Intelligent people less likely to believe in God

reply to post by Quazga

Originally posted by Quazga
So, in order to combat these and other results of the Reformation, the Jesuits were created to POSE as educators for those "SEEKING TRUTH".

Hence: Society of Jesus = Jesuit = society of Truth

www.jesuit.org...

reply to post by Rasobasi420

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
Many of the higher educated theologians actually lean more toward an agnostic or even deist point of view over the dogmatic side of things (yes, even Jesuits).

Could you be a little more vague? Do you have any supporting statistical data for your Dogma? I would like to see what your opinion and your statement is based upon as it appears to be related to the word " many ".

In addition, as far as the following statement:

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
For the most part, those who go to church on sunday, read the bible and only the bible, and think Jesus turned water into wine and fed 5,000 with 7 loaves of bread just don't 'get it'.

There would be those that would present that perhaps you " dont get it " but either way the door is there for the knocking.

The message of Love one another is an eternal way and is the Truth and a command that is they way and teaching of Jesus Christ.

Regardless of if he tied his shoes with his left hand or his right, does that really matter?

We quibble about details and miss the healing and love within his message.


Peace


[edit on 20-6-2008 by HIFIGUY]

Originally posted by HIFIGUY
reply to post by Quazga
The message of Love one another is an eternal way and is the Truth and a command that is they way and teaching of Jesus Christ.

Regardless of if he tied his shoes with his left hand or his right, does that really matter?

We quibble about details and miss the healing and love within his message.


Peace

Jesus must have had frequent meetings with Concordia, Harmonia, Turan, Hathor, Freyja, Aphrodite and Venus.

reply to post by Majal


hathor, now there's an interesting character. the goddess who was a deified device, who destroyed the world, waded around in the blood of all the dead people, and later became the goddess of love. even egyptologists can't figure that one out.

Originally posted by applebiter
reply to post by Quazga

 

I share that with you. It's probably a character flaw, but it's true. What happens when a person has a high IQ but is stuck in a conceptual trap that makes self aggrandizement the only logical use for their intellect, though? Well, then you get a Ken Lay. In a world where even those who live at or near the poverty line in America still live better than royals in ancient times, we have folks with high IQs who believe that status and toys are the "proof" of their worthiness. It's just gross. It's based on a primitive impulse that was useful, in an evolutionary sense, when resources were limited. At this point in the game, it just looks like we're stuck in a rut. Status and toys have become a substitute for meaning, because in a purely materialist worldview, where is the meaning?

Meaning is ephemeral and not tangible. It is something that can be found anywhere, but at times can also be very difficult.

You have a good point, but I would go one more to say that even though we are "Stuck in a rut", I don't see that any one lifestyle is better than another. I also model my success by the stuff I have the potential to acquire, as it gives me a sense of security. Also, when you are raised in a house where you have no say *unless* you pay the bills, it is how one feels a sense of authority. Yet this is illusory as well.

I guess I just don't see one way of life being any better than another. If someone is unhappy, there are methods of acquiring a sense of well being. Obviously material goods provide a very temporal happiness, even things we would assume have more meaning, still only provide a slightly longer but still temporal happiness.

I don't think you and this "Drone" split up because she was a corporate drone. I'd hazard a guess that her priorities for "success" superseded her priorities for her spouse. And that doesn't say anything about her drive for success as much as it does about your rightful desire to play a more major part in her life than her career.


It sounds like you find meaning in relationships, and she found meaning elsewhere. Or at least she attempted to find it elsewhere, I can't say as to whether she found what she was looking for or not.

In short, I sympathize with your broken relationship, but also know that it probably had more to do with the priorities in the relationship than it did with her drive for "success".

reply to post by Quazga


Hehe. I haven't given you enough information to justify that conclusion. Even a pro would wait before making a diagnosis!

No, she is not unlike many people whom I've known over the years, who took all the "right" steps in their youth, who went on to college right away, made babies right away, bought the right house in the right neighborhood, and then sat on it all wondering, "What next?" I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's just that some people cannot bear to be alone with their thoughts or to indulge in any thoughts or behaviors that are not supported by their peer group. When I say "corporate drone", I do mean it. The corporate structure and fraternity, for some people, is a trellis upon which they train and grow like vines.

Returning to the topic of the thread, though, intelligence is an over-broad term. There are different kinds of intelligence, after all, and they can't all be measured so easily. My ex is a good multi-tasker, and is able to manage people well, and use the tools of her trade more cleverly than others. On the other hand, she willingly subjugates and limits herself to a conception of self shared by her peers. While this might make her a great time in the sack, it also makes her a slave to the corporate hive mind. There is no creative power here. There is only parasitism. If intelligence measurements do not consider creativity and the urge to push against the envelope, then such measurements are hopelessly flawed.

That's one of the problems we're facing collectively just this moment. Creative people are in demand, but there is an over-arching and self-limiting mindset that places too much emphasis on linear reasoning versus holistic reasoning, and which values all things cognitive only inasmuch as they can be used to exploit, seduce, or dominate for the sake of power, prestige, and money. As the days ahead unfold, and new technologies make it easier for people to melt away into their fantasies, I can envision a complete reversal of the social order occurring, where corporate drones willingly don equipment that provides the narrow band of stimulation they require, so that they become worker bees for those of us who want to play and know more about ourselves, God, and the universe.

Ah, well. A man can dream.

Wow, I guess that America is NOT full of intellects.

92% of Americans believe in God or a universal spirit, Pew survey finds

Yikes. I thought I saw a research panel as recently as 2 to 3 years ago state that it was closer to 60%. However, this is fairly interesting on the fact that many Americans are moving AWAY from organized religion. That's kind of where I fall in. I hold a graduate degree but I have not stopped my belief in a God. Just my belief in the religious system that is in place now.

Link to Article

Americans overwhelmingly believe in God and consider religion an important part of their lives, even as many shun weekly worship services, according to a national survey released today that also found great diversity in religious beliefs and practices.

Originally posted by Black_Fox
Im not religious.
But I still find that statement a bit off.
There are plenty of intelligent people who believe in god.
Belief dosent make a person any less intelligent,than a person who dosent.
I just look at religion as a means of comfort device for some people.
And if believing in god helps them get through this life,than more power to them.

I totally disagree. First of all religion is not a belief system in and of itself, it is a form of government designed specifically to provide order and control its subjects.

Second, if belief helps a person cope with life, then I guess it would be alright by you if I believe that by killing all the Jews the world would be better off. Or maybe if we killed all the Christians? Or all the Buddhist?

Third, in today's greedy and corrupted societies, a belief in a deity that will somehow wash away all of your sins, just be confessing them is not only absurd, it is a dangerous premise. How about killing all the blonds, because we all know that they are of lesser moral character than the redheads.

Religion is nothing but a governing body designed to rule by fear of what lies ahead in the "next" life. If everyone lives in such a way that they are loving and caring, compassionate and charitable, religions would lose their appeal to those that feel they need something like it to cling to in such a cruel and debauched world.

Man created god in his own image to deny the responsibilities of his own actions. Become accountable for what you create in life, take responsibility regarding how your actions effect others. And for Pete's sake, don't blame it on God's will or "the Devil made me do it!" That's what got us in this mess in the first place, although I think is was Paul and not Peter that started the whole misconception.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
Let us be reasonable here. It is clear that the atheists who joke and often taunt those theists are actually themselves the less intelligent? Why? It is because while placing precious science on their pedestal they seem to forget that science has yet to prove the anti-thesis to existence of God. Meaning, for an atheist to believe there is NO God and for a member of an Abrahamic faith to believe in God-- is essentially both a demonstration of faith by definition.

The fact that we are, is proof that there is/was a creative intelligence. Whether or not that creator expects or demand homage or worship is another story.

The Dogmatic texts have revealed prophecies of science that we have not known until the 20th century. The scientists should concern themselves with exploring this "luck" instead of all practicing their religion of atheism by BELIEVING in NO God. :-) Had they picked up their Torahs, Bibles, and Qur'ans instead of tried to figure everything out with Illuminated knowledge-- they could have saved some time to explore the harder questions of life. Namely, what is the purpose of it?

The fact that these texts exist or that they "predict" future events still does not constitute a god or a theists proof that there is one. My feelings are that at one time those texts revealed a science and an historical chronology of creation and the inhabitation of the planets. Problem is, each ruling emperor, king, pharaoh, has written or rewritten history according to their own agendas. In many cases, the texts that were destroyed told historical facts that made their very existence a threat to the ruler of the day.

I know I will catch flames for this one, but here goes:

There never was a named person called Jesus. Y'shua from the Hebrew or Aramaic is Joshua. The historical records of the day do indicate a pair of twins called Joshua and Judah both born to a father named Joseph. They had an older brother called Ya'acov/Jacob who was a priest in the Holy Temple. Messiah from the Hebrew is translated as Messenger, not Anointed One. Melach in Hebrew means King as in Melach H' Olam ascribed to Adonai, God, King of the World.

Under Roman rule and being led by a non-Hebrew king (Herod) and with puppets of Rome defiling their holiest shrine, the Temple of Solomon, the Israelite thought this was surely the end times, that they had been forsaken by their god and he had surely turned his back on them and would allow Rome to destroy them.
But wait! A birth was announced, and from the House of David and the House of Aaron were borne twins. One to be the secular leader or King and the other to be the spiritual leader or High Priest.

After years of Torah study the twins were ready to take their places amongst the people of Israel, and lead the rebellion against Rome. Joshua is anointed with oil by his cousin and humbly enter the gates of the city of Jerusalem as every king had before him, upon the back of an ass, humble before his people and before his god. And like all spiritual leaders before Judah began teaching Torah and persuaded his older brother to return with the faithful from their exile in the north.

But the story never made the papers because it all unfolded, as Rome was very powerful and sought to destroy the king and all his royal bloodline. So he staged a magnificent escape so the the bloodline would live on. But they were forced into hiding because some former Roman prisoner soon plotted to gain recognition and created a new religion that appealed to the Romans as a means to unite the masses under their rule and quell the rebels.

And that was the start of the Pauline Church, as now is called the Holy Roman Church.

Originally posted by PhilltFred
The fact that we are, is proof that there is/was a creative intelligence. Whether or not that creator expects or demand homage or worship is another story.

I would say... that's your opinion, buddy!

Perhaps I am having an existential day or something... Not religious at all, nor athiest because I do not claim to know either to be true. I suppose I view several things as hypothesis with no current plausable research to conclude anything. Einstein's 11 dimensional theories with space and time folding and all that quantum physics jargon, one could imagine the existence of a 10th dimensional being. Nobody freakin knows. Maybe tons of people will write a bunch of books about it and in 1000 years a bunch of politicians can revise it and pick which parts they want to include, then create a multi-billion dollar industry getting people to believe in it, or kill them if they don't. naw, boring, already been done

That's because all men have a choice to believe or not. For every intelligent atheist there is an intelligent believer. Sounds like this article tries to make out atheists to be the most intelligent. Oh the ego of man.

Originally posted by truthtalker
That's because all men have a choice to believe or not. For every intelligent atheist there is an intelligent believer. Sounds like this article tries to make out atheists to be the most intelligent. Oh the ego of man.

I don't really think I got that from this thread at all. I think it depends on what you believed from the start before reading the thread too..

Not everyone is saying atheism somehow makes people more intelligent than believers. IMO that is just as crazy as saying believers in god are more intelligent than atheists.. You can argue either side for days but if they were really that intelligent the argument wouldn't have lasted that long..

Just because someone doesn't believe in GOD, like everyone else, doesn't mean they are atheist.. If someone doesn't believe in GOD altogether it doesn't necessarily mean they are atheist either. I think there is almost an implied norm in our culture which sais that in order to believe in God you must be religious. WELLL that depends on one's specific views or opinions doesn't it, which may or may not be wrong regardless of one's definition of faith.

Faith in god does have it's downsides.. There are many. But one that often gets overlooked is whether or not faith matters to god. I know of noone who can make the case for a God without bringin up the issue of Faith.. But faith is relative and faith can also be destructive regardless of the goodness of light people often regard the term "faith" with. Faith has killed many people throughout the ages and faith has driven men to kill women and children. What else?? I'll leave that open to the imagination.. (as I'm sure they did).

Faith in god is extremely important to religious belief but it is also extremely dangerous. There is a line there between the two somewhere but where is it? I would guess where people get injured or killed.. That's my guess.. But philosophically speaking, is there a line at all?? The point is that it doesn't matter what we think because people will always kill each other in the name of god and humans on the planet earth will always disagree on their beliefs about god and the universe. WHO'S RIGHT? At least statistically speaking, any belief is going to be wrong because the rest of the world beliefs in god in a differnet way..

People never know themselves whether they are right or wrong in believig in god or spreading their religion around the world.. Isn't that too a matter of faith? So in a way it is almost like we have the capability of clear hind-sight looking from the outside in almost like history is a testing-ground example for sociological progression. And people who honestly, truly, faithfully believe in their own ideaology don't always realize that history has shown how dangerous those beliefs can be and how destructive faith in god can be regardless of personal beliefs.

What I'm saying is that people who are devoutly religious may or may not even know that their personal faith has the potential for great evil regardless of how well-meant that faith is. All the wars and attrocities throughout the ages which occurred in the name of god/religion were probably undertaken by well-meaning people who wanted to spread their true way to the rest of the world. It may have resulted in people being slaughtered, it may have not, but either way they probably believed they were doing "God's work". Which is simply scary.. Anti-American islamic extremists are another great example.

-ChriS

this is totally frucking bull! intelligent people go to school and are taught sciences. Just because they know sciences does not make them intelligent. This research is based on people who school nerds who spend all their time doing math and astronomy and ignoring everything else.


the real intelligent people, (like me) go to school take the sciences and say, "this is bull" and search elsewhere. I took all the sciences and i'm very intelligent, I could even be considered genius among people. still, I looked into religion, spiritualism, methapysics etc. I took art courses and opened my left side of the brain.

perhaps they are intelligent in schools and in their career's, but i'd rather be working a sheedy job, and believe in god than put my head in the sand.

Smart people do not deny god, it's not smart.

Jedimiller.

[edit on 7-7-2008 by jedimiller]

If you ask me, intelligence is overated. Where's it gotten humanity. I think it's safe to say that stupidity & ignorance increases exponentially to intelligence, therefore, those who claim to be the most intelligent, usually have a greater capacity for stupidity and ignorance. Too much of something isn't always a good thing!

I'm of average intelligence and proud of it. God's nodoubt a cosmic joker and the joke is on us.

My goodness.... this was like throwing nitric acid into a pool of glycerin.

Having read all of about 5% of the ramblings in this thread, I cannot justly address all concerns posted, however, I will give my view:

The advent of computers and the internet have allowed statistics to be collected and processed in so many ways that it is absolutely ridiculous. Groups that were, once, unable to be surveyed or difficult to contact for surveys have now become a primary reporting volume for surveys. Statistics of today are completely different from statistics even 10 years ago, let alone 20+.

Now, letting my ego shine through, I was not contacted for this survey, so I question whether or not the "intellectual elite" they interviewed are more than number crunching monkeys regurgitating textbooks at a nuclear power plant or some car company.

More seriously, establishing a gauge for intelligence is rather difficult. My standard is related to my experience with other people of many different cultures and a few different languages. I 'measure' intelligence based off of how rapidly someone learns, how well they remember things, and how capable they are of piecing together their memories, observations, and application of theoretical principles. In short - you're more intelligent if you recognize elements of trigonometry and calculus simply from observation rather than when going through a college course and know how to punch numbers in on a calculator to get the numbers you are looking for.

In extreme simplicity - the people who create the procedures others go to college to learn are the ones I consider intelligent.

Most of the intelligent people I know believe in God. Most of them believe in the Christian view of God (though that is likely a coincidence more than anything).

However, another thing I have noticed is a fundamental problem with Science. It's become a set of beliefs as opposed to a process of verifying a hypothesis on the dynamics of our universe.

People have come to place faith and belief in various scientific theories. An example I run across is the theory that certain mental/emotional concepts can be genetically encoded, such as fears. When asked about how the image of dragons could span cultures that have never had any contact with each other, a few renowned scientists have given the explanation that it's a genetically encoded fear - a medley of snakes, large cats, and birds. Which, as a theory, is perfectly fine. However, why is it accepted? It's not because science supports it. I've never seen any research that suggests fears can be inherited through genetics (much less fears that can generate mental images). Though the above explanation is commonly assumed to be "scientific" because it disregards the "superstitious," even though the Scientific process has yet to validate the hypothesis as correct.

As I said before, it's a problem of people turning scientific theories and hypotheses into personal belief systems. My own experience and analysis would indicate that this is a product of the persecution of orthodox belief systems, especially in educated and scientific communities. We have an emotional need to place faith in ideals and concepts to answer basic questions of life. Failing the more typical "God works in ways we do not yet understand" philosophy - more specific and direct philosophies are developed around sets of theories.

Thus, the effect is two-fold. Anything lending any credence to superstition or religious beliefs is "not Scientific." Any evidence that a major theory needs to be overhauled or is completely and totally wrong is disregarded as pseudo-science, "bad math", and are hardly given a second glance.

This stagnates Scientific development, as people become too attached various theories - using them for an entire belief system and to answer primal questions, such as "why are we here" and "where did we come from?"

It's a dangerous trend I have noticed. Being religious/spiritual, myself, I would say that the "answer" is for people to find their own beliefs that are not built around theories and hypotheses that are subject to the Scientific Process. Why? Because most concepts of God are simply immune to Science. God is the universe and behind its creation - thus, the belief in God can never be justly challenged by Science, as creation and/or design (in general) cannot be proven or disproven through any experiment.

Thus, in my experience, I have found that many individuals who work in Research and are religious are more accurate in interpreting data. I presume this is because the conclusion is irrelevant to their own beliefs, as their beliefs tend to be "Oh, so this is how God (or whatever deity) got this to work!"

Originally posted by Aim64C
People have come to place faith and belief in various scientific theories. An example I run across is the theory that certain mental/emotional concepts can be genetically encoded, such as fears. When asked about how the image of dragons could span cultures that have never had any contact with each other, a few renowned scientists have given the explanation that it's a genetically encoded fear - a medley of snakes, large cats, and birds. Which, as a theory, is perfectly fine. However, why is it accepted? It's not because science supports it. I've never seen any research that suggests fears can be inherited through genetics (much less fears that can generate mental images). Though the above explanation is commonly assumed to be "scientific" because it disregards the "superstitious," even though the Scientific process has yet to validate the hypothesis as correct.

OK, I think you are correct that we wouldn't have a genetically determined fear of say a snake. However, do you not think some could have a genetically determined tendency to find long wriggling things disgusting and scary? To find the movement and shape attention grabbing and emotion-inducing?

I'll try a rather related example which I know of. Lets say that we think rabbits have an innate fear of foxes in some way. The alternative would be that this fear is learned, a sort of social learning or perhaps learning from personal experience.

How could we test this?

One way would be to raise a group of rabbits out of their natural environment. In such an environment the rabbits do not experience foxes and other predators. Thus no social learning or learning by personal experience can really take place. They don't have the experiences to build on. IF we think that there is some innate biological mechanism that induces fear/threat responses in rabbits from predator stimuli, then these responses will still be present.

We can't just throw them into an environment with a fox, as they will likely show neophobia anyway and a resultant FFFF response. So how to test?

I get such a group of rabbits and provide them a choice paradigm. We can test emotional responses by their approach and withdrawing responses to stimuli. So we provide a choice between bowls of their normal food. One bowl has the odour of fox crap, one has the odour of sheep crap.

Remember these rabbits have never been exposed to sheep or foxes, both are new stimuli, so they are equally neophobic. Their behaviour will suggest some form of innate preference, as no stimulus-response learning was possible.

What d'ya think was found?

Well, they preferred the sheep bowl. I can't find this particular study (it is out there somewhere), but such odour studies have been performed in numerous species, from mice and rats to monkeys. It appears that the response is actually to a component of anal gland excretions in many predators. Similar studies also show stress and fear responses to such stimuli.

Therefore, it's not the sight of a predator itself in this case (although the visual stimuli would be easily learned by odour association), not even the poop as a whole. But one chemical component of predator odour that appears to be especially sensitive and threat-inducing to these animals.

A related study

Obviously, we think this is innate in some way, indeed exposure to these novel odours induces neurochemical responses in areas of the brain associated with reward and punishment/emotion. But what about emotions in humans?

Here, one line of work is relates genetics and neuroimaging, and is suggesting that people who possess certain genetic profiles (particularly related to serotonin transmitters, as this is fairly well tested) show differential brain activity to emotional stimuli, and also different tendencies to psychopathology.

Genetics and Emotion

More Hariri genetics studies

So back to the snakes and spiders thing. Why wouldn't we have an innate tendency to associate slithering long things and creeping things with threat and fear? It would be an adaptive behaviour, no?

That's not to say we do, of course. Pretty hard to test properly, ethics would not really allow it. But it is fairly certain that genetics does underpin a predisposition for emotional responses and psychopathology, and that it can also lead to a tendency to associate certain stimuli with fear at an innate level - very likely for odours in many species.

But it's still a nature-nurture issue, and learning/experience/environment will be just as relevant to behaviour.

[edit on 7-7-2008 by melatonin]

reply to post by melatonin


It's a problem of causality.

It is impossible, though any known method of observation, to determine whether or not our genetics can encode "mental images" that could be later construed by our imaginations to be compiled into a sort of Chimera.

It "sounds" scientific, because it includes genetics and chemical reactions. But to use that as an explanation is not scientific. It's a conjecture - and a faith-based conjecture, at that, seeing as there is no real way to verify the conjecture to be true or false.

Science is its own thing, and we must recognize that. It is separate from logic, belief, thought, and feeling.

reply to post by jedimiller


ok, this is a great example of a moronic post. This person writes about how they took science in school, and found it to be bull. Then the poster goes on to say that they are at genius levels, and then to show off such prowess tells us all how he/she went to art school, where they opened up their *left* brain.

I wonder if they even realize how stupid that remark was, and how telling.

reply to post by Rren


Do you really think that anyone who agrees with the OP is going to actually read the links you posted??
Aren't these are the same folks who love the Bell Curve which is a racist piece of trash and poor science?....besides any opportunity to bash people of faith is embraced with cultish exuberance around ATS...thats my take anyway but of course my intelligence may be called into question.. sorry... I'm feeling less than charitable tonight....oops does it show?