# Is religion a form of ignorance?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-a-form-of-ignorance/800003>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 27, 2017, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-a-form-of-ignorance/800003 "2017-10-27T17:35:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 16

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**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:** [November 12, 2017, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-a-form-of-ignorance/800003/302 "2017-11-12T23:41:05Z")

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> [@TonySinclair](#):
>
> He was a pretty fair physicist, but so was Newton, and Newton had some batshit crazy ideas about religion. I wouldn’t say that about Einstein, but judging from those quotes about religion, he was a pretty fair physicist.

Linus Pauling did some amazing work with protein structure. Then he went goofy over vitamin C.

James Watson worked out the structure of DNA (screwing over Rosalind Franklin In the process). Then he went all racist and is now shunned by academia.

Science is full of geniuses who embarrassed themselves in fields outside of their primary area of study.

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**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:** [November 13, 2017, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-a-form-of-ignorance/800003/303 "2017-11-13T00:20:33Z")

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> [@GreenWyvern](#):
>
> To call religion a crutch is superficial. We shouldn’t confuse religion and superstition, or overestimate how much can be known through human senses, experience, and intellect.

Religion is superstition with a tax deduction.  
We hardly overestimate what we can tell directly from our senses - that is why we build instruments. Instruments, experience and intellect have let us figure out the first moments of the universe 14 billion years ago. It has let us figure out the history of life on earth. I’d say they were doing pretty good. It won’t let us figure out questions for which there are no answers - like why. Wanting answers to such is a human foible, and has nothing to do with our intellect.

Einstein was a deist at best. He used god a lot as a metaphor, but I think you are stretching if you think he had any religion.

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**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2017, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-a-form-of-ignorance/800003/304 "2017-11-13T00:23:57Z")

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> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> Yes, a one-hit wonder. (Two hits?)

Two? Was old Al bogarting spacetime?

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