Atheism Intelligence Correlations - The Strongest Argument for Atheism

[Tree Surgeon]

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The fact that we can't explain why the speed of light is a certain number of proton widths per second is also unexplained...

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Oh, really?

[PairTheBoard]

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The Jesuits are a religious group and history consistently tells us that they were an exceptionally brilliant class of theists.


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If you're looking for secular outliers, run an IQ test on a cohort of Rabbis.

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Forget about Scientists, Jesuits and Rabbis. Let's poll the Bartenders.

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GaSSPaNiCC -

Chris Langan a person who has been recorded with the highest IQ in the world believes you can prove the afterlife and God through Mathematics, and no he is not religious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA0gjyXG5O0

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At the end of the video Langan says he works in a bar.

PairTheBoard

[thesnowman22]

I dont have time yo respond this sec- Ill try to later. But obvioulsy we disagree.

[thesnowman22]

Please excuse my misspells, when i type fast and think fast my fingers dont keep up hope u can read it anyway.

ok Alex, lets examine my statements.

1) "Many people who are "highly intellignet" are many times almost socially defecient and lack common sense"- Notice I said "many", not "most" or "on average". The "highly intell." people we are talking about are the very upper limit of IQ, and to argue that this is not a problem with a nuber of them is wrong.

2) "If 80% of Americans believe in a supreme being, that in itslef almost guarantees the results are skewed" - This is the only statement I made u could argue is wrong. However, a large % of people who "believe in a supreme being" are not really religous, but merely are theists, two different things. Anyway, I mite give u a little credit for this one, but its pretty minor.

3) "Belief in a supreme being is such a wide range" My point obvioulsy is that some people who believe in a supreme being are Christians, some are Muslims, some are not religous at all but just believe in some type of supreme being. To lump all of these together is wrong. They can be so different as to not even really resemble each other. The devout Muslim who prays 5x a day has little or nothing in common with the redneck in the traioler park who doesnt even go to church but believes in a God, and to lump them together is ridiculous.

4) "People who talk about atheists being smarter are atheist, which in itself is a bias"- While i actually might not argue with the premise that the average IQ of the whatever % of Americans is hgiher than that of the other whatever %, the fact is if you play on the team you think more highly of your team. If youre a Democrat, you are more likely to think Dems are correct, so I think any argument made by a person for thier owngroup could be biased. i mean, I love athletics, and I would argue fervently for their worth, but even if Im right, my bias still exists.

5) "I see many countless people who are successful and intelligent who are theists"- No way to argue with this statement. Obvioulsy you could change the word "theists" to atheists" and it would still be true, but to argue its false is ludicrous.

6) "I look at many of our leaders and they are theiests"- Also impossible to dispute. Notice I didnt say that "most" or "the majority" of leaders fit this.

7) The next paragraph is about a personal experience, and while there is one sentence in it which says something about "many" highly intell. people lacking certain traits, AGAIN- It was not meant to appl y to all people who are super smart, just a %.

8) ' "If there is a God, and i believe there is, I'm guessing he really doesnt care how smart u think u are"- Notice I said IF there is a God and "Im guessing" to show it was MY opinion. Im admitting its my opinion guy, its not represented as fact.

9) "the bottom line is none of us really know"- Well die one day. Until then, were all arguing opinion anyway.

10) "If im wrong I dont lose anything" Im speaking in terms of eternal life, not happiness on earth. of course i am happy, and if I found out tommorrow there was no God, I would not immediatley go on a drunken sex spree anyway.


YOUR statement that "your beliefs contain a lot of prejudices and assumptions that are not thought through in the spirit of science and philosophy"- Now, "beliefs" are OF CORSE made up of a person's prejudices and assumptions, thats why they are personal beliefs. What does that have to do with anything? As for the "spirit" of science or philosophy, I could give a rats azz about that. We need to seperate the religous discussion on this board to their own forum then, because "science" is never going to fit with the religous arguments anyway. Cant we just have a good argument?

Look, the actual discussion is not wheteher the average atheist is smarter than the average theist, but that this is a good argument for atheism. Two different discussions.

The bottom line is there are very intellignet atheists, and very intelligent theists. If you are a theist and u suddenly turn atheist, you dont get smarter. So to "argue for atheism" is silly. So if u convince me youre right and i turn atheist, do i gain 10 IQ points?

The gist of my post was that the argument itself is silly. To argue that "atheism is better because the average atheist is smarter" or that "there is no God because the people who do not believe in God are smarter than those who do" is ridiculous. There are just too many people on both sides who dont fit one mold. I know blindingly intelligent theists and blindingly dumb atheista and vice versa.

So I dont see how "each sentence contains somethign factually wrong".

[Subfallen]

snowman -

ZJ's argument depends on belief trends, not on specific believers. So when you say...

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The bottom line is there are very intellignet atheists, and very intelligent theists.

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...you're completely missing the point. The bottom line is that, among very intelligent people, atheists are wildly over-represented.

If you don't believe God's existence is a subject amenable to rational inquiry, obviously you don't believe this trend means anything...except maybe that God hates smart people.

But if you believe there is a rationally "best" response to the proposition "God exists", then this trend constitutes a strong argument that belief in God is irrational.

[dragonystic]

Only 40% of Ivy league professors are atheists.

*sigh*

[thesnowman22]

I realize what you are saying, sub, but what im saying is that even if athiests are overly represented among highly intelligent people, that is not really an argument for atheism.

And I really dont think were even discussing whether God exists, we're discussing one portion of an argument.

And the "rational" response is not always the correct one. We really cant come up with the answer as to whether God exists, even if you could win the "rationality" arguemnt. Of course, i could argue the other side of that one too, but we werent really discussing that.

I would argue, and obvioulsy I havent done a scientific study, but I think many "highly intellignet" people can be very inflexible and have a blind spot as to their own knowledge and abilities. "IQ" intellignece and applied intelligence is not always the same. All you have to do is read some of Sklanky's posts on here to see that.

To argue that one side of an argument having more "smart" people than another automatically makes it correct is just dreaming. A lot of "highly intellignet" people make stupid decions daily.

And i guess I do think that God's existence is able to be argued for or against rationally, i dont think it can be absolutely determined, and certainly not by which side has the higher average IQ.

[Subfallen]

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A lot of "highly intellignet" people make stupid decions daily.

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You're equivocating by using "intelligence" in so many different ways. The only kind of intelligence relevant to this discussion is the kind that extrapolates from observation to rational truth. Yes, Godel starved himself to death and Newton couldn't get laid, but that's irrelevant to Incompleteness and Classical Mechanics.

If you believe God's existence is in the domain of rational metaphysics, then atheism is a strong favorite to be the best rational interpretation of reality. Not even close.

But, again, most religions consider God's existence to be in the realm of faith, not reason, so ZJ's argument is irrelevant to a true believer anyways.

[madnak]

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If you believe God's existence is in the domain of rational metaphysics, then atheism is a strong favorite to be the best rational interpretation of reality. Not even close.

But, again, most religions consider God's existence to be in the realm of faith, not reason, so ZJ's argument is irrelevant to a true believer anyways.

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Unfortunately, this makes ZJ's argument circular and mostly irrelevant to everyone - believer and atheist alike.

[txag007]

Speaking Biblically, you can't come to Christ through intelligence. You come to Christ through surrender.

Who is more likely to admit he can't do it on his own? The same character traits that often lead to wordly success can pave the road to eternal damnation.

I'm speaking generally of course, but there is certainly more to your poll than "smart people believe it so it must be true."