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Originally Posted by tiger777
The correlation between intelligence and atheism- It's a fact that the more intelligent or say... inquisitiveness a person is, the more likely they'll become an atheist, at least this is what logic and reason tell me so. Also if i'm not mistaken polls have been taken and african americans are something like 25% more likely to believe in God, +or- 7% in my estimation in terms of the accuracy of my recollection. This isn't a knock on black people, but the situation they grow up in generally doesn't allow for as much inquisitiveness due to the poverty and other factors.
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Well, aside from this being kind of presumptuously borderline racist, i would be interested in stats comparing intelligence and religiousness. Especially in light of the fact that the concept of intelligence is rather shoddily defined.
Even as far as education goes, a correlation between education level and atheism doesn't necessarily mean anything. There's a correlation between education and socio-economic status and therefore perhaps a correlation between socio-economic status and atheism, but i've never heard anyone try to claim that wealth causes atheism or vice versa.
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Filthy- Your debate with Will about faith and science. I would have to side with Will on this one. I feel a lot of religious people throw logic and reason out of the window in respect to their faith and dealing with science. I think they often pick and choose which aspects of their religion to follow whereas when they're dealing with science it's almost all logic and reason. I feel a lot of people want to believe in something so badly they simply unplug the logic and reasoning part of their brain and use purely blind faith. Which is okay, as long as it makes them happy i'm all for it, all i'm trying to say is they're being a bit more illogical and unreasonable when dealing with religion in comparison to science.
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Well, i agree that there are plenty of religious folk who lack credible reasoning skills when it comes to certain topics. I don't think that scientists necessarily have a monopoly on rationality - there are plenty of instances of scientific genius going hand in hand with complete insanity.
There are many noted scientists who were also pious - newton, descartes, leibniz mendel, einstein - anyone who claims theists are necessarily bad scientists is suffering from a bit of irrationality themselves.
I think an interesting dynamic is the one between scientists and their adherents. It is analogous to a pastor and congregation, sort of. On the one hand you have the scientists - the folks who have been to the mountaintop, know how to do actual science. On the other hand you have the people who put their faith in science and scientists. I think that most people who claim to carry the torch of science fall into the latter category, especially in light of how few of my fellow americans can be bothered to take math and science classes beyond those required for a liberal arts degree. These are people whose subscription to evolution or global warming isn't based on any sort of informed knowledge, but rather a sturdy faith in the actual practitioners of the scientific method. In other words, their embrace of science is based on faith rather than direct knowledge.
These folks are essentially theologists of a different sort - instead of putting christ on a pedestal they put einstein. Either way, most of them don't actually know shit about what their particular exalted one thought, or why their contributions were significant. How many people know what the "e", the "m", and the "c" mean in the e = mc^2? How many people understand the models used to predict the effects of global warming? How may people know what a decibel is? From my experience the answer to these questions is few.
It doesn't matter if what your selling is pure, uncut rationality if the people who buy it aren't themselves rational. That's why i think this whole atheism vs religion debate is dumb. The atheists are basically just deluding themselves into thinking that the broad acceptance of atheism will bring about some sort of golden age of reason, when in reality all it will mean is that more people are putting their faith in scientists than reverends. People will still be dumb animals, they'll just be dumb animals with loosely held beliefs based on what some guy in a white lab coat told them as opposed to dumb animals with loosely held beliefs based on what some guy in a white robe told them.
I don't know that a strictly rational model offers that much tangible benefit over a strictly theistic model as far as creating a comfortable, stable society. Neither seems ideal to me. Hobbes was one of the original atheistic social planners, and he advocated a democracy only to the extent that an iron-fisted despot could be elected.
Relying only on science and rationality as guides to the way things ought to be is just as likely to get a brave new world as relying on the bible as the way things ought to be is to get a fundamentalist theocracy. Most useful solutions to complex problems are a mixture of information and intuition, facts and faith (see economics).
I understand that this might be a tad bit tangential to what you were saying, but i wanted to say it.