The Dangers of Being Smart

[Hipparchia]

I've seen lots of evidence that backs up my position and zero evidence for creationism. Not much persuasion needed.

Sorry. I mistook you for someone with the intellect to extract appropriate irony from a post that agreed with you by highlighting the natural extension of your point to an extreme position. I shan't make that error a second time.

[KilljoyKlown]

Sorry. I mistook you for someone with the intellect to extract appropriate irony from a post that agreed with you by highlighting the natural extension of your point to an extreme position. I shan't make that error a second time.

I might if I knew you a little better. You haven't been around very long. Give some time maybe.

[R1D2]

How do smart people like um Atila and Adolf go bad?

People believe in them. An they believe everyone does. Is that right.
Just asking..

[KilljoyKlown]

Creating a caricature of theism so that theism may then seem easy to reject is ... the mark of a person with integrity?

Actually I believe even most theist reject the extreme creationist view of our existence here on Earth. But, yes I pretty much think all religious thinking is wrong.

I do think it's possible that people join a specific religion for many reasons other than a strong belief in God as defined by that religion. Another example, atheist boy wants theist girl and her family is strongly theist with very strong ties to a theist community. Boy needs to fit in or give the girl up. Can you tell the difference between someone faking it for years and a real believer?

[R1D2]

WELL, this needs to be in the religious sub forum!

[wynn]

Actually I believe even most theist reject the extreme creationist view of our existence here on Earth. But, yes I pretty much think all religious thinking is wrong.

I do think it's possible that people join a specific religion for many reasons other than a strong belief in God as defined by that religion. Another example, atheist boy wants theist girl and her family is strongly theist with very strong ties to a theist community. Boy needs to fit in or give the girl up. Can you tell the difference between someone faking it for years and a real believer?

I'm saying that you are working out of a caricature of theism (ie. you focus on one single mainstream version of Christianity), and then reject all of theism (ie. all theistic religions, not just Christianity) based on that caricature.

How do you live with yourself having done that?

[KilljoyKlown]

I'm saying that you are working out of a caricature of theism (ie. you focus on one single mainstream version of Christianity), and then reject all of theism (ie. all theistic religions, not just Christianity) based on that caricature.

How do you live with yourself having done that?

You are taking a single example and expanding my intent to mean something more than I intended. True I'm not a theist, but that shouldn't mean I can't caricaturize any element of it to make a point. After all I grew up in a theist world and have the right to treat it any way I please. Also, as far as living with myself. No problem, I never give it a second thought.

[wynn]

You are taking a single example and expanding my intent to mean something more than I intended. True I'm not a theist, but that shouldn't mean I can't caricaturize any element of it to make a point. After all I grew up in a theist world and have the right to treat it any way I please. Also, as far as living with myself. No problem, I never give it a second thought.

Your rejection of theism is based on a caricature of theism - and you're okay with that?

[KilljoyKlown]

Your rejection of theism is based on a caricature of theism - and you're okay with that?

The only thing I'm not okay with is your untrue statement. My atheistic belief is not based on a caricature of theism.

[iceaura]

We forget that learning something new usually means unlearning biases we are probably all born with: thus, (1) if we are smart and (2) haven’t been challenged at vulnerable times, say when we’re younger, on certain entrenched views that many have,

What that seems to point to is a hazard of poor education in youth, not intelligence. Challenging the young on their developing beliefs, getting them used to recognizing and adjusting to their own errors and misdirections, should be a regular feature of education at all ages.

"As the twig is bent, so grows the tree" does not apply to smart people only, after all - and while we do often see a cooption of intelligence by various otherwise discredited ideologies and belief systems, often material reward explains a good deal of the apparent obliviousness of the smart people so taken. Meanwhile, we see no deficit of dumb people among the believers in asshattery. They are fully represented.

If you can't argue the smart out of delusions because they are too smart for you, on the other hand you can't argue the dumb out of them because they can't follow your argument. So there's no actual penalty for smarts - unless you have a lot invested in your own personal unsinkable ship of infallibility.

[wynn]

The only thing I'm not okay with is your untrue statement. My atheistic belief is not based on a caricature of theism.

Maybe but for me to accept creationism, I'd have to accept a conservative right wing religious belief. For that to happen I would first have to be convinced that there really is a God and that he really did pull an almost 5 billion year old Earth out of his magical hat 6,000 years ago.

What do you think the chances of that happening are?

You don't think that this -

A conservative right wing religious belief according to which there really is a God and he really did pull an almost 5 billion year old Earth out of his magical hat 6,000 years ago.

is a caricature of theism?


You really think that this -

A conservative right wing religious belief according to which there really is a God and he really did pull an almost 5 billion year old Earth out of his magical hat 6,000 years ago.

is essentially what theism is?

[KilljoyKlown]

You don't think that this -

A conservative right wing religious belief according to which there really is a God and he really did pull an almost 5 billion year old Earth out of his magical hat 6,000 years ago.

is a caricature of theism?


You really think that this -

A conservative right wing religious belief according to which there really is a God and he really did pull an almost 5 billion year old Earth out of his magical hat 6,000 years ago.

is essentially what theism is?

Do you base theism on my caricature of creationism. Seems you have pulled what I said out of context, but even so, it seems obvious what I'm referring to. But yes there are a lot of very smart people on many sides of theism. They just can't offer any proof with their arguments.

[wynn]

Could you please, for the sake of clarity, state what you believe theism is?

[KilljoyKlown]

Could you please, for the sake of clarity, state what you believe theism is?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Good enough for me.)

Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists. In a more specific sense, theism is a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe. Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of God as personal, present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe. As such theism describes the classical conception of God that is found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam and some forms of Hinduism. The use of the word theism to indicate this classical form of monotheism began during the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century in order to distinguish it from the then-emerging deism which contended that God, though transcendent and supreme, did not intervene in the natural world and could be known rationally but not via revelation.

The term theism derives from the Greek theos meaning "god". The term theism was first used by Ralph Cudworth (1617–88). Atheism is rejection of theism in the broadest sense of theism; i.e. the rejection of belief that there is even one deity. Rejection of the narrower sense of theism can take forms such as deism, pantheism, and polytheism. The claim that the existence of any deity is unknown or unknowable is agnosticism. The positive assertion of knowledge, either of the existence of gods or the absence of gods, can also be attributed to some theists and some atheists. Put simply theism and atheism deal with belief, and agnosticism deals with (absence of) rational claims to asserting knowledge.

[R1D2]

Well I am being enlightened some.
Human science
Or
Religion
An I would say this is all. Religious in context. One way or the other

[wynn]

They just can't offer any proof with their arguments.

Or you just stubbornly refuse to accept them.