Presidents and religion - smart enough to lie, or dumb enough to believe?

[Martin_Hyde]

I think the biggest fallacy seen in this thread is the idea that if you’re intelligent, educated, and inquisitive you are holistically all of those things. The truth is, not many people are thus, even people like Einstein, Fermi, Newton, all of the Presidents and et cetera.

What I mean is, Einstein was very inquisitive about the nature of the universe. How inquisitive was he about the reason dogs bond so closely with humans? How inquisitive was he about why women wear high heels even though they complain that it hurts their feet? How inquisitive was he about the religion he was raised in?

Does his lack of focus or inquisitiveness about those areas mean Einstein is unintelligent? No. It is very difficult to objectively ascertain anyone’s intelligence.

You can look at their educational achievements for one. People who achieve well academically are usually not unintelligent. However, it’s no guarantee. Some people may have been “guided” through the academic system based on familial connection, favoritism, et cetera. Maybe someone got good grades because they worked insanely hard, putting two and three times as much effort into their studies as more intelligent students.

It’s sort of like physical health. If you’re fat and you don’t exercise it is more likely you will live a short life and die of heart disease. It isn’t certain. Some fat and sedentary people will live to be ninety years old, not many, but some. Some athletic and active people will die of a heart attack at age 40 with no prior indications of heart problems. Not many, but some.

It stands to reason then, that while intelligence may suggest more inquisitiveness, and higher inquisitiveness may suggest raising doubts about one’s religion, none of those are certain. Perhaps your intelligence doesn’t manifest as high inquisitiveness. In the case of politicians I almost think that is the case. A politician’s intelligence tends to be results-oriented and goal oriented. A scientist’s intelligence is more knowledge seeking and mystery-solving oriented.

A smart politician isn’t interested in solving the mystery of why some voters like people who kiss babies, dress in nice suits, and speak well in public. A politician’s intellect will instead focus on discovering what activities will garner him the most support amongst other politicians and voters, his intellect will focus on figuring out who it is he needs to know to get what he wants, what it is they want, how he can get it to them. That’s a different type of intelligence from the intelligence of an Isaac Newton. It isn’t necessarily lesser or greater, and based on history both are rare in the general population.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

That gets somewhat to what I was saying about compartmentalization. There are people who can be be very sharp and analytical in some intellectual areas, but they just close off the religious part of their life from scrutiny. There are lawyers who can dissect arguments and dismantle evidence in a courtroom, but never cross-examine their own religious beliefs. I don’t think that most people are religious because they’re stupid, but I do think a lot of them have just never thought about it very hard. It’s an uncomfortable thing to do. It’s like thinking about your parents having sex.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

That gets somewhat to what I was saying about compartmentalization. There are people who can be be very sharp and analytical in some intellectual areas, but they just close off the religious part of their life from scrutiny. There are lawyers who can dissect arguments and dismantle evidence in a courtroom, but never cross-examine their own religious beliefs. I don’t think that most people are religious because they’re stupid, but I do think a lot of them have just never thought about it very hard. It’s an uncomfortable thing to do. It’s like thinking about your parents having sex.

I don’t know what word I’d use for them, but based on my personal experience I’d say a huge portion of people who are actively religious in the United States (to my mind that means they are regular members of a congregation, attending 1 or more times per month a church service) do so out of community/societal reasons and have very little deep understanding of Christianity and little personal relationship with God. I’m not saying they’re closet atheists, I’m saying they just aren’t very active Christians, they go through the motions, sing a few hymns, shake hands and make appearances.

I think it happens because in a lot of the country going to church occasionally is considered the proper thing to do, taking your kids to church is considered the proper thing to do. I think most people have a genuine belief in “God” and are not lying when they say they believe in God, but I think most couldn’t name all ten commandments, couldn’t explain in what ways the New Testament is specifically important to Christians as compared to the Old Testament, or other very, very basic things. They could probably recite a few of the more well known parables.

For these people it’s sort of in the same realm as things like golfing or fishing. In areas where they are popular many people will participate without giving it much thought. Would they sans the societal implications? Who knows, but when you’re raised in a community where say, golfing with friends or fishing in the summer months is a big part of socializing most normal humans will do that.

It doesn’t mean people are faking it when they say they enjoy fishing or golfing, but maybe it does mean if they had been totally free to choose their own recreations from birth they would do other things (but that’s total speculation, and humans are naturally so social and so strongly desire to be part of the community that its hard to separate out individual preference from desire to fit in.)

[Martin_Hyde]

It’s also worth noting many scientists still say they are religious.

That to me isn’t as incompatible as many would think. Something a lot of crazies like creationists, young-earthers, et cetera do not understand is that scientists by and large are rarely out to disprove something. That just isn’t how it works. For one, “proving something false” aside from extremely simple scenarios is more or less impossible. Throughout history scientists have instead been interested in demonstrating via observation and testing explanations for things and then utilizing that understanding in applied science.

Darwin did not start off to disprove anything, but to explain and understand. As it is with science sometimes new understandings effectively discredit old ones, but it typically isn’t the case that a professional scientists is set out solely to discredit something. If new research comes to light, the scientific community will of course scrutinize it and attempt to find any gaping holes, but most scientists probably dream of making new discoveries, not focusing on “proving” the falseness of religion or any other sort of thing that religious people are so up in arms about.

Since religion is essentially so far outside the field of science (in that its entirety is by design something that can never be truly tested, observed, or understood from a scientific perspective) a great scientific mind can very easily and naturally compartmentalize faith, since all it takes is a belief in something that is essentially by its own claims outside the realm of what science can directly observe and understand.

[Farmer_Jane]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

That gets somewhat to what I was saying about compartmentalization. There are people who can be be very sharp and analytical in some intellectual areas, but they just close off the religious part of their life from scrutiny. There are lawyers who can dissect arguments and dismantle evidence in a courtroom, but never cross-examine their own religious beliefs. I don’t think that most people are religious because they’re stupid, but I do think a lot of them have just never thought about it very hard. It’s an uncomfortable thing to do. It’s like thinking about your parents having sex.

Hmm…

I help my son with his Hebrew homework.
I pack kosher lunches.
He goes to Jewish camp in the summer.
We celebrate holidays.
I spend an $$ load on his Jewish ed.
We have Jewish friends.
I used to drive one hour in traffic to get to certain Jewish events, school, etc.
I’m also an atheist.

et cetera

and you think I* never thought about it very hard*? :o Like I just casually decided to make things more complicated?

I’ve never walked up to a Muslim or Christian and said, “Oh hey…you know that religion you follow? Have you actually, uh, thought about it at all? Cause I know you have a Ph.D. and all, but I was wondering if you actually sat and thought about how poor your critical thinking skills are!”

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

If you’re an atheist, you’re not religious. I’m not talking about rote practices, but supernatural beliefs.

I send my kids to Catholic school, celebrate Christmas and Easter, eat fish on fridays during Lent, have Catholic friends, give money to a Catholic church, am nominally a member of that church, etc., but I am not religious. I’m not talking about those things when I say people haven’t thought about it, I’m talking about the actual magical beliefs, not the practice.

[Farmer_Jane]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

If you’re an atheist, you’re not religious.

No.

: **relating to **or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged **ultimate reality **or deity <a religious person> <religious attitudes>
2
: of, relating to, or devoted to religious beliefs or observances <joined a religious order>

I’m not talking about rote practices, but supernatural beliefs.

There is nothing “rote” about my lifestyle.

I send my kids to Catholic school, celebrate Christmas and Easter, eat fish on fridays during Lent, have Catholic friends, give money to a Catholic church, am nominally a member of that church, etc., but I am not religious. I’m not talking about those things when I say people haven’t thought about it, I’m talking about the actual magical beliefs, not the practice.

Who says I don’t believe in ghosts?

I’m pretty sure my friends who believe in God have thought about it. After all, being Jewish is a tad more inconvenient than being Christian. :o

[Farmer_Jane]

Ha ha, there’s even an article about it in an** atheist **section of About.com:

Atheism for Beginners

Curious…do you think Buddhists aren’t religious?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I do not think Buddhists are necessarily religious, no. I am a long time practitioner of Zen. I am not religious.

I think this argument over the definition of the word “religious” is irrelevant anyway, sincve I clearly said that that I’m talking about supernatural beliefs.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

By the way, if you believe in ghosts, you’re religious.

[Farmer_Jane]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

By the way, if you believe in ghosts, you’re religious.

And what religion would that be? Casperian? :rolleyes:

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

It doesn’t need a name to be religious.

[Farmer_Jane]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

I do not think Buddhists are necessarily religious, no. I am a long time practitioner of Zen. I am not religious.

I think this argument over the definition of the word “religious” is irrelevant anyway, sincve I clearly said that that I’m talking about supernatural beliefs.

It’s totally relevant. Look at the thread. I don’t nitpick over semantics, but this is a big one. You’re confusing *theism *with religion.

Let’s not Dio-rail the thread. You misused a word. Okay. Moving on.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I’m not confusing anything. I consider any supernatural belief to be “religious.” I don’t care if you don’t. I will still say that all supernatural beliefs are equally irrational, and do not stand up to critical thinking.

[Farmer_Jane]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

It doesn’t need a name to be religious.

Okay, so in Diogenes’s Dictionary, the definition for religious is: *belief in anything related to paranormal or supernatural activity or that which that cannot be explained through scientific methodology
*

Hey, hate to sound snarky, but that’s not gonna fly. It’s cool you told me you really meant to say something else, but the conversation was about religion.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I didn’t mean to say something else. All supernatural beliefs are religious. there is no such thing as the “paramormal,” and nothing that “can’t be explained by science.”

[Farmer_Jane]

@diogenes the cynic

i didn’t mean to say something else. All supernatural beliefs are religious. There is no such thing as the “paramormal,” and nothing that “can’t be explained by science.”

[indent]W A R N I N G[/indent]

derailed thread. Proceed with caution.

[Argent_Towers]

@Chronos

Quoth Little NemoFor a lot of people, religion just serves as a way to separate the in group (which I’m a member of, thereby proving that I’m inherently superior) from the out group (which consists of all of those clearly inferior damn dirty heathens). In short, you could have a church that consisted entirely of folks who didn’t actually believe anything, but who all claimed to, so as to fit in with all the other church members who also claim to believe. I mean, you can say the same thing of college fraternities, or members of the Masons or the Elks or whatnot, and those groups don’t even have the leavening of a few genuine True Believers to get things started.

I can’t speak for the Elks, but that’s not how Masons are at all. While I’m willing to buy that some of them just join the fraternity to fit in with a social group (probably much more common 60 years ago than today), most of them do, in fact, believe strongly in the Masonic principles.

[QUOTE=fusoya]
Contrast that to Al Gore, who picked “one of them dirty Jews” for VP. For some reason, that never seems to get talked about much, but I always had the impression that this was a big part of what did him in in 2000…
[/QUOTE]

I really don’t buy this. I think it had much more to do with the fact that Lieberman is a spineless little weasel with zero charisma who comes off as a sexless beta male. He was a horrible foil to Gore, who himself was considered uncharismatic by many. If Gore’s running mate had been a stud like Rahm Emmanuel, few would have cared that he was a Jew.

[Skammer]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

That gets somewhat to what I was saying about compartmentalization. There are people who can be be very sharp and analytical in some intellectual areas, but they just close off the religious part of their life from scrutiny. There are lawyers who can dissect arguments and dismantle evidence in a courtroom, but never cross-examine their own religious beliefs. I don’t think that most people are religious because they’re stupid, but I do think a lot of them have just never thought about it very hard. It’s an uncomfortable thing to do. It’s like thinking about your parents having sex.

This is undoubtedly true for many people, but you’re ignoring centuries of very deep religious thinkers from the Apostle Paul to Clement and Origen to Augustine, Aquinas and Anselm and Abelard and the Scholastic movement(s), to Luther and Calvin, Kierkegaard, and up into the 20th century with neo-orthodoxy, liberation theology, post-modern theology… and that doesn’t even to begin to scratch the surface of all the “sharp and analytical” minds who have applied themselves to Christianity – never mind all the brilliant minds in Judaism or Islam or other religions.

Non-religious people just can’t accept the idea that brilliant people can come to a different conviction about the existence of God and nature of religion, but it’s happened throughout history.

[G-SE]

@Marley23

Enough. Your posts on this topic are getting insulting and out of line for this forum. Stick to the argument without commenting on the intelligence and reading ability of other posters.

I realize this is a debate about religion and that includes how religion affects elections and politicians, but this debate about the purported stupidity of religion is off-topic. This thread isn’t debating religion itself.

Holy shit are you really that blind?