I’m not 100% sure what it is you want me to address. If you want me to explain how mathematics, logic and scientific principles are physical things, I can’t. I don’t believe that they are. Like Abe, I would call them concepts. A physical thing, to me, is like a shoe or a purse; something I can touch.
If you want me to provide a feasible explanation for the Big Bang, I also can’t. I believe it happened, but I can’t explain it. I am currently working in research on the chemical origins of life, but I can’t tell you how humans or human thought came about. If you wanted me to answer your questions as an atheist, I can’t because I’m not one.
I wasn’t anticipating a debate on religion and intelligence, I just wanted to know what kind of assumptions people made (inspired by the linked thread). Personally, I don’t believe that there will ever be a perfect way to correllate religion and intelligence, or even that one has anything to do with the other. I just wanted to know if people think that one has something to do with the other.
It is all well and good to have threads like this and hear people confirm that they think religion requires people to be lunatics, or say this is not the case…
My experience on message boards lke this is that as soon as people discover that I am Muslim, they place me in a box and start writing the usual “classifications” that “influence my thinking and writing and topics” .
Of course my visiting of US based message boards in this time of human history has certainly something to do with that
Yet one can not escape the fact that it is impossible to have a normal conversation with certain members “because”. (And esepcially when it comes about things related to Islam or the current US government and what it calls “foreign policy”).
This makes me wonder why I can have a conversation with members without even thinking about if if they might be Muslim or Christian, or Jewish, or whatever religion or atheist, while others seem to find the need to think “Muslim -->[box]”.
Now that I think of it… It is of course very simple… I am brainless because I am religious (and Muslim at that which must finish off my last functioning brain cell if the rest of the religious stuff failed there).
Salaam. A
For what it’s worth, I think it’s terribly unlikely that any Asatru or Germanic heathen would actually express that position.
The majority of pagans (and heathens, as many Asatru object to being called ‘pagan’) I know tend towards what I’ve seen described as a cosmogenic attitude – that the appropriate way of approaching the myths of a given one is to see what they say about the nature of the entities they’re discussing or the universe as a whole.
So Thor and the giants is (at a guess, I’m not Asatru) an expression of the truth of inevitability of conflict and the need for defense of home and kin against their enemies. Thor and the storm could either be discussing the nature of the dangers of the storm (by parallel to the personality of Thor) or the nature and dangers of Thor (by parallel to the storm). Or any of a number of other things; I am, obviously, far better at this with the myths of my own religion than those of others.
I’m always tickled when people around here cite one of my gods as the height of ludicrousness, incidentally. Talk about your minority religious beliefs . . . .
But that is exactly the point. You seem to think that it is unreasonable of atheists to not seriously consider whether Jesus/god could be true, but you are not willing to consider Thor and virgin sacrifice. Is that because you consider them a priori as being not true? Is that close-minded?
“God does not play dice with the universe.” – Einstein
“Who are you to tell God what to do?” – Bohr
“God not only plays dice, but sometimes throws them where they cannot be
seen.” – Hawking
It seems as if three of the most intelligent people in the history of the planet have a belief in God. As to their respective religions, I can’t say, but religion that is taught from parent to child in cultures around the world could be considered programming, just like racism, nationalism, etcetera.
On Christianity:
“This world of pure fiction is vastly inferior to the world of dreams insofar as the latter mirrors reality, whereas the former falsifies, devalues, and negates reality. Once the concept of ‘nature’ had been invented as the opposite of ‘God,’ ‘natural’ had to become a synonym of ‘reprehensible’: this whole world of fiction is rooted in hatred of the natural (of reality!); it is the expression of a profound vexation at the sight of reality.” – Nietzsche.
As I see it, The former quote–from ‘The Antichrist’ (although the German translation could just as easily mean ‘The Anti-Christian’, which would give it a completely different meaning)–could just as easily speak for all forms of religion worldwide.
I’ve seen people argue (and provide cites) that these people refered to ‘God’ in the sense of a fairytale character. Pretending he exists for the sake of their rhetoric. While not actually believing in him. It’s done all the time.
My (lazy) observation is that intelligence and religious belief are generally reversely proportional.
I think the more intelligent a person is the more likely they are to have rationalized religion and come to an atheistic conclusion about why it exists in society.
Sure there may be significant exceptions, and call me a stereotyper and this observation a generalization but I believe the more intelligent a person is the less likely they are to be religious (in modern times at least)
And that any overly intelligent person who is also quite religious must be that way because religion was ingrained so heavily into them that they are too scared to use their intelligence against their religion. Too scared to dare to think that god doesn’t exist.
I’m looking forward to responses to Lilairen’s post.
I am also a Pagan, and I frequently feel left out in the cold by these debates, since they are often so centered on and obsessed by Atheists vs. Christians, none of which applies to my position. The concept of “not questioning” and “sheeple”? Nope. I came to my faith on my own, as an individual, and I live it as an individual. No one told me what to believe. All I had was my own experience in the world and the input of my own senses. In order to decide what I believed about the metaphysical, I had to use my intelligence, not set it aside.
The first two “Goals Of A Witch”, as written down by Scott Cunningham, are “Know yourself” and “Know your craft”. Whether you subscribe to all of what Cunningham has to say about witchcraft, this call to knowledge cannot be ignored by a conscientious practitioner, since it is the heart of an individualistic faith like witchcraft.
My faith includes and embraces that which can be experienced empirically, but it also extends beyond it. Believing in/experiencing the metaphysical does not necessarily mean denying the physical/secular. This is The Big Split between Pagan cosmology and Christian cosmology. The Divine Ultimate is not separate from the mundane world. The nature of TDU can be found in the world itself.
A thought just occured to me . When one considers the evolution of intelligence and the chronology of the universe with respect to the earth in terms of the 24 hour clock, There was no god a few seconds before midnight, then he appeared for a second and then disappeared again.
Sorry, I’m till not seeing the relevance. This thread looks at some recent cosmological models; it doesn’t address your statements about explaining the Big Bang, and I was trying to understand the relevance of a false dichotomy (either Big Bang or Creation) to the discussion.
I’m guessing you’re talking about me, but when passing this judgement you haven’t answered my answers to your objections. As far as I can see your briefest of examinations hasn’t invalidated what I was talking about in the response to the OP.
I don’t believe I did. However you seem to be using a pretty broad definition of “metaphysical” that does not match the subject of the discussion, which might be better framed as the divine or supernatural. Very simply if there is no evidence for god, and if god is epistemically unnecessary, it is safe to conclude pending evidence to the contrary that there is no god. Existence must be proved; non-existence must not. There is no hypocrisy or intolerance involved.
OK. However concepts do not necessarily imply a dualist universe, as I was arguing earlier. The intangible is not necessarily the metaphysical, but of course that depends on the use of the latter term (the first is pretty clear).
So the likely positions and beliefs of actual people who worship Thor are irrelevant to a pontification on the likely attitudes of people who worship Thor?
Why do you think atheism is the summum of proof for intelligence? Where is your proof that this is true?
Sadly enough you represent a vast amount of people who are atheists and who are as much fixated on their atheism as religious people can be on their conviction that God exists. So where is your “superior” intelligence?
See above.
Why do you think you have a superior intelligence because your way of reasoning ends up with the result that God does not exist, while the way of reasoning of a religious person, looking at the same world as you do and able to use his brain exactly the same way as you do ends up with the conclusion that God exist.
Why should one be “scared” to think that God does not exist?
Why do you think religion is about “being scared” of anything?
Why do you seem to think that “being scared of not believing God exists” is the only reason why people you classify under “overly intelligent” are religious?
What exactly is this category of “overly intelligent” you talk about?
I have a few additional questions:
Do you actually say here that scientists/academics (no matter which discipline or specialisation)and more in general all people who have learned to use their brain to examine critically the issues they confront, are all atheists by definition?
Do you actually say that it is for a religious person impossible to stay religious after having done an academic study and research on that religion?
I didn’t say my intelligence is superior because I am an atheist. I am just saying it seems like intelligence is inversely proportional to religious belief. I am not trying to prove anything, I am just stating what I observe or what seems to be the case from my POV.
(bolding mine) I simply believe that doesn’t happen as much.
My point is that religion is something drilled into people as children rather than a conclusion they’ve made all by themselves. And that stuff drilled into people as children remains based on subconscious fear of contradiction of our ‘betters’.
If you drill a belief in someone at an early age then it is deeper within their mind than stuff they aquire later in life. Being deeper in their mind it is harder to contradict with reason and so they may feel guilty or uncomfortable if they try to do so.
Didn’t [bad] christianity used to be about fearing god’s wrath? Isn’t it still about that?
Why do you seem to think that “being scared of not believing God exists” is the only reason why people you classify under “overly intelligent” are religious?
Use your initiative please. I mean people more intelligent than the average. People who can be classified as ‘intelligent’.
Not by definition, no, far from it. I am saying that they happen to be atheists more often than not.
No. You seem to be adding deeper meanings to everything I’ve said. meanings that were not there when I said them.
I am simply saying if a religious person were able to open up their mind and critically analize human history and science without the guilt of contradicting the religion then they may (not ‘will’) become atheists.
Do you state that people who do not/did not live in societies where atheism can/could flourish (and think about it that the Western societies were Christian orientated for centuries) do not/did not produce intelligent people?
Do you claim there is a sudden raise of intelligence visible in societies where there are a lot of atheists?
And by wich means do you come to such strange conclusion?
How can you defend this?
And the same can not happen with atheism? I’m afraid I need to disagree.
So you say that everything a child learns make that child “afraid” for contradicting that later? But this does not happen with atheists?
Really?
Is not the fact that many people who were forcibly “drilled” into a belief system like you describe it, are actually the ones who form a large group among those who leave the religion later in their life?
I would say they do.
I would even say that these people end up as the most convinced atheists I have ever met.
No. Not the Christianity I am familiar with. And we speak here about “religion” which is more then Christianity alone. You seem to pick out “Christianity” - and in this religion probably only one of its sects - to form yourself an idea about religious people in general.
So all atheists are by definition more intelligent then religious people can ever be, and among atheists there are no people whoshow some lack of braincells… Because to be atheist you fist of all must be intelligent.
Sorry that I can not agree… I have met some very stupid atheists as I have met also some very intelligent ones. Same experience with religious people.
Really? Where do you get this idea?
What “guilt” of contradicting religion are you talking about?
What “contradiction”?
Where is being historian or scientist “contradicting religion”?
I am historian. I don’t know what yo know about that discipline, but it requires first of all to be able to critically analize the sources you study on regarding human history. To me that study included my own religion up to the history of the text of Al QSur’an itself.
My father was a scientist. My mother was a scientist. My grandfather was a scientist. Now that I think of it… The same can be said for a lot of my family members, and not limited to this generation.
They all were/are religious.
Salaam. A
Aldebaran I am not going to get drawn into the usual debate where a broad statement or statements are picked at by leading questions and misunderstanding of the meaning. I am not motivated enough to spend the time pointing out the errors in your interpretation of what I am saying (or to put it simpler, I don’t care enough about this issue to waste my time on it)
I remain a believer that in general (with a few exceptions) intelligence is inversely proportional to religion. Don’t ask me to prove this unless you can prove that it is false without citing anomolies.
I just get this idea from thousands of tiny clues in life (and my own rationalisation about history of civilization, but that’s bias so it doesn’t count, or somethign) It’s hard to be clearer than that.
So, Lobsang, where do intelligent people who convert to religion as adults come in? What about the people who were raised in uncaring or atheist households, who decide on their own that God exists?
Both my parents (very smart people) were raised without going to church, and yet, as adults, joined a church and are active in it today (they each joined before they met each other).
My recent bishop, a doctor, is quite sharp. He and his wife (an intelligent woman) both started going to church as adults.
DangerDad’s co-worker was an atheist until about 25. Now he’s a devoted Christian. I’d say he’s of above-average intelligence, at least. He’s an engineer, so he works in the hard sciences (as does DangerDad, who only became devout at about 19).
My favorite professor at Berkeley, one of the most frighteningly intelligent people I know (she came to Berkeley from Oxford), was raised in a non-church-going home, but converted to Judaism as an adult.
My SIL had a master’s degree and was learning her third language when she angered her parents by becoming a member of a Christian church–and she comes from a culture where daughters are expected to obey their parents absolutely. On which side was the fear in that case?
Yes, I know that anecdote != data, but Lobsang’s opinion seems to be based on his own anecdotes. I know so many very smart people who started becoming interested in religion as adults that these statements seem just ludicrous to me. So does the assumption that religion is all about fear.
