My wife is smarter than me and she’s Christian.
I don’t think Christians (a very broad category) as a whole are any more or less intelligent than any other random sampling of people.
I DO think that stupid people tend to be religious.
It’s obvious horseshit to me, and I mean, OBVIOUS. I’m not going to bother with all the rationalizing you posit until I see some damn credible evidence for any supernatural beings. To me, believing in God is like believing in Santa or the Tooth Fairy. You can do it if it makes you feel better, but don’t get offended if I try to maintain my sense of rationality about such things.
The catholic church I grew up in fostered ignorance. They did not want us going to any other churches with friends or to read about other religions. The history of book burning and suppression are a part of the church history. They wanted us to be ignorant of other faiths. It pissed me off. I suspected it was more about keeping the believers in line and contributing.
Once you wonder “what are they afraid of” then you start to question. The floodgates open and the belief suffers.
Some people accept the religious programming all their lives without question. I do not know how they do it. I could not make it to 12 years old.
While there is a remote chance that the parish in which you grew up fostered ignorance in the manner you describe, you are actually displaying a bit of your own, here.
At the time that you grew up, the reason for not visiting other churches had nothing to do with maintaining an ignorance of their beliefs and everything to do with the church’s response to the low-level persecution of the church that still existed at that time. One did not participate in the services of other churches because it was considered a rejection of the liturgy of the RCC.
As to not learning about other churches, that had to have been an issue in your parish. Every school I attended had a library with many books of other beliefs (including those written by members of those faiths or denominations, not just Catholic commentary on them). We were taught the general beliefs of most other major religions (with any number of misunderstandings, I am sure, but with no effort to hide them).
I grew up with a pretty good historical understanding of the Inquisition and the Index–and my parents, born before 1917–also grew up being taught about those issues.
I am not sure which parish was trying to hide that stuff, (I am sure there were such parishes), but you are not describing an official position of the RCC to promote ignorance.
Absolutely. I don’t think that there is a God, but I also don’t think that I am infallible in this or in anything else. There might be a God, I could be wrong; I don’t think I am wrong, but I know that doesn’t mean that I’m not.
What is it about his post that you feel you need to rationalize?
Atheist witnessing? 
A reminder:
Folks, this is, in concept, supposed to be a rational discussion about beliefs and world views, not an effort to (forcibly) convert the “opposition.”
Let’s all make an effort to simply discuss the points raised and not challenge the motives or personal qualities of other posters.
(With the open hostility that is demonstrated by a few posters on both sides of the discussion, here, it is easier to see how the early Christians wound up burning down cities in riots defending one view or another of the reality of god. They, at least, thought they were defending God; some of you folks (both sides) are supposed to be demonstrating the superiority of your calm rationality on a discussion forum.)
No one is in trouble, (yet); let’s keep it that way.
Thanks for demonstrating my point, which is "People look for insults in what I, or other atheists, contend about Xianity because it soothes them to assume that atheists are rude, arrogant, condescending, etc. rather assume that they’re taking an adversarial position that is standard to a great debate, or even a Great Debate.
Not at all what I’m saying. I might generalize by saying that Xians are stupid because I think most homo sapiens are pretty stupid, so why should I make an exception for Xians? Or I might be saying that Xians and other groups are about equal in intelligence, but Xians have those mouth-breathing Fundies to bring their collective IQs down a point or two, so relatively they might be a little stupider than other members of the species. But I think I’ve beeen fairly clear that the big issue here has very little to do with simple stupidity, though, as I say, it might please you to couch my argument in that way so you can express some hostility towards it. I’m not clear on why expressing hostility is so important to you, but that’s not my business.
Sure. That “someday” arrived for me about five decades ago, I think. I have “pleasing fictions” that I order my life by: that certain people love me, that there is hope that war can be discouraged, that the world would be transfixed by my art work if only I can find a way to show it to more of them, etc. I can’t prove any of these things, but I live as though they were true. The difference is I wouldn’t presume to tell you that any of them ARE true, or that it’s important that anyone other than me accepts that there is the slightest validity to any of them. If you say to me that any or all of my pleasant fictions are complete nonsense, I’m totally okay with that.
When you’re quite finished LOLing (and PIYP), please read what I wrote, not what you wished I wrote: Your feelings are valid for you, and for you only. They by definition cannot be valid for me, unless I choose for them to be. Or unless you’re quite comfortable invalidating my right to my own subjective feelings.
My point, which you’re adeptly proving, is that atheists don’t need to argue that Xians are dumb, and it’s not an important part of the atheist position to argue that Xians are dumb (though the intemperate language some atheists use does seem to suggest that at times) but Xians love to repeat the “I’m insulted at the suggestion that I am dumb” because they’d rather do anything other than argue the points that atheists are (sometimes fairly politely and reasonably) making.
Please show me where I’m implying that I care a whole lot about the relative intelligence of Xians and atheists now. I suspect you’re still convinced that that is what I’m claiming, so please go right ahead, and continue providing my argument with further evidence that you’re determined to find arrogance where none exists.
Actually, if the premise of this thread is as honest and knowledge-seeking and even-handed as prr says, it’s also vacuous, pointless and meaningless.
I mean, really, if you secretly want to say that Christians are stupid, have the guts to say it and then stand by it. This “I’m not saying Christians are stupid and you can’t prove that I am” stuff is just… childish; the old “I’m not touching you!” game dressed up with a college vocabulary (and not even dressed all that well; the “germane dichotomies” are actually continuums). It says nothing bold or original or even particularly insightful.
It may be an age difference. It was however clear and unmistakable. It was a Detroit parish and I have no reason to think it unique. We had many discussions about the subject matter afterwards.
Why should I say something I don’t believe is necessarily true, or relevant to my critique of Xianity, or (if true) important anyway? And if you would take the trouble to read the OP, you might learn that not only do I not claim the dichotomies to
be separable, I actually state that they overlap, so what’s your point in demonstrating that they are “actually continuums” (if I may indulge in a little more pretentious college vocabulary)?
That was then, this is now. It puzzles me that the point must be continually made that the teachings of the Church are not necessarily identical to those you might hear from your local pulpit because what you hear in the church down the street comes from the lips of a human with his own mind, ideas, etc.
It is, therefore, a mistake to assume that all of Catholicism then and now was represented by what happened in your home parish.
It is always a mistake in logic to paint all X people with the same brush. Adherents com says there are 33,830 denominations of Christianity. That’s 33,830 separate interpretations of the faith without even counting individual bishops’ and pastors’ own interpretations.
I’ve lived in three cities and attended different parishes in them all and there are noticeable differences parish to parish. So to jettison an entire religion because of one limited set of experiences is not logical or fair, in my estimation.
I attended a Catholic high school which was taught by the priests of the parish. What was my favourite course? World Religions taught by a nun. It was there I learned the commonality of the precepts held dearest by all the great faiths on the planet.
As to my statement
, I suppose it sounds like a generalization but it’s not. I guess I should have included ‘many’ or ‘many I have encountered’ but certainly a read of the ‘atheist vs christian’ threads will lead you to at least one poster who will assert that there is no possibility whatsoever that God could exist. I see no ‘as far as I know’ or ‘given the limited knowledge we have thus far acquired’ in those posts. Often, the tone is of ridicule and condescension.
Well, if we’re in a debate regarding the existence of god, why wouldn’t the opposing side ridicule that stance? Why do you feel the belief in god is above ridicule?
Well, why did you? Why was it necessary to title the thread the way you did? Why was it necessary to include the following phrases in the OP:
In some of these cases, including the thread title, you make an attempt to modify the statement after the fact (akin to “Do I think you’re a moron? No, of course not, that would be rude of me” - there’s a term describing this form of rhetoric, but it unfortunately escapes me at the moment) but overall, I think your message is fundamentally a dishonest one. You’re looking for some magic blueprint that lets you build a fortress from which you can attack at will and any counter-attack is not only futile but perfectly reflected back on the person using it. It is, if I may indulge myself, the Nirvana of Atheism.
I did read the OP, of course, and you apparently didn’t read my statement, or at least not accurately. The flaw isn’t that the “dichotomies” overlap, it’s that they’re not dichotomies at all.
:rolleyes:
I can prove that you care about the relative intelligence of Xians and atheists because you started a thread about it. Not I, nor anybody else.
You. In your quest to learn how to call a group of people “stupid” w/o them realizing you’re calling them stupid. It’s just an idiotic game of semantics you’re playing here:
I mean, what: are you really boiling your defense down to “I prefer to use the word ‘ignorant’ as opposed to ‘stupid’ in describing entire classes of people, so don’t you accuse me of calling people ‘stupid’?”
:rolleyes:
I’m a little curious as to why Christians are singled out by the OP. Is there something about Christians that is different (that is, more stupid or less stupid) than those who follow other religions?
It was not from the pulpit. It was from Catechism classes which we attended. I called my brother to ask him if he remembered it the way I did. he said it was clear to him too and his memories coincided.
It was teaching not a mistake. oddly if I was taught that in the church classes I thought it was not just taught to me. Imagine that.
If I may, the goal is not to prevent them from realizing they’ve been insulted, it’s to keep them from being able to clearly prove they’ve been insulted. Hence, if a moderator concludes that an insult was made or intended, the moderator is obviously operating without evidence, thus unfairly.
That’s my impression, at least.
Just asked my wife she went to catholic school there. She was taught the same thing.That was 10 years later.
I don’t get that, Bryan. Boiled down, the OP asks “How can I call a whole group of people ‘stupid’ without them thinking I’m calling them ‘dumb’?” His answer: “I’ll call them ‘ignorant!’ and then inwardly think they’re stupid when they think I’m calling them ‘dumb’!”
The rest of the OP is hand-waving rationalization.