Intellectual Apathy

[TheHoss]

There are a lot of topics which I am interested in, but ultimately end up doing very little to explore them to any significant degree. This is an aspect of my mentality that has changed quite a lot in the past couple years. Instead of trying to explain it more I will just give a couple of example topics:

1. Is there a God?

First off, I don't want to start a debate about whether or not God exists in this thread as that is a moot point in regards to my dilemma.

I've skimmed through a few topics about this in SM&P and at other sites here and there. I've done a little bit of thinking about it on my own as well, and based on that I would classify myself as an atheist. BUT for a topic which seems extremely important to me, I have really done very little to further educate myself on the matter. And I can't say that I am an atheist with any real amount of certainty or conviction because of it.

My (intuitive) reasoning is that there are many people on both sides of the argument who are smarter than I am and, even if I were to persue the issue more actively, it still would not compare to the time and thought many of these people put into it. And this is the crux of my quandry. I don't see the point in spending time learning about this type of issue when people who are smarter than me and dedicate their lives to it still can't come up with a definitive answer.

I realize (at least based on my brief time reading through SM&P) that most of the users on this site are atheist, and many of them feel that there is something fundamentally flawed in the thinking of anyone who believes in God. Based on my limited knowledge of the subject, despite being raised a Christian and going to church for the first 17 years of my life, I would be inclined to agree with them. But still there are 1 billion+ Christians in the world, and even though I am smarter than the vast majority of them, statistically there should still be roughly 3 million+ that are smarter than me. Obviously there are other factors, and a good portion of those 3 million have probably put even less thought into the subject than I have, don't "truly" believe in God, etc. But no matter what factors you apply to realistically cut that number down, there's still going to be a lot of people left. Even if as little as 1,000 people were left (I'm sure it's more than that), how can I confidently say I don't believe in God when 1,000 people who have spent loads of time&effort on it, have superior intelligence and reasoning skills, etc. and have no doubt considered many things I haven't (and some I never will), believe in God?

2. Issues dealing with the morality of playing poker as a profession, social responsibility, etc.

Just another sample issue, not as universal as the above of course but w/e. I'll try to keep this one shorter...But basically, regardless of whether it would effect my status as a poker player, I think this too is a very important topic, so you would think I would attempt to explore it more. But the fact is that with all the debates I've seen about it on these forums, some of the people involved on both sides are certainly brighter than me, and it's the same concept again. If they can't reach a definitive conclusion, what is the point of me attempting to use inferior reasoning skills, and with less dedication at that, to reach some kind of a stance?

any answers/comments appreciated

[omaha]

HOly crud batman, someones posts are longer than mine.

I will prove my religion theory in two statements.

Firstly, there is a god. He is known as the river god, sometimes he is happy, and rewards me the nuts on the river, othertimes he is angry, and rivers me.


Secondly, IF there is a true religion, then most of the others CANNOT be true. Ie if Christianity is the 'true' religion, then all buddhists, atheists, muslims etc will burn in hell for all eternity, as they are mutually exclusive, and separate, if represented diagrammatically on a venn diagram.

Likewise, if muslim is the true religion, then almost all of the others are false religions.

ANd so on and so on.

Most religious people understand, and KNOW (which is bs, because they only believe) that theirs is true. If there are say 1000 religions in the world, how confident are they, based on my theory, that they have chosen the correct one?

Mostly, religion is inherited from our parents, it is a set of beliefs that they want our lives to be run in a certain fashion
In other words,

[Stagger_Lee]

It would be very hard provide a worse summary than this.

Well done, I suppose.

[runner4life7]

you kill any chance of credibility when you start your post with the river god. you arent creative and you arent funny.

[Duke]

At most, people believe in a large but finite number of gods. There are, however, an infinite number of potential gods that they could ave chosen to believe in. Since finite/infinite = 0, that leaves everyone believing in 0% of all gods. No belief in a god implies atheism.

Take that, TBN, and take this thread back to SMP where it belongs.

[Poker Plan]

Everyone's opinion is valuable. Just because someone is more informed than you- does not make your opinion void.

Now, whether you are interested in having an opinion on a certain matter- is a different question.

[tomdemaine]

[ QUOTE ]
Everyone's opinion is valuable.

[/ QUOTE ]

They're really really not. The proof is surprisingly simple. It is my opinion that not everyones opinion is valuable.

[KilgoreTrout]

Intellectual apathy? Meh.

[Jbrochu]

Regarding issue 1: 99% of people get tired of thinking about this sometime after the age of 22. There is no way to prove anything one way or another and eventually you just reach a conclusion you're comfortable with.

Issue 2: I can't understand anybody having a problem with playing for a living. They need to chill out and lighten up I believe.

[gamblore99]

OP,
I am 22 and in a very similar situation. I used to read a lot of philosophy in my spare time and really try to find where I stand on big questions. After lots of reading and thinking I haven't really arrived at an answer, and philosophy has been put on the backshelf while I focus on school/girls/future.
I think one thing that really slowed me down was knowing that a lot of my choices wouldn't impact my behaviour to much.