Re: Put More Simply
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There are some religions that don't state that their beliefs are so self evident that unbelievers must have something wrong with them. I think they are in the minority. But there are also, I think, many members of all religions, who in spite of being a member of a specific religion, fully accept the idea that non members are not automatically unreasonable. Let's call those people Enlightened Theists.
It is my contention that the more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to be either an atheist or an Enlightened Theist. And that above a certain level of intelligence, the great majority of people are one of the two. And if I'm right, that IS strong evidence for the truth of something (that something being that no religion can lay claim to being logically self evident.)
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The point is that even an intelligent Christian who accepts what the bible says and therefore believes his religion is rational, should also accept that those who worship a different bible or set of beliefs are behaving in no less of a rationally manner than he is.
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Well I read his point as being that the more intelligent a person is the more likely he is enlightened theists (his term) or an atheist. Sklansky goes on to claim that because intelligent people believe one way that their way of thinking proves something. The fact is that no matter how intelligent a person is he has no known way of proving or disproving anything when it comes to religion. What they are good at is providing skepticism. Sklansky puts the horse before the cart when he makes his claim that something must be true because itelligent people say so. He does not consider the fact tht people not some God created religion and developed the laws of religion. Man attributed creation to a God and then created a religion to honor him. Which men of society did the developing? It certainly wasn't the dullards. It was the elite of society. It was the most intelligent. And what process did they use to develop their religious laws? They used logic. Religion was developed by the most intelligent of society and the more intelligent the scribe the better he was at developing religous beliefs. Some believe that the more intelligent a person the more they should be feared.
pokervintage
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