# Atheists: Do you believe you are an atheist because you are smart? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 25, 2019, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238 "2019-08-25T23:48:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/101 "2019-08-27T21:35:45Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I think his followup responses have answered this question. How about you let me answer for myself? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/102 "2019-08-27T21:37:15Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > How about you let me answer for myself? O.K.-Go ahead and answer. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/103 "2019-08-28T00:34:48Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > It can be licked. You’re a pane. ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/104 "2019-08-28T01:00:14Z")
it’s curtains for you. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/105 "2019-08-28T01:38:35Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I think his followup responses have answered this question. > [@Scumpup](#): > > How about you let me answer for myself? Your words speak for you…as does your silence after insisting that you can speak for yourself. I see no indication that anything said in this thread has affected your opinion on this matter. ---
**Author:** ![steadicam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@steadicam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steadicam)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/106 "2019-08-28T02:46:14Z")
I couldn’t have said it nearly as well as you did. You encapsulated many of the reasons i can believe in what aint there. Well done, Sage Rat! So um… Ditto! > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > 1. We know from archaeology or simple travel through the modern world that there have been a variety of deities over time and people have murdered and died for them. It’s fair to say that faith is not good evidence since Odin earned just as much faith and now he’s a fantasy trope. > > 2. The popular religion of a region seems to follow populations. Hindus almost always had Hindu parents. Christians almost always had Christian parents. The evidence would be that the key criteria for holding a particular religion is that you have come to believe, while still in your developing years, that magic and gods are plausible. This usually comes as a side effect of being indoctrinated into a particular religion and generally leads to you taking on that religion. Though obviously there’s no rule that a person can’t come to hold mystical beliefs on their own through their peers, the books they read, etc. independent of their parents, nor is there any rule that a person won’t decide that they prefer the mythology and philosophy of a different religion than the one they were born in. But, as said, generally religious beliefs is territorial and that directly conflicts with what we would expect the world to look like if deities existed and had real world effects. > > 3. We can look back through history and watch the development of religions, seeing them change with the times. I can’t think of the name of the deity at the moment but, for example, we can trace one Middle Eastern god from being a “city god” to a universal / creator god over the course of a few centuries. There’s fairly decent evidence that Yahweh had a wife and possibly started out as a lesser god in the Canaanite pantheon, the Romans described what we would now call Norse mythology (Odin, Thor, etc.) as being a strange religion which believed in gods without any human form - obviously, the Norse religions had strongly anthropomorphic deities by the time the Norse sagas were written. You can find tree ribbons/ropes described as a ritual in the religions from Western Russia to Japan, going through Mongolia and this seems likely to all tie back to ancient druidic/shamanistic beliefs in it being that certain trees offer a bridge to the spiritual world. The concept of Yggdrasil seems to be related to the same World Tree that we see in Mongolian religion. > > If there was a true religion with genuine effects on the world, we would expect that the religion would not evolve with time, exposure to other religions, or anything else. As it is, we can see them change in history based on political expediency, exposure to the ideas of other upcoming religions, and so on. > > If we even just look at Mormonism, we see it starting as a mystical religion using ancient Egyptian writings and crystal ball scrying as part of its founder’s technique. He believed in spiritual polygamy; the next generation believed in genuine, physical polygamy; then they became monogamous; then they stopped being racist; then they stopped being homophobic. Mormonism has adapted to the dominant culture and become a humanist religion, with its historic origins being downplayed or destroyed, and the plain reading of its doctrine reinterpreted to suit the modern need. > > Again, none of that makes sense in a world where there are genuine deities with practical effects on the universe. > > 1. Any deity with no practical effect on the world isn’t really a deity. They’re just a Star Trek-type character. Say, for example, that the universe is simply an ongoing physics simulation on a computer. Are the programmers who developed it “gods”? To be sure, they could shut everything off, probably they could convert the Earth into a ball of gold, or whatever other godly thing but, fundamentally, they’re just some scientists studying particle physics who made the decision that it was ethically acceptable if their simulation created life as a side effect. > > Should you worship them? If they tell you to remove part of your genitalia or stretch your neck to be twice as long or hang yourself on hooks by the skin from a tree, does that really make sense if we’re talking about a creature capable of inventing or understanding quantum physics? If they genuinely ask that of us, then why should we believe that they’re asking in the name of goodness rather than simply to see how high their creations have jumped out of scientific curiosity? Have we actually proved ourselves to be noble creations if we bow to them and perform these activities? > > 1. There are no YouTube videos of ghosts. There’s a ton of host sightings in history. What has changed that all the magic chronicled in history has disappeared? Why is it that if we know how credulous the Mormons were, even during an era where we’d largely stopped believing in dragons and fairies, that we would find any sense of evidentiary value in the records centuries and millennia earlier? > > 2. What did the Native Americans do to piss off God? Why didn’t he teach us about germ theory? If he exists, he allowed 90% of the people of a continent to die for no objective reason. They never had a chance to convert. > > 3. If the teachings of a religion were good then the world would have become a better place. If you believe that meditation makes you a better person, you should note that millions of Indians practiced meditation over the centuries becoming “better and wiser versions of themselves” all the while treating a large percentile of their population as untouchable monsters for no sane reason. Slavery did not end in 1 AD nor at the birth of any religion that is in wide practice. Women were the property of their husbands until the late 19th century. That’s a fair delay. > > If there’s a god whose only action in our existences is to punish is for not obeying his commands during our lives by throwing us into an eternal torture session after we die, I would vote that based on the rules and philosophy and culture that he gave to us and that we had to cast off in order to turn the world into a better place, I’m not strongly optimistic that there was ever a Heaven option. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/107 "2019-08-28T08:26:03Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > …When I hear of a person who thinks that atheism is a system of beliefs, I generally assume that they, like you, are mistakenly thinking that atheism must be a full-on religion… You’re reading way too much into my comments. Just the mention of the word “atheism” and we’re off into assumptions about what I am and what my “beliefs” are. It always seems to happen. That’s why I prefer not to be classified. If I have to be a something, I’m just rational.🙂 j ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/108 "2019-08-28T10:27:32Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > My apologies to Kayaker. I have enjoyed talking with him many times. I thought I was replying to another participant in the thread. Ephesians 4:31-32 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/109 "2019-08-28T10:30:14Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > You’re reading way too much into my comments. Just the mention of the word “atheism” and we’re off into assumptions about what I am and what my “beliefs” are. It always seems to happen. That’s why I prefer not to be classified. If I have to be a something, I’m just rational.🙂 > > j I had a big old back-and-forth with another poster on pretty much exactly this point and I do understand why you want to avoid having assumptions made about your worldview. That probably comes from how you have experienced the term “atheist” in the past and what you hear from those that have antipathy towards the concept. If (like me) your self-identification as an atheist means “I don’t have a belief in god” and nothing more then it ceases to have any power in that way. Now, if your answer to the question “do you believe in god” is anything other than “yes” I will mentally label you an atheist but I make no other assumptions about your worldview. As for atheism and intelligence. I never had a belief in god. My parents might have been religious but I saw no real evidence of it. I had the typical UK luke-warm religious worship everyday but never felt it was anything other than just a ritual people did. I don’t recall ever forcefully pushing back against it because I was never convinced by it in the first place and no-one ever tried to force it on me as an absolute truth. As such it held no greater place in my head than Greek and Roman myths (which were much more exciting). So it never got a hold on me. When I was about 10-11 I was reading Von Daniken and was wowed by his thesis and his “evidence”. Uri Geller’s shtick also rose to prominence at that point. Unfortunately for them at that time I also started reading Randi etc. and began to have the scientific method laid out for me and to understand the importance of evidence over opinion and hearsay. So it needed no intelligence to _be_an atheist, a certain amount of intelligence was needed to understand what the scientific method was and in my later years that has been the filter through which I filter bullshit and by which I judge what assertions can be discarded. That level of analysis is open to anyone though, all you need to be is smart enough to know that you can be fooled and smart enough to apply some pretty simple tools. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/110 "2019-08-28T12:51:53Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Your words speak for you…as does your silence after insisting that you can speak for yourself. I see no indication that anything said in this thread has affected your opinion on this matter. Nobody on this board, especially me, is constrained to make replies on a timetable that _you_ impose. People are still replying. I will have a final opinion when the thread has run its course. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/111 "2019-08-28T13:00:22Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > So it needed no intelligence to _be_an atheist, a certain amount of intelligence was needed to understand what the scientific method was and in my later years that has been the filter through which I filter bullshit and by which I judge what assertions can be discarded. That level of analysis is open to anyone though, all you need to be is smart enough to know that you can be fooled and smart enough to apply some pretty simple tools. This is true. Once you realize that you can be fooled, it makes it easier to realize _when_ you have been fooled and backtrack accordingly. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/112 "2019-08-28T13:06:12Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Ephesians 4:31-32 > > 🙂 Proverbs 20:3 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/113 "2019-08-28T15:18:42Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > This is true. Once you realize that you can be fooled, it makes it easier to realize _when_ you have been fooled and backtrack accordingly. Sagan’s Baloney detection system is a pretty good starting point. You just have to have the humility to use it, let the chips fall where they may and as you say, be prepared to backtrack when you are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/114 "2019-08-28T15:41:15Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I am really surprised how often people refer to religion when discussing their belief or lack of belief in a higher power. I don’t see how their could be a connection. I can understand one saying religion is hogwash or unbelievable but religion certainly would not play a part in rather or not I believed in God. It might depend on what one means by “religion”. To me, belief in a god or gods, however defined (and I use a really wide definition) is religion. Then there’s what I’d call “organized religion”, which is what I’d use to refer to a combination of such belief with a system of shared ritual and shared rules of behavior. If what you mean by “religion” is what I’d call “organized religion”, then there isn’t necessarily a connection. But there certainly is in how I use the word. Maybe some of the people who say they’re “spiritual but not religious” are using it the way I think you are. I always took that to mean that people had some sense of connection with the world as a whole or the universe as a whole that didn’t involve a belief in any god; but maybe some people mean by it that they believe in god(s) but aren’t members of any organized religion. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/115 "2019-08-28T16:02:18Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Proverbs 20:3 🙂 “I spent most of my dough on booze, broads, and boats, and the rest I wasted.” – _La Brava_ by Elmore Leonard 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/116 "2019-08-28T17:09:01Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > You’re reading way too much into my comments. Just the mention of the word “atheism” and we’re off into assumptions about what I am and what my “beliefs” are. It always seems to happen. That’s why I prefer not to be classified. If I have to be a something, I’m just rational.🙂 > > j The only assumptions I’m making are about your definitions of words, not about your beliefs. Specifically you seem to think the word “atheism” is somehow not synonymous with “There’s nothing” and instead implies a whole system of beliefs (aka a religion). You flat-out said you think this, actually. As far as I’m concerned, “atheism” means “doesn’t believe in any god or gods”, full stop. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > It might depend on what one means by “religion”. To me, belief in a god or gods, however defined (and I use a really wide definition) is religion. Then there’s what I’d call “organized religion”, which is what I’d use to refer to a combination of such belief with a system of shared ritual and shared rules of behavior. > > If what you mean by “religion” is what I’d call “organized religion”, then there isn’t necessarily a connection. But there certainly is in how I use the word. Maybe some of the people who say they’re “spiritual but not religious” are using it the way I think you are. I always took that to mean that people had some sense of connection with the world as a whole or the universe as a whole that didn’t involve a belief in any god; but maybe some people mean by it that they believe in god(s) but aren’t members of any organized religion. This. One can find religion without finding _a_ religion. ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/117 "2019-08-28T18:17:13Z")
I don’t think that Atheism (not believing in any type of a deity) requires one to be smart. The whole idea of skepticism is only believing in things for good reasons, based on sound facts and evidence. If there are no facts or evidence to believe that a god exists, then one should not believe in it until such evidence can be produced. That being said, I think that people who take the time to educate themselves and put in a good amount of effort into their reasoning and thinking so that they have a skeptical mindset are naturally going to be smart people. So while I agree there is a correlation, being smart is not necessarily the causation of Atheism. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/118 "2019-08-28T19:33:27Z")
> [@Dragwyr](#): > > That being said, I think that people who take the time to educate themselves and put in a good amount of effort into their reasoning and thinking so that they have a skeptical mindset are naturally going to be smart people. So while I agree there is a correlation, being smart is not necessarily the causation of Atheism. In theory, the causation of Atheism would be the lack of deities (or lack of plausibility for deities). 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Haldurson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/51bf81/32.png) [@Haldurson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haldurson)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/119 "2019-08-28T22:15:25Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Tell me. For me, it was a combination of things, and I can’t say for sure that any one thing was responsible. But I do think it was going to be inevitable due to a combination of experiences. Having a logical mind though, and learning to be skeptical were big, for sure. I had a mother who was brought up to hate how Orthodox Judaism treated women, a grandfather who loved the ritual of judaism, but was probably an atheist, I had friends with really diverse backgrounds and beliefs, a Hebrew school teacher who taught us to always ask questions, a real interest in science and math, and a talent for logic, and so on. I dabbled with a few fringe beliefs as as pre-teen, but learned quickly that there are a lot of crackpots out there. And the more I listened to my rabbi, the more I believed that he was one of them. I also had an experience with a con-woman (I got off cheap – only cost me $100.00) so I learned early on to be skeptical. Because of the diverse backgrounds of all my friends and acquaintances while growing up, I realized that the question of ‘is their a God’ was a lot more complex a question than most people insisted it was. I realized that you can’t even fairly ASK the question until you have a common vocabulary of what ‘God’ is. And there wasn’t one. In other words, the question "Do you believe in a God (or any deity) is a meaningless question. How can you say that you believe in something which you can’t even identify with any clarity and distinction? So I lack belief. Most people ASSUME when you ask the question that you will interpret it in the context of THEIR belief. But those definitions tend to be vague and non-specific (and it’s not any less so when you are talking about a definition from Monotheism, as opposed to Polytheism). But even if you can give your deity a specific description in great detail, with enough specificity and characteristics that there is no possibility of mistake, that definition still must be consistent with all we know for a fact about how the world actually works. And that’s how nearly all definitions that I’ve heard (none of which are really that detailed and specific) fail. So give me all of the specifics first, or I’m not going to blindly accept what you are selling. And even if you do, it better be something that does not violate any known scientific laws, or I’m going to think that you don’t have a clue what you are talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238/120 "2019-08-28T22:52:00Z")
> [@Haldurson](#): > > I realized that the question of ‘is their a God’ was a lot more complex a question than most people insisted it was. I realized that you can’t even fairly ASK the question until you have a common vocabulary of what ‘God’ is. And there wasn’t one. In other words, the question "Do you believe in a God (or any deity) is a meaningless question. I’ve come to that conclusion as well. Even during a given conversation with one person the so-called entity can nebulously shift apparent meanings. Just looking at all the theodicy arguments leads me to see that many concepts of God are not even logically coherent let alone possible (since many people impute wondrous powers and kindness to it yet backtrack when the theodicy is formalized.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-do-you-believe-you-are-an-atheist-because-you-are-smart/839238.md?page=7)