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Originally Posted by filtherton
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.
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Oh so saying black people are more physically gifted and that women are shorter than men is a racist and sexist statement? PLEASE lol. It's simply statistics, it's fact. As for sterotypes, they're natural and must be made in order for us to get a greater understanding of someone we don't know. Sure they can be completely off, but if you ever meet that person you'll obvoiusly readjust your opinion about them. If you see someone with gang tattoos on their arms, the sterotype that gang members are more often than not more dangerous than the average person walking in the streets will aid your survival and make life a whole lot easier if you avoid that person. Sure this person could be a good person but this is the image they're representing so the fact that people will be less inclined to interact with them is due to the choice they made to join a gang.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
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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That could be a possibility that the more materials one is able to obtain makes the need for God a little less appealing, however I think that is a less likely scenario although i'm sure it has been a key factor in some people's beliefs. However, I certainly don't think it's as prominant as the level of education is.
Willravel explained it very well earlier at the start of the forum an said basically what I was trying to get at, only I used some generalizations. He said something about, accumulating knowledge allows for one to analyze something, question it in an attempt to determine whether it is fact or fiction many times over and then come up with the most reasonable conclusion.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
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.
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I wouild say there are more irrational religious people, did you not see that poll taken, 51% of Americans don't believe in evolution? That says a lot about humans in general and is quite mind boggling. Those are the group of people i'm talking about when I say they simply ignore any threat to their comfortable belief system, they literally turn their brain off, and will not even consider the possibility of something that is threatening to their faith. Oh ye of little faith?
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Originally Posted by filtherton
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.
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I don't see how bringing up 6 examples out hundreds of millions of people is relevant.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
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.
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Yes but if someone asks a scientist the sun revovles around the earth he'll get an answer. If you ask God that question, you probabaly won't receive any answers anytime soon.
That is an interesting point though, about how a lot of people put faith in things without really thinking about them on their own regarding religion and science alike. I think that's telling about human beins in general.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
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.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
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.
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Even if the debate is dumb it's still thought provoking and that's all I want. You've made some good points about various things I may have not thought about.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
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.
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Yeah I don't know about this either. My faith in mankind has dwindled over the past few years, I realize how immoral so many people are, and without religion all these, "sheep" that you have mentioned, what then would they do? I mean I consider everyone on this board pretty intelligent and ration in general, no matter your views about religion etc. However, the everyday people who just go around doing what feels good or doing what they're told is right or wrong because they'll be punished if they don't, what happens if they find out there are no reprocutions awaiting their afterlife? However in the same token religion has been known to create more than a few wars in the past.
That's not to say there aren't risks if religion was removed, I think more people would be lost and depressed because all of a sudden there's no meaning of life, so i'm sure that would lead to some bad things as well.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
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.
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Who knows, there are way too many variables and possible outcomes for me to speculate anyway heh.