the religious forum is getting stagnant. lets liven it up!.

it is my opinion that fanatical atheists (not all atheists fall into this category) are frequently as dogmatic as most religious folks, if not more so.

what is your opinion on "those that do not believe" being the sheep they claim the spiritual to be?

hit me!!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Christian girls love her imaginary friend more then her own family. I prefer atheist girls for that reason.

I feel unconfortable with a loving girl who love God, Jesus or whatever imaginary men she has in her mind, more then me and our children.

I might get a divorce just for not worshiping jesus... probably get a slap but she would always be my goddess anyway.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

indeed, i know many christians who will not, under any circumstances engage themselves in a relationship with someone who is not of the same DENOMINATION, let alone religion.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I find it understandable why some atheists are 'fanatic', maybe I'm one of them. Lets compare the intellect of, say a bible belt state in America, to that of one of the most atheist countries in the world, Sweden:

I don't think you will find many people in Sweden who would be willing to invade other countries, consider the Earth to be less than 10,000 years old, violently opposed to rights such as homosexuality, inter-racial marriage, abortion, equal rights of women and above all a society like Sweden appears to be more stable and sensible since it is mostly populated by atheists.

Now, compare a strong religious fundamentalist such as Pat Robertson to a "fanatical atheist" such as Richard Dawkins, which one of those two would you rather educated your child?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Two friends....one becomes an atheist and the other a believer. Who will end the friendship? From personal experience it will be the believer.

Sure, I may come across as an arrogant S.O.B. at times while expounding on atheist thinking but this is an anonymous forum. In public I prefer not to talk religion. 9 times out of 10 a religious person will ask me about my beliefs. People I knew and got along with in life have decided not to associate with me because I've answered that question truthfully and honestly. I didn't start it or end it but I am perceived by them as something evil. Weird behavior totally out of character from the people I knew. If I lie then nothing happens friendship wise. What happened? Why the sudden dislike or hate? When countries are run by people who hate for religious reasons then we're all in trouble. I don't think that's fair at all. Atheism is a choice but far less lethal than any other.

 

The devil,

One thing that cannot be done is to classify all atheists as having a trait other than a disbelief in theism.

Atheists will range from the extremes of stupidity, dogmatism and fanatacism to the most logical and moderate. People choose not to believe in theistic concepts for a wide variety of reasons.

But from the many sets of statsitics that many members have referenced here, the tendency seems to be that the more intelligent and the better educated then the higher the likelyhood they will not be believers.

 

They live in a world where there is no God. What more can be expected of them than that view which they share here.

 

I'm afraid you live in the same world as the atheist.

 

One of the good things about forums like this is the anonymous nature of the discussions here. The anonymity allows people to more accurately show their true beliefs to others. Also and this is even better is people reveal their true inner selves. A lot of people who are fake to other in the "real world" (putting on their plastic niceness faces) can really reveal their true selves here. As i have said before people really reveal more of their true inner selves in forums.

Sometimes the ugliness is amazing.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

I don't agree.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

That is strange. I see their hearts every day. Why are you so blind?

 

The Devil Inside,

There is hypocracy on both sides, there is ignorance on both sides, there is honesty on both sides and there is intelligence on both sides. That is going to be the case with any debate. There will always be leaders, and there will always be followers. There will always be the learned, and there will always be those who trust the learned. The true unfortunate thing about how people act in life, or even speak on a message board, is hatred and loathing toward those with whom they disagree. Even more than unfortunate, it's a tragedy.

Also, I personally think it's important for two people to agree on what they believe if they are entering into marriage, for the simple idea of providing a stable environment for a child to grow up in. I know that isn't the reason a lot of religious people won't marry people of different faiths, but it would be my reason. Actually speaking though, I am quite open to dating people of different religions, but I would be less open to dating an athiest, not because I think she'd be evil or anything like that, but for the simple fact that, deep down, she would think I was irrational. It would be too much of a wedge in the relationship.

Cris,

As far as I'm concerned, those poles are terribly biased. For example: "the more intelligent... the higher the likelihood they will not be believers" can hardly be substantiated. Firstly, and foremostly, because it is too difficult to guage intelligence. If you're using IQ tests, then you're considering, primarily, the person's capacity to problem solve. Of course, IQ tests often attempt to incorporate other forms of mental tests, some spacially/visually oriented, others verbally and textually oriented. However, the majority of questions asked on most IQ tests are those which pertain to mental processes of the left hemisphere of the brain (or right in some people, there is a small portion of variation in regards to this). It just so happens that the left hemisphere is also the one that carries out scientific, logical, verbal, symbolic, sequenced functions. The right hemisphere is the one that takes care of artistic intuitive, spatial, pictured, holistic functions, as well as religious.

Since IQ tests tend to focus more on left-hemisphere activities, it'll tend to be the person who's left hemisphere is more prominent in mental functions than the right who will score higher. This also means that they will tend to be less religious. It is the one who's brain operates on a near balance between the two, and whose hemispheres work in conjunction and communicate alot with each other that will get the highest score on the IQ test. This is why Leonardo Da Vinci is considered one of the most intelligent person to live, because he seemed to be quite genius both scientifically and artistically. IQ tests are largely biased, and are widely recognized to be so.

It is also true that education in recent decades has held more of a focus on the sciences than the arts, particularly in higher education, though, there are movements that are attempting to bring about a greater balance between the two. Again, I reiterate the fact that if you're scientifically inclined, then you're less likely to be religious, not because science shows religion to be false, but because you think more prominently with the left hemisphere of your brain than with the right.

Thus, the bias in such poles. If education tends to focus on sciences rather than arts, then the highly educated are more likely to be more logic-oriented than intuitive, and thus, by virtue of the structure of the brain, less likely to be religious. So, while those poles might indicate something true, as far as the educated are concerned, they also indicate something that is false. Namely, that the non-religious are more likely to be intelligent.

Intelligence doesn't merely pertain to the logical, as many people believe. A person can be quite intelligent, but not particularly logical either. Not illogical, but non-logical, or intuitive. There is an obvious difference between the "brainiac" and the person who has a lot of common sense.

I was told a story once, about a group of mensa members who were at a diner. As it happened, there arose a problem that they attempted to solve. The problem was that they noticed that the salt was in the pepper container, and the pepper in the salt, and they wanted to transfer the salt to the salt container and the pepper to the pepper container. They devised quite an elaborate scheme to complete the task, and called the waitress over to show her their accomplishment. After describing the problem to her, along with the solution, she merely picked up the two containers, and switched their lids (which, incidentally, had the salt/pepper labels).

There is no doubt that the elaborate solution that they devised was made through logical intelligence. It wasn't a stupid one. But what they missed was the common-sensical solution, or the intuitive one, that the waitress recognized right away. She was a waitress, so she probably wasn't very highly educated, but clearly she wasn't unintelligent. She was merely smart in a different way than the mensa group.

I'm not going to get into how these two ways of thinking are useful or unuseful, or go into the specific details of their differences, but I want to emphasize that logic doesn't equal intellect. Logic is a part of intellect, just as intuition is. Logic is merely sequenced processing, intuition is holistic processing.

The genius is the one who's logic and intuition work together. ie, the left hemisphere breaks the problem down, communicates the specific problem, in detail, to the right hemisphere, where the problem is assessed and the solution computed at a near simultaneous rate, then passed back to the left hemisphere to be expressed in logical progression, either verbally or written down.

So when you say that statistics say that the more intelligent someone is, or the more educated that person is, the less likely he is to be religious, therefore you're more likely to be religious if you're unintelligent and uneducated, I say garbage.

Statistics do indicate things, but you should always understand what they're measuring.

 

hence, the opening sentence of my post. not all atheists fit into the criteria that i used for this thread.
on a side note, the same could be held true for spiritual people, dont you agree?

i happen to be highly educated, and (hopefully i am correct) act in a manner that behooves that fact. also, i am deeply spiritual. therefore, the polls are not the only indication of intelligence.

 

you know, this has little to do with atheism/spiritualism, but its a bone of contention for me. there are no tests that can be agreed upon as perfect. there are only tests that measure the categorical correctness of responses in a particular environment under a controlled set of circumstances. however, this does not mean that they are an inaccurate guage of intelligence. yes, some people have skills that are of more worth in terms of everyday practical application than high intelligence is, but that doesnt mean you should start measuring those as well when attempting to guage capacity for learning, problem solving, and abstract thought. an IQ test may be an imperfect measure of someones intelligence, but i believe part of what cris said was that more highly educated people tend to disbelieve. this is certainly proveable although i do not knowif an attempt has been made to prove it. what bothers me about this whole statement you have made is that youre basically saying oh well you cant prove that smarter people dont believe because you dont really have any accurate way of guaging who is smarter than anyone else. bullshit. there has to be some kind of standard for that out there.
i think that attitude is what really bothers me. its the same argument i see played out on this board and on news shows and talk shows everday, how you cant prove anything satisfactorily anymore. all the religious people on here are always saying - you cant prove that evolution is true or you cant disprove god - what world do you people live in? there is a realistic and common standard of evidence and facts are supportable with evidence, unless you are part of some reality that no one else knows about.

 

charles cure,

I didn't say you can't prove who's smarter than who. I said it's "too difficult to guage intelligence." There are all kinds of ways to guage different kinds of intelligences. I was making that statement in the context of survey-taking. Quite frankly, I don't think IQ tests are accurate measures of Intelligence, and neither do a lot of scholars in the field. Intelligence Quotient tests only measure particular modes of thought, and so aren't actually fully measuring intelligence.

My point is that the surveys conducted are biased in that when they talk about "intelligence" they're actually only talking about a particular aspect of intellect. You seem to think that intellect is completely and totally the "capacity for learning, problem solving, and abstract thought." This isn't the case. Those are simply mental processes carried out by a particular hemisphere in the brain. Also, in regards to the capacity to learn, with the exception of those with mental disorders that inhibit learning, everyone has a generally equal capacity to learn. The reason a lot of students have difficulty learning in school isn't because they have difficulty learning, it's because they have difficulty learning the kind of material presented in school. As I've already said, education focuses more on sciences than arts. They're two areas of learning that are controlled by different hemispheres of the brain.

How many high-school drop-outs could tell you all about their favorite professional sport? Hockey, for example. Every team, the majority of the players on each team, the records of the players on their favorite team, the rules of the sport, the referees that ref the games, the technical details that take place behind the scenes, the business aspects of it, any other kinds of information pertaining to the sport? Probably a lot could tell you quite a bit about all that. It's really a matter of interest and content.

There's also the factor of how good the teacher or professor is at teaching. There is also the influence of diet (which is actually quite a big influence, believe it or not). There is also the factor of drugs and alcohol. There is also the factor of peer pressure. There are all kinds of things the influence how much, what, how easily and why a person learns or doesn't learn. More often than not, a person's learning has less to do with his intelligence than otherwise. Heck, it could even be as simple as the person's willingness to accept new ideas. Learning doesn't really have a lot to do with intelligence.

As for abstract thought and problem solving, those are only aspects of intelligence, and don't encompass the whole of the intellect. As I've already said, they're controlled by the left hemisphere of the brain. They're only a portion of cognitive capacity. Don't get me wrong, I think they're very important, they help very much in understanding highly complex ideas. In fact, we wouldn't understand highly complex ideas without them. However, that doesn't mean we couldn't know whether those ideas were true or not if we didn't have the ability to problem solve or think abstractly. We could know them to be true, but we would probably not understand them. This is because of intuition, an operation of the right hemisphere.

It's difficult to guage people's intelligences. It's not impossible. What I am asserting is that the survey-takers don't properly take into account the nuances of intelligence. Furthermore, because of these nuances, and because of the focus of education on only particular aspects of the intellect, it would be improper to say that the more educated your the more intelligent you are. While you may certainly say, it's more likely to be the case, based on the current methods and focuses in education, in general, that if you're highly educated then you're less likely to be religious. However, as I've tried to make clear, it isn't the education that produces non-belief, it isn't that the education you receive causes you to disbelieve, it's that the highly educated are more likely to be left-hem thinkers, who generally have a tendency to be less religious because of the focus of their mental capacities in the hemisphere more devoted to scientific thought than religious thought. Likewise, do I say of the IQ test "smarties." They are more likely to be non-religious because they're predominantly left-hem thinkers.

 

*************
M*W: I agree. The Religion Forum has been getting rather dull recently. Many moons ago someone suggested we have a convention to meet each other, yet maintain whatever level of anonimity we desire. I think it's a great idea, but it seemed to just fall by the wayside. Would this be something of interest to the rest of you?

 

Cool, so when Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice in 1813, it really actually happened because the story is known to be written in the period it was written? Teeeeeeeeeeewat!

You're right, God doesn't fool anybody, because he isn't there. You fool yourself though; oh yes.

You know, it's not even your fault that you think like this and that's the shame here; that's the thing that really makes this whole thing hard for me to bear.

The fact that adults indoctrinate little children into this profound horseshit is an absolute disgrace. They are not taught to think, to question, to doubt, to look for evidence. Instead they are taught to accept, to have faith, to never question and to ignore. That is a revolting act if there ever was one.

If everyone was brought up to be indoctrinated into religious faith then we wouldn't have the scientific knowledge that we have today, everything you take for granted about your life wouldn't be there. All the while you slander scientists, try to make them out to be idiots whilst every day of your life you benefit from what they have discovered. God has done none of this, people have, and your blind faith will never change that.

It's a fucking disgrace that kids are brought up with this fundamentalist shit.

 

i bet that would be interesting, but where would you do it these people are from all over the place.

 

That would be funny if like, 10 atheists showed up, and only 1 fundie came... someone like Adstar

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Kenny, it does seem like that ratio doesn't it. 10 to 1 atheist's vs. religious.

 

Yes, imagine how much safer and healthier humanity would be if that ratio applied to the whole world

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!