A question about Religon and Progress

[Robert]

Atheists often have a hard time, in my experience, understanding how intelligent people can also be religious.

Atheists, in my experience, also believe that only for being atheists, they are smarter than most of the world's population.
Being intelligent is not that easy.

QFT.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Barnabas

Atheists often have a hard time, in my experience, understanding how intelligent people can also be religious.

That's because it is manifestly irrational. It was not irrational 200 years ago, since the argument from design was a good argument given the state of science. However, Darwin killed that completely and utterly. The rest of the arguments for the existence of God, fail in one way or another (the Cosmological Argument is probably the best, but even if it works it doesn't come close to proving anything near what religious people want it to prove).

Justification by faith or probability is similarly ridiculous. The default position of most theists these days seems to be to admit that religion is completely irrational, but then try to argue for some form of global scepticism in order to excuse it. That is how desperate people are.

Look at what happens here time after time. People attempt to defend religious belief and they just get prison-raped in the arguments.

Atheists, in my experience, also believe that only for being atheists, they are smarter than most of the world's population.
Being intelligent is not that easy.

Intelligence and rationality are not the same thing.

[Theben]

Atheists tend to be better educated than the norm, which probably gives a self-inflated ego.

My personal experience is that people who have been raised in strongly religious households tend to be religious. Shocking discovery, I know. But another gauge is how 'bad' they've been in their past. They feel a need to purge their souls. The most devout are usually the ones with the most skeletons in their closet.


Hitchens is a putz.

[Felch]

Originally posted by Theben
The most devout are usually the ones with the most skeletons in their closet.

This isn't a 100% of the time thing, but I've noticed the same thing. People who I knew as wild and crazy settle down and become more religious than the kids who were spending college in the library.

[Barnabas]

That always annoyed me.

I hate it when people who had a crazy life, drugs, alcohol, orgies etc become religious, talk about how lost they were, and tell people that they should live decently.

I feel like they don't want me to have all the fun they had.

[Felch]

Why can't the reformed ones take up Buddhism or something? A bit less preachy that way.

[CrONoS]

... It could also be, two different expressions of a same roots ( or a same desire, aspiration). The roots of the addiction to abuse drugs, alcoholism, sex, love, etc. is maybe linked to the experience of the numinous, of the mystics, of the transcendence, whatever you call it.
(just giving my thoughts)

[CrONoS]

I must also say that since I'm a Catholics, ( and I mainly met anabaptism and Catholics in my life), my experience of religious peoples seems to be inverse of that your describing. My religious friends are mainly the most educated, and also, the most cultivated.
It's maybe because I attend university; and Quebec City have a living catholics community, with private catholics school, maybe more than others quebec cities.

I never met newborn Christians, protestantist, fundamentalist, etc.

[Barnabas]

Originally posted by Felch
Why can't the reformed ones take up Buddhism or something? A bit less preachy that way.

Lately I see a lot of people trying buddhism, a little too much in my opinion. I feel like they didn't even consider christianity as a possibility for one second. Maybe it is not seen as exotic or cool.


The point I tried to made in my previous post, is that it is easier to not do something if you have tried it before, you no longer wonder about how it feels. You don't have the curiosity.

[Jon Miller]

http://religions.pewforum.org/?gclid=CLz7uIKL7ZQCFQsiIgodXHK2qw

is interesting, I don't know how they do their statistics

JM
(it says that 71% strongly believe in God, only 5% don't believe in God with another the rest somewhere in between)

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Theben
My personal experience is that people who have been raised in strongly religious households tend to be religious. Shocking discovery, I know.

Actually, children of Christians are much more likely to switch from Christianity to something else than children of atheists to change at all.

JM

[Elok]

Originally posted by Barnabas
That always annoyed me.

I hate it when people who had a crazy life, drugs, alcohol, orgies etc become religious, talk about how lost they were, and tell people that they should live decently.

I feel like they don't want me to have all the fun they had.

And by "the fun" you mean "the clap?" Or just "the cirrhosis?" Or "that time they woke up in a dumpster full of vomit in Tijuana?" You shouldn't assume from the get-go that they were wrong to ditch it. If they considered their past experiences desirable, they wouldn't be wasting time giving you pamphlets; they'd still be out chasing tail and doing shots.

[Japher]

I think it helps for people to tell of their conversion. Also, I think everyone needs to be "born again", or to realize their relationship with Jesus at an age later than adolescence. Everyone likes to assume Christianity brainwashes people, but the "born again" aspect requires an adult decision, and seeing why others made the decision and what they have become is the best testimony one can give. At least better than "I'm a Christian because I have always been and you should be too."

[snoopy369]

An unintelligent person will be religious because it explains the unexplainable, and allow him to understand the incomprehensible.

An intelligent person will be religious because he can admit to his lack of knowledge, and allow him to contemplate that which he cannot know.

[Elok]

Idunno. Whenever somebody asks me if I have a personal relationship with Jesus, I feel weirded out and vaguely offended. It sounds proprietary. I want to say, "we don't date, if that's what you mean."