# Presidents and religion - smart enough to lie, or dumb enough to believe? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 10, 2011, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidents-and-religion-smart-enough-to-lie-or-dumb-enough-to-believe/577872 "2011-04-10T15:51:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidents-and-religion-smart-enough-to-lie-or-dumb-enough-to-believe/577872/141 "2011-04-14T18:07:22Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Don’t lump all religious people in the same group. That’s rather ignorant, don’t you think? No it isn’t. “Religious people” IS a group. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidents-and-religion-smart-enough-to-lie-or-dumb-enough-to-believe/577872/142 "2011-04-14T18:21:38Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > Fine, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that, to the extent that their convictions have differed from one another, all but one of them if not _all_ of them are _wrong_ in some of their convictions. You could literally say the exact same thing about any two people on the planet. “To the extent you disagree, at least one of you is wrong.” What is that supposed to demonstrate about religious people? That they’re not monolithic? > [@](#): > > The less you hold certain beliefs with conviction, the less wrong you are likely to be. Again, true across the board (I hope Der Thrihs is listening). > [@](#): > > And I think that there is a distinction to be made between a vague, liberalized theism and the various conservative fundamentalisms and orthodoxies that is relevant to some of the discussion in this thread. There’s a pretty _huge_ excluded middle there. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidents-and-religion-smart-enough-to-lie-or-dumb-enough-to-believe/577872/143 "2011-04-14T18:27:42Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > You could literally say the exact same thing about any two people on the planet. “To the extent you disagree, at least one of you is wrong.” What is that supposed to demonstrate about religious people? That they’re not monolithic? That the majority of religious beliefs _have_ to be wrong, because they contradict one another. And the difference is that with most other beliefs, you aren’t being told that it is Absolute Truth that must be taken on faith. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidents-and-religion-smart-enough-to-lie-or-dumb-enough-to-believe/577872/144 "2011-04-14T18:32:27Z")
I went and wiki’d up the Big Bang on Wikipedia. [Big Bang - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang) I was surprised to see this: (underlining by me) > [@](#): > > Independently deriving Friedmann’s equations in 1927, Georges Lemaître, a Belgian physicist and Roman Catholic priest, proposed that the inferred recession of the nebulae was due to the expansion of the Universe. > > In 1931 Lemaître went further and suggested that the evident expansion in forward time required that the Universe contracted backwards in time, and would continue to do so until it could contract no further, bringing all the mass of the Universe into a single point, a “primeval atom” where and when the fabric of time and space comes into existence. Here is a (presumedly) true believer using his critical thinking skills. No mention of “6 days for creation” that I noticed. There is also this page: [Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_interpretations_of_the_Big_Bang_theory) I would say that religious thinkers… think. If Catholic Priests can somehow harmonise science and religion, why couldn’t a U.S. President be sincere believers and intelligent at the same time? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidents-and-religion-smart-enough-to-lie-or-dumb-enough-to-believe/577872/145 "2011-04-14T18:35:27Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That the majority of religious beliefs _have_ to be wrong, because they contradict one another. And the difference is that with most other beliefs, you aren’t being told that it is Absolute Truth that must be taken on faith. That list was simply offered up as proof that smart, thoughtful, critical thinkers can be, have been, and often are religious. I was not attempting to demonstrate the truth of any one religion over another. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidents-and-religion-smart-enough-to-lie-or-dumb-enough-to-believe/577872/146 "2011-04-14T21:12:38Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > What do you make of **Algher** ’s example of a degree-heavy congregation being a **left progressive** one? If you want to discuss that, start a new thread. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidents-and-religion-smart-enough-to-lie-or-dumb-enough-to-believe/577872/147 "2011-04-14T23:01:55Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > That list was simply offered up as proof that smart, thoughtful, critical thinkers can be, have been, and often are religious. I was not attempting to demonstrate the truth of any one religion over another. Regardless, it demonstrates that those “smart, thoughtful, critical thinkers” are _at best_ mostly wrong; it’s logically impossible for all or most of them to be right since they contradict each other. Which means that they aren’t actually all that “smart, thoughtful, critical” when it comes to this subject. Especially since they make whatever religious claims they make with zero evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidents-and-religion-smart-enough-to-lie-or-dumb-enough-to-believe/577872/148 "2011-04-15T13:33:11Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Regardless, it demonstrates that those “smart, thoughtful, critical thinkers” are _at best_ mostly wrong; it’s logically impossible for all or most of them to be right since they contradict each other. Which means that they aren’t actually all that “smart, thoughtful, critical” when it comes to this subject. Especially since they make whatever religious claims they make with zero evidence. I’m going to take a wild guess that you’ve never read any of the folks I’ve listed. They mostly _don’t_ contradict each other. Most of them agree on most aspects of their theologies. Where they disagree are either in unimportant details or, most often, on practical application. Besides, since when can smart, thoughtful, and critical thinkers not disagree? You must live in a very black-and-white world. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidents-and-religion-smart-enough-to-lie-or-dumb-enough-to-believe/577872/149 "2011-04-15T16:54:18Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > They mostly _don’t_ contradict each other. Most of them agree on most aspects of their theologies. Where they disagree are either in unimportant details or, most often, on practical application. Even assuming that’s true, all that means is that you carefully picked a small subset of the “smart, thoughtful, critical thinkers” who happen to be religious and agree with each other, while ignoring the equally “smart, thoughtful, critical thinkers” who don’t. That doesn’t make the contradictions go away, it just means you tried to produce an artificial appearance of agreement. > [@Skammer](#): > > Besides, since when can smart, thoughtful, and critical thinkers not disagree? You must live in a very black-and-white world. :rolleyes: You know exactly what I mean. When people contradict each other about an objective claim, most of them **must** be wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidents-and-religion-smart-enough-to-lie-or-dumb-enough-to-believe/577872.md?page=7)