented by primitive, scientifically-illiterate-and-therefore-superstitious humans means that I process the available data correctly, from an objective standpoint. And I have never encountered a person as skilled in reasoning as myself or moreso who reasons otherwise, just as you would justifiably consider yourself better in arithmetic than someone who claims that two positive addends can produce a negative sum. And you would say “Just because they think two positive numbers can add up to a negative result doesn’t mean they couldn’t be CPAs.” Yes, it does.
Going by all the available evidence, I am objectively justified in making the statistically and empirically-supported assumption that those who believe in said fundamentally-irrational phenomena are indeed more governed by an unperceived, conditioned, reason-resistant belief framework than I myself am. And such a shortcoming in reasoning ability does not exist in a vacuum, it is reflected in multiple aspects of personality.
There’re no shortage of people with specialized knowledge I don’t possess. But encyclopaedic knowledge processed through a limited logical skill set can produce excellent, albeit uninspired, science.
The awe which you so obviously feel for persons who have membership in a particular professional organization is touching. But they don’t screen for stupidity, despite what misimpressions you’ve been operating under.
The rest of your childish ad hom barstool-psychoanalysis is really not worth commenting on, except to note that it reveals far more about you than anything else. 🙂
#16 – It appears we got rid of hateful religion just to have it replaced with hate-filled atheism.
Bullshit. Atheism is not a dogma or a religion and thus has no hate or love about it, however, those of us atheists who are vocal, are vocalizing defensively against the torrents of hatred spewed by fundy zealots.
Aside from the alleged divinty and all, typical atheists have more in common with Jesus than conservative Christians do.
#24 – How about, “imagine if everyone let religion be an individual choice and no one called us stupid or unintelligent on dvorak.org/blog?”
I’m in if the religious agree to allow me to live peacefully with my non-religious choices which includes every woman’s right to abortion on demand, every homesexual couple’s right to marry, and my right to have my kid learn science and not be proselytized to with Creationist mythology in school. And that’s just the start of the list.
I get called a heathen or a sinner or a general bad person by theists every day, but once I point out their hypocrisy it’s all, “Hey, let’s have some respect here…”
Fuck respect. This is my culture and I am going to defend it against these Bible thumping asshats.
#33 – Imagine a world without religion? Not hard. Look to Stalin and Mao. Uncle Dave red again.
Hey look… More bullshit. Russia wasn’t without religion under Stalin, and I doubt China was without religion under Mao.
It is true that the state tyranny sought to crush religion to force their so called communist revolution, but it was about power and control with no real interest in God or religion beyond the interest of coercion.
Russians under Stalin didn’t lose faith in their God, they more stopped being vocal in public and attending church on Sunday.
#32 –
I didn’t say there wasn’t evidence in support of Global warming. The evidence clearly indicates a warming climate coming out of an ice age. However, there is no clear, indisputable evidence of MAN MADE global warming.
Perhaps it is you (and others who claim to follow the scientific method) who don’t understand logic demands consistency.
I owe you thanks for proving the point I was trying to make. So called scientists jump to conclusions based on “feelings” too
#44 – Catberos,
Going by all the available evidence, I am objectively justified in making the statistically and empirically-supported assumption that those who believe in said fundamentally-irrational phenomena are indeed more governed by an unperceived, conditioned, reason-resistant belief framework than I myself am. And such a shortcoming in reasoning ability does not exist in a vacuum, it is reflected in multiple aspects of personality.
Yes. And, this still does not support any claims one way or the other about relative intelligence. In fact, I still have yet to hear to define intelligence despite a lengthy thread on the subject where it turns out that intelligence is g and g is intelligence and that’s all the definition we get of either.
So, while I will wholeheartedly agree with you that one who reasons their way to belief in the supernatural is not reasoning correctly on that subject, it does not preclude that person from being a genius in other ways.
Now, why am I defending the religious when I’m an antitheist? I just feel the need to be honest enough to admit that there are brilliant individuals that come to the faulty conclusion that there is a god. That a universe with such a creature would be demonstrably different than the universe in which we live does not change the fact.
Perhaps it has to do with how compartmentalized the human brain is. For example, I recently read that people will drive to bridges, lock their cars, and jump to their deaths. This is not uncommon. Why lock the car? Because one part of the brain is behaving as normal with respect to locking one’s possessions even as another part is ending one’s life and all reason to care about car theft with it.
Hey, maybe I did just explain how intelligent individuals can believe crap.
#48 – Benji,
Still incorrect. The overwhelming evidence at present really does support anthropogenic climate change. Could this overwhelming evidence turn out to be incorrect? Of course it could.
However, even if you think the evidence is not overwhelming or convincing, you should recognize for this discussion that there is a very real difference in believing something for which there is evidence, even if you don’t find it as overwhelming as most scientists do, and believing something for which there is not a single shred of evidence. To not recognize this difference points to a very real lack of understanding on your part.
#14 Three headed kitty
Do you just pull this shit out of your ass? I just happen to be close personal friends with several members of Mensa & Intertel. Some of them consider themselves to be quite religious. How would you explain that? Faulty intelligence tests or with more dribble from the faucet of your mind?
While I don’t see any need in religion for myself. I don’t begrudge those who want or need it as long as they keep it out of government and law.
this is all about protestants who are too stupid to realize government is just as bad for religion as religion is for government.
we catholics have our own school systems so we don’t have to listen to the government, and we can talk about god all we want.
protestants are either too stupid, too lazy, or too cheap to make their own schools. either than or they actually are trying to overthrow our constitutional form of government.
either way i wish they’d learn some manners and keep their blasphemous opinions to themselves.
3. THC “The less-intelligent majority of humanity cannot be persuaded to abandon their primary reliance on – and unshakable faith in – their feelings over their reasoning”
‘Cept when it comes to homosexuality, advertising, politics & an unshakable belief in free speech, of course.
RBG
#53 so you don’t believe in free speech?
Global Warming is caused by Cold Fusion
y’all are a bunch of hate-filled atheism zealots. You’ve made hating religion your religion. It’s something you pontificate about and defend rabidly. You think you’re the only ones who are right, and insult anyone who thinks otherwise. You’re probably chomping at the bit waiting for something to put your weight/money/time behind in the furtherance of eradication of religion (you don’t have to look too closely to see it right here).
Ooh. I can’t wait until the first of you comes up with a reason that violence is necessary in furthering your non-belief in God. Wait…maybe it would be to eliminate all of the lower-functioning life forms to purify the race. That’s it!
Congratulations. You’re fascists.
#56 – Right, and anyone who doesn’t believe in God goes straight to some “place” called hell for eternity. Nice one. BTW, where is hell? Really, answer that.
Congratulations. You’re fascists.
#33: Excuse me. I am an avowed capitalist!
#52 – grog,
Was that post a joke or are you really just trying to point out exactly what I think is wrong with religion, other than it having no basis in reality. Religion fuels xenophobia. There is no significant difference in any of the sub-sects of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religion (deliberately singular).
You are merely doing exactly what the religion dictates, using it to divide Us from Them. We find many ways to do this. Religion is just one more. However, when religion is the basis for Us/Them divisions, people are often particularly cruel in their killing of Them. It really adds a level of fervor that is hard to find with other ideologies, not impossible, just less likely.
It’s sort of the difference between being shot in the head and dying on the rack in the Inquisition.
Sure, sometimes people are cruel even without religion. But, religion is the most common way for people to achieve that level of cruelty.
#57
Wow. Your response to me made absolutely no sense at all. I made a commentary about how vicious the anti-religion dogma was getting here. I made no reference to hell, and it was a central point in your “retort”.
Nice.
You’re more intelligent than I am, obviously.