This topic sparks such furious debate and contrary to what some may think, as a believer in God I do like to hear different points of view! Furthermore, I do not hear the 'other side's' point of view in a jaded way simply in order to reinforce my own views like both sides do. I have watched a documentary by perhaps the most famous champion of atheism, Richard Dawkins and found it very interesting. He is certainly articulate and makes good points, just to drive the point home, that religion is shit, much of the documentary was centred on Palestine/Israel. There are many feuds all over the world in which it can be said that religion is the root cause. To use the above example however would be to trivialise this issue at best, and pandering to ignorance at the worst. I digress...
What I do not appreciate in this never-ending argument is the bitterness of some atheists and the way in which they belittle believer's arguments instead of counteracting it.
"Though my email address is BibleL7, I was not always a believer. Most of my life I was in fact Atheist. I had no reason to doubt that believers were foolish and thus less intelligent. However at the age of 37 I found out different."
One response was to say that they did not believe that the above commenter was an atheist based on the fact that he had capitalised 'atheist'. You cannot win an argument by telling people what they used to or currently do believe, in fact that sort of talk sounds fairly Taliban-esque. This type of militancy devalues their argument, and they become just as bad as religious extremists who see other points of view as nothing other than ridiculous. In any healthy debate, emotions should be checked at the door. Furthermore, it is probably one of the only debates in which the sides are extremely unlikely to change their mind, and both would also NOT agree to disagree. Others included,
"Thanks... for that sermon. However, your "They teach evolution as fact instead of a theory" comment only supports the findings, which is that low intelligence people are more likely to believe in a god / fairy / dragon etc."
The thing is that unintelligent people, who are often religious, will not look at the facts. They have little utility to understand the scientific method and will dismiss study after study that shows the relation between low intelligence and religion.
How a person of intelligence can generalise huge swathes of people in this manner, is again, very much in the same vein as the Taliban/Hitler/Militant Communist. The person of faith also contributed,
"It answered questions that no evolutionist or big bang theory believers ever could. And that was just the first chapter."
To which someone responded,
"Anyone can answer questions by 'making up' answers. If the bible had claimed that the universe was sneezed out of the nose of the 'Great Green Arkleseizure' would you also live in perpetual fear "The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief"?"
Although the analogy is crap and patronising, this point is fair enough as I always say, check your sources, and if you do not want to believe in a thousand+ year old book made and probably altered over the years, please do not think that many studies and stories you read today are not made and perpetuated by hidden and sometimes not so hidden agendas. With regard to the study in the article itself, I would seriously question their definition of intellectuals. This itself panders to elitism which is all about titles and formal education, which many impoverished yet highly intelligent people have not had the opportunity to pursue. According to Mensa, intelligence is mental agility, or quickness of mental comprehension, note that it is not attributed to self-important titles. The debate will rage on I am sure but conveniently so, my thoughts are summed up by some other comments,
"Thanks... for the drive-by sneers... Such disdain is a typical reaction of some "intellectuals" to arguments they disagree with but cannot refute."
"Even if it were true that intelligence is correlated with atheism, it only provides more proof that intelligence is not the same as wisdom."
"Sad isn't it? When we don't understand something much bigger than us we call those who believe in it un-intelligent."
The existence of God can only be put to rest once we die and get to see if there is indeed an afterlife, a punishment, judgement etc. so actually none of us, not intellectuals nor dummies nor religious or atheist zealots, know whether there is a God for a fact. Let's put our faith in that.
See also http://anbarrockny.blogspot.com/
That is an interesting conclusion. However, for the sake of argument, people are not only atheists because they refuse to believe in a higher entity. One can also be an atheist, because he/she disagrees with the fact that an individual needs "a book" to tell what is right and what is evil. Furthermore, you could also argue that somebody does not want to to have to cope with some restrictions that religion can impose on someone. Furthermore, I even know somebody who said that he is not religious, because he thinks its not very convincing that most major religions share the same god, but the rest is completely different, which causes some sort of distrust and disbelieve. Some could argue that Atheism is also a (non-recognized) religion. One where ou believe in science and evolution instead of a god maybe? one where u define bad or evil with personal moral. One that has recognizes Albert Einstein as the prophet, the library is their church and the discovery channel their holly book. Actually after evaluating my arguments (as an atheist), I conclude that I have no right to judge or to disagree with believers and 'religionists', so from now on I will refer to my ideologies as Myself-ism.
ReplyDeleteBut at the end of the day, academic or non-academic, intelligent or ignorant, if religion (no matter which one or which god belongs to) can improve somebody's life, behavior or health... Go for it!
Thanks for your comments they were very interesting:)
ReplyDeleteRe people do not need a book to tell them what is right or wrong, I totally understand this point of view but I feel that the one mistake that most liberals make is that they think other people are like them. Everyone was brought up in different circumstances, and many do not see things from a wider point of view and then there are those that don't even have common sense so they do need a book or several sources to show them right or wrong. Not that holy books don't go deeper than just what is right or wrong. Also, there is nothing that differentiates the rights and wrongs of holy books and any laws of countries that all have to be stated overtly. I feel that it is the stigma of being designated as holy that turns people off somewhat, what makes religious texts different from any other book which educates people? Especially as you hypothesise a library as a Church?
Another point I probably should have made is that evolution and religion do not necessarily need to be at odds. This is, and reasonably so, the factor that makes believers appear blind and stupid. I cannot speak for all religions but Islam does not go against science in any way, in fact it encourages it. Many would point to the scientific predictions made in the Qur'an that pre-dates human knowledge of the scientific processes.
Don't mean to preach! I just think that we should always make sure we believe what we believe not due to current society trends and stigmas. A simple battle of nurture v nature. Humans always look back at eras of so-called ignorance and always think we are better so what makes us think that every single thing we think today is right. I myself have to think, am I religious at least partly due to the fact that I am rebelling against an aggressively secular and atheist society?
This is al very true and understandable. Obviously I have my own reasons not to believe, I was mostly generalizing. But like I said, if (considering ones circumstances) religion improves ur life, health or sense of belonging and security (which are both basic human needs) by all means please go for it. I'm just trying to say that people aren't just atheists because they 'refuse to believe in fairytales'. I'm just really glad you are open to atheists views, since I do not know many believers who do. I also disagree with people that are fullblood atheists, who think believers are stupid ignorant people, because they (just like u said indeed) do not understand their circumstances or background. For both believers and non believers, I think only god can and should judge us...
ReplyDeleteI didn't used to shout out math during sex until I started watching Adventure Time.
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