At 8/29/08 10:31 AM, Earfetish wrote:
there's too much internet out there for some people
Win.
It's just as much of a belief as atheism; the belief that God's existence is unknowable. Everything is a belief, 'gravity exists' is a belief, it's whether or not it's faith-based that's worth asking. And saying anything positive about God is faith-based; ie saying 'he loves you' is faith based.
As far as I see it, it's not the "belief" that the existence of the divine is unknowable, it's the simple stance of not drawing a conclusion due to inadequate information.
It's the "There is not enough information to answer this question" option on some math problems. Not really belief, it's just a simple statement that there isn't enough oil to grease the tracks.
At 8/29/08 10:09 AM, Saruman200 wrote:
So, schools should just ignore that relgion exists? I'm an atheist, but in order to stop "brainwashing", we need to teach them to be accepting. I'm not saying we should read from the Bible, just say, well there's Christinity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Atheism, so on. Give them the definitions of each. If they know about all religions, there more likely to accepting of them all, and more likely to become an atheist once they learn about religion from a reletively unbiased source.
Also win. Want your kid to be non-religious (and smart)? Send them to a Catholic school, no joke.
Wow, surprising amount of win going on here......
At 8/28/08 08:34 AM, Earfetish wrote:
That is not a display of ego, it's a fact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity _and_intelligence
You were doing so well.....
Check the link again, the conclusions say nothing of the sort as a "fact". Wiki displays each study, and then subsequent criticisms of each study. I think you're ignoring the criticisms. The point is taken, but there's only a correlation between religiosity and intelligence, not a causation, and I think that point needs to be addressed much stronger.
What I also find rather interesting is the high POSITIVE correlation in the Mormon study. Most people think Mormons are more nuts than the rest of us, and science has shown the more they're in their nutty church, the smarter they get......figures......
At 8/28/08 05:03 AM, Kasualty wrote:
yaaa... you believe god died at the hands of man. makes a lot of sense!
The irony is that's a true statement no matter how you look at it.
Christian perspective: Jesus died at the hands of the Romans.
Atheist perspective: Man grew up and "killed" the notion of a divinity.
Well for all the win going on, I knew someone had to flub it all.....
At 8/28/08 06:50 PM, poxpower wrote:
Pick any definition of "smart" that you could possibly want, and you'll find that most of the ones on top are atheist.
Then pick whatever you want for "stupid" and you'll find that almost 100% of them are deeply religious.
I played your game, and I can see where you're coming from.
Jim Jones, Phelps, etc. GW Bush (if I may) to some extent as well.
The problem is every time I pin people for being stupid and religious, I also find them among the top influential people in the world. Which leads me to redefine my definition for being stupid, because anyone who can sway people has to have at least some brains to get in that position and stay there.
And vice versa, smart people I find have the least influence in the world, which again leads me to redefine who's really smart.
If non-religious people are the smarter ones, they're very, VERY stupid for letting idiot religious people have clout, power, and control over the world. And if religious people are idiots, they're very VERY smart for being some of the most recognized influential people on the planet.
The other problem I have, Pox, is that even by your own prompts I can think of several counterexamples. Education and science achievement from the Muslims, after Roman influence fell to the Muslim Empire, for instance, had a profound impact on the Western World. But not many people think of that, because we all grow up in a Western Tradition. We think of the timeline as Rome falling, and things going to shit, when really, we should be thinking about things in a "spacetime" perspective, since the Eastern half of the Empire (and world) showed rather prominent and influential growth.
It comes to my mind rather frequently because it's somewhat related to my field, in that when one studies the Roman Empire, you also dabble into the Empires that came after it.
What I do find amazing is that in today's age, religion is seen as the "stupid" group, with muslims being "backwards", when in fact Muslims were some of the most advanced thinkers on the planet, and many of their inventions still influence Western Civilization.
I think this is more a problem with our public education system though. There is relatively little emphasis on the roots of Western Civ, which is sad, because knowing the roots opens our options for invention and intuitiveness by opening more sources for gathering ideas.
Same goes for "deluded.
oh well. Maybe one day we'll find a way to help you guys :o
Guess we can't help those who don't want to help themselves. Meh.
Ditto. But I don't really think of you as deluded, Pox, more just naive. There are a lot of people who don't realize both the Church and the Muslims did 95% of the preservation of Western Civ that led to the Renaissance.
Unfortunately while I'd love to teach you, you've already assumed you're the smarter breed, which leads to a closed door.
This thread had potential......damnit.....