Does religion make people dumber?

This is a contradiction.

But it is a physical event. Belief is something that happens in the brain, it's an electric-chemical process. Is it that you don't believe that, or simply don't understand it?

 

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No, but you certainly do. I'm simply talking about your use of personal, seemingly arbitrary definitions as if they are the standard. Like when I mentioned that you seemed to have discovered you have a soul. You got all indignant because I was defining soul by it's standard, accepted definition, as if I was doing something wrong. How is anyone supposed to converse with you if you don't stop pretending that you personal definitions aren't the only possible definitions of a term?

 

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No it is not, you just can't work it out.

On one hand you have the belief in something, and on the other hand you have the brain. The brain is a physical object, a belief is NOT a physical object. You MUST distinguish between physical objects and spiritual entities.

 

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Now, not only were you ignorant in your ways, but you misrepresent them too. I was not "indignant" because you used the standard definition of the term, I was annoyed because you were slithering around like the snake that you are, and refusing to answer me when I asked you what is this "soul" you speak of? Only after many back and forth posts did you finally post something. I'm not into having to beg you to answer my questions.

 

God is PERSONAL spiritual event and unrelated to another's personal spiritual events.

God is a spiritual entity of one's own making! Each brain is a spiritual universe in itself, we can and do create spiritual beings, but they don't exist for anyone else in just the same way. "Never the twain shall meet." Not as long as anyone says "My God is the Truth and commands You to think and act as I do for My God.

God is an emotional state of mind. It manifests itself as a bearded white haired man on a golden throne, to a half fish like human with a pitchfork, to a horned demon with goats feet, to white winged messengers. Unicorns. Fairies. Wonderful flight of fancy inside one's own universe.

 

Nice!!

 

Gospel is through revelations or thinking logically.

Hi,
I am a retired lecturer in Metallurgy and my late father was a Science teacher. He always sought logical reasoning and he would not take anyone for granted.

Through logical reasoning, he told people that Sikh and Muslim are spiritual selves never born and never died. He saved people from sectarian riots. Two thousand people of Mohamedan village came to attack us and when he explained to them that Sikh and Muslim are spiritual selves, never born and never died but our tribal selves are born and they will die during fighting, there being no enmity between our tribes, they became our best friends.

Now, I Preach Christianity and Sikhism and attend seminars at Oxford University. I asked them who created Adam and Eve? All kept quite and told me that they do not know. Now, Yahweh is the demiurge god of Nature but as these Professors are people of the Book, they are dumber than the general public. I call them super donkeys carrying holy Books.

They don't know who was born and died? Jesus or Christ?

Do you know the answer? It is in the Bible but not for every one but for those to whom our Father willeth.

 

With respect to all parties concerned: Faith is not strictly a theological tenant. People with faith accept scientific evidence. Both strive through their philosophies. This issue may have had the potential to be broken down to one camp or the other in the past, but hardly deserves a new necromancy.

One who adopts a scientific point of view can't claim a lack of faith in the process of empiricism: see: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empiricism Or, it's anti-hypothesis.

All empirical tenants and conclusions, must be, by definition falsifiable. And, even if accepted, re-falsifiable (which is a stupid way of saying, Ain't nobody gots all the answers).

What pisses off people who subscribe to empirical methods is that some people hold on to philosophical dogma too long. People who exist within religious domains of any reasonable religion have the right to question: see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubting_Thomas

Both spheres of influence could use an enema, but the race is not close at this time. If you went back as far as Newton, you would see some experimental amalgamation on his part. Empirical methodology, however, is more consistent and deserves proper examination, or would anybody like to exist in a universe of much wrong and pain again.

I'm not willing to let the empiricists off without a spanking (myself included): No philosophic perspective can exist without due consideration to the voices that say yes or no.

However, though my view may be without absolute evidence, my conclusions are without prejudice and in keeping with the evidence thus far provided.

 

Now you're just lying. Welcome to the ignore list.

 

Monotheism, Polytheism and Scientology (mono-alienism) does seem to make people dumber.

 

I really like this. I really believe that's the best we can do for a universal stance on "god." Who knows, it may cause world peace over time,

 

I have no idea how you can get "equating church with faith" from "citing the atheist-in-church". Would not an atheist, if requiring faith to attend church, no longer be an atheist?

I do not know, but why not go look for yourself, as it is your straw man after all.

 

Strange. I saw one of the engineers today walk by with an ash cross on his forehead, practicing Ash Wednesday. I think this "religious = less intelligent" idea is rubbish. It is nothing more than hate mongering.

 

Possibly by some, but statistics show differently:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LynnHarveyNyborg-CountryBelieveGod-Intelligence.svg

 

I acknowledge that intelligence gets in the way of the joy of believing in God (and mysticism in general). It is such a let down to see through the illusions of others. It's almost as if too much intelligence is a bad thing. I can claim to have felt the Holy Spirit move through me. It is a beautiful thing. So is it all just an illusion? Perhaps not.

The wave function is still this invisible thing that scientists can't prove the existence of; yet it acts like some invisible thing with quantum states. It's like classical physics/logic fails and leaves this invisible "spirit -like" substance everywhere in the universe.

http://phys.org/news/2012-05-paper-controversy-nature-quantum-function.html

 

That's an entirely subjective statement. You see it as getting in the way of the joy of believing while others would seeing it as the joy of being freed from believing.

That response may have its roots in your genetics or possibly just how you psychologically developed. For example, I feel great pleasure seeing through the illusions of others.

For some it might be.

I am sure that whatever you felt is whatever you felt. I would speculate that you are erroneously attributing your experience to an external sapient life form rather than your brain.

The wave function is either a genuine physical object or statstical tool. We're not sure yet. But I would point out what you are doing. You are investing your desire for "spirit-like substance" in areas that science says "I don't know".

 

You may enjoy this paper in regards to a fundamental wavelike structure. Bohm postulates that the wave frequencies of the potential energies are so small that they overlap and reach a point of stasis. Bohm calls this the zero point insight intelligence. He proposes four different dimension in accordance with 4 levels of wave frequency.

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Physics-David-Bohm-Holographic-Universe.htm

 

Whatever it was that I experienced, it was wonderful.

I am glad that some people are spared the uncertainty of reality.

And that's bad because why? It could also mean that spirit is real and is part of reality.

 

If you truly embraced rationality, you would realize there is no evidence for anything called "spirit".

 

Subjective opinion.