Are atheists more intelligent than religious believers? Study suggests such a correlation

reply to post by badmedia

So, certain chemicals and such react with each other and that gives us consciousness? What is this observitanium element? Or, what is the magical electrical wave pattern that gives us consciousness?

That is what you are saying. Consciousness comes from chemicals and electricity reacting with each other.

Well it's not so much what I'm saying as what science is saying.

But it's nonsense.

No it isn't. Take a .45 and shoot someone in the head. If it doesn't kill them, it will give them very very specific deficiencies. Damage to certain areas will impair a persons ability to speak or understand speech. Damage to another area will take away function of sight that is done unconsciously. Countless amounts of very very specific functions are located in different places in the brain. Emotions is another. Situational awareness. Motor skills. subtle brain damage can easily cause personality changes or new disposition. Basically if you change something in the brain, you change the persons mind in a related way.

Consciousness suddenly appears not as one thing but a collective of countless brain functions. In out past evolved forms, we were not as conscious as we are now, consciousness is something that developed over time in us - it's not something separate from us, it is part of what we are - a materialistic being. The mind is the brain.

You disagree. You believe in freewill. I don't because I can't comprehend how a brain could have this ability, and if not the brain, then what? A spirit? God? The conscious universe. These are supernatural beliefs that cannot be proven. I have no more reason to believe that than I do Hercules or Ra.

Give me a reason to believe!!!

Quantum Physics is the only part of science that even acknowledged consciousness and the observer

You'll also have to explain how Quantum Physics means consciousness when all it really is is sub atomic particles that exist twice as negative forms of one another and can appear and disappear as the waveform collapses - good ol' string theory.

It basically means I'm not responsible for my actions. Where as now I feel I am responsible for my actions. Because I can choose better.

Why do you keep implying I said that we can't make choices? I never said that! Again, I just said that choices arenot made by a freewill.

[edit on 28-7-2009 by Welfhard]

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


...I don't even know what you are talking about. Good of you to return and put your 2 cents in though - it's gotten lonely with just the 3 or 4 of us the last couple of pages

Do elaborate what straw-man argument I made, and what you are referring to

reply to post by badmedia

As an experiment, a person can CHOOSE to move their finger, this way, that way or not at all. Then the question arises, who is the "I" who makes this choice. That I IS consciousness, the one who chooses. Free will is not an illusion and the human being is more than physics and chemicals. See this is where the atheists go, denying free will and the identity of an observing self or an "I am" being of self awareness which transcends the physical. Then there is the issue of "qualia" or first hand subjective experience, so in that sense, no one can push a conception on someone else and call that truth in an absolute sense, neither the believers nor the atheists, but the notion that atheists are more intelligent is ridiculous, as are many of the assumptions that they make about believers.
There is a way to produce a neurological Bose Einstein condensate which an atheist could expose themselves to, which would give them the qualia of an experience of God, but I cannot make mention of it again (got a warning for it). Every single atheist or materialist monist who HAS had exposure to it, completely changed their tune as a result.

There is no "Consciousness". There are a huge number of variables that affect decisions. There is the ability to recognize yourself in the mirror and not mistake a reflection for a separate being.

Free Will is just an illusion. Everything you do is determined by a set of variables.

reply to post by Welfhard


What if someone loses their memory - consciously, are they the same? All the learned principles and examples from their past that have developed and encouraged their personality are gone. They may not be the same person. Do they recognize this change? If consciousness is a "separate" entity, would they not think and act the same? Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't though...even after something like a stroke, personalities and emotions can change. It is hard to pin down consciousness as a product of one specific area of our brains. I am not a neuroscientist, nor do I have any real knowledge of the brain. I have no clue where things like OBE's come from or if they are organic in nature. I suspect they are...but what can I say conclusively.
Obviously, some peoples' idea of "consciousness" vary as well.
Furthermore, who is to say such changes after a traumatic event are not just a result of brain damage and mixed up connections. I don't know, very weird stuff, separate and "apart" from consciousness.
Does any of this have anything to do with why Atheists don't believe religious claims? Not that I can see...the idea of a divine Jesus and the Jewish god are still unfalsifiable and unjustified.


[edit on 28-7-2009 by makinho21]

reply to post by TurkeyBurgers

Yes, that is the conclusion that atheism leads to, precisely.

It flies in the face however, of all human wisdom, from the most ancient times, to the most modern.

What you are saying, is that there is no self aware being who is aware they are aware and who chooses and therefore possess autonomous free will - which in most cases is true, since most people are identified solely with the ego-self or the unaware construct of who they THINK they are.

In your view, there is no real "I am", just a materialistic biological machine and nothing more, which, at the end of it's cycle turns to dust and is forgotten, and life itself therefore is meaningless.

You are free to choose that viewpoint of course.. to each his own as they say.

In your worldview we are each separate, both from one another and the objective reality, and there is no collective consciousness or unconsciousness, no place where we share the same ground of being with the one consciousness from which all has arisen.

It's perfectly fine, but it doesn't do anything to contribute to the greatest matters facing man at this moment in history, which requires by neccessity a new paradigm of consciousness and of what it means to be a consciously aware human being in the universe.

By holding firm to the atheistic position, you could be removing yourSELF from a new realm of possibility..?

[edit on 28-7-2009 by OmegaPoint]

reply to post by OmegaPoint


OmegaPoint there are animals other than HomoSapien's who are SELF AWARE! Self awareness is NOT consciousness!

Self Awareness is the ability to process and store many variables very rapidly!

It is YOU who "flies in the face of all human wisdom, from the most ancient times, to the most modern."

Namely the MODERN WISDOM!

To ignore the amazing discoveries of modern Science regarding the Human Brain is in my opinion very sad.

To ignore Modern Science is not only not contributing to our problems but ADDING to them!

[edit on 28-7-2009 by TurkeyBurgers]

reply to post by OmegaPoint


Your "I am" (or consciousness/sense of will) is an example of Emergence in biology.

In philosophy, systems theory and science, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.

[Emergence]

Emergence is a common phenomena, the pattern of a snowflake is an example of an emerged complex pattern. It's not "something more than the physical." It is the physical.

reply to post by TurkeyBurgers

You ought to research the work of David Bohm and Karl Pibram for the stunning similarities in their two models, the first, a quantum holographic universe, and the latter, a holographic brain. Roger Penrose has also contribute to the concept with his "The Emperor's New Mind".

Materialist monism is giving way to monistic idealism - that's the modern trend.

To be is to be percieved.

Some even are beginning to think that the implicate order can only be made explicate via meaning, and that the physical universe is made literally OF meaning.

I started out an atheist and did the research, but open mindedly and free from any contemptuous bias, prior to inevestigation, based on some sort of anti-Biblical or anti-religious reaction or rebellion. It's called being open mind and not closing one's self off from a possibility.

reply to post by makinho21

Obviously, some peoples' idea of "consciousness" vary as well.

That's a problem of science too, the definition of it is so ambiguous now and debate goes on on the specifics.

It used to be quite simple, there was "conscious" and "unconscious/death" and the definition was basically the difference between these two concepts. But now it's seen as a thing of degree so much so that the edges of consciousness and un are impossible to be defined clearly or objectively.

Originally posted by dmorgan
I think it's possible that people who aren't atheists and don't follow a particular religion have the potential to be more intelligent, because they aren't sucked into organised religion yet they keep an open mind that there could be some type of God or higher power, not discounting the possibility completely like atheists do.

But I think comparing people's intelligence levels according to what they believe is a bit stupid. There are probably religious people out there who are more intelligent than some atheists, and vice versa.

[edit on 27/7/09 by dmorgan]

Theism is the belief in a single God - A-theism is a rejection of this idea - it is a rejection of a single God as divine creator - everything else is spurious clap trap added on by theists to pigeon hole atheists and make them easier targets......agnostics such as yourself are simply unable to make up their mind......smarter ? or just intellectually timid.

reply to post by audas

Theism is the belief in a single God - A-theism is a rejection of this idea - it is a rejection of a single God as divine creator - everything else is spurious clap trap added on by theists to pigeon hole atheists and make them easier targets......agnostics such as yourself are simply unable to make up their mind......smarter ? or just intellectually timid.

That's not exactly fair of you. Agnostics just acknowledge the uncertainty - they don't have to take sides, there is no law saying we must take an absolute stance.

The true nature of consciousness is at once mystical and spiritual. It is the most mysterious phenomenon in the universe. And it does involve choice or free will, and a choosing self who can only have the experience of consciousness from the POV of the self, so it cannot be measured or communicated as to precisely what it is. Self and qualia must be considered together and not separate. In other words you could take a machine far in the future and measure the entire naurological configuration of a human being and measure all changes, and still not get to the root of what consciousness is. If it is ever solved, it will be viewed hand in hand with quantum physics, and a working model of God-consciousness or universal consciousness, since the subjective and objective are intimately connected, and then the tables will be turned, and the believers will have science on their side and the atheists will be stuck in the old religion of a Newtonian Cartesian Materialist Monism.

reply to post by OmegaPoint


You DEFINITELY would love reading "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins. Another book that I STRONGLY recommend you read is "Molecules of Emotion" by Dr. Candace B. Pert.

These are books that will help you understand Modern Science and help you to gain a better understanding of how the human brain works.

reply to post by TurkeyBurgers

And for you I recommend "The Holographic Universe" and "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" so that you can understand modern science from my point of view also. Oh and "The Tao of Physics" and "The Self Aware Universe".

Originally posted by Welfhard
reply to post by audas

 

Theism is the belief in a single God - A-theism is a rejection of this idea - it is a rejection of a single God as divine creator - everything else is spurious clap trap added on by theists to pigeon hole atheists and make them easier targets......agnostics such as yourself are simply unable to make up their mind......smarter ? or just intellectually timid.

That's not exactly fair of you. Agnostics just acknowledge the uncertainty - they don't have to take sides, there is no law saying we must take an absolute stance.

ag⋅nos⋅tic
  /ægˈnɒstɪk/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ag-nos-tik] Show IPA
Use agnostic in a Sentence
–noun
1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.
–adjective
3. of or pertaining to agnostics or agnosticism.
4. asserting the uncertainty of all claims to knowledge.

reply to post by OmegaPoint


Let me add to that reading list for you "The Great Brain Book" by HP Newquist as well as "Sensation and Perception" by Coren & Ward. These books will help you as well. You will love learning about the human brain. It will really educate you to how your own mind works.

reply to post by TurkeyBurgers


Maybe add 'Sam: "I am": The big pop-up book of psychology.'

reply to post by john124


Exactly. I consider myself Atheist-agnostic because while there is no evidence for god(s) beyond reasonable doubt (atheist), I can't ultimately know (agnostic).

reply to post by makinho21


Your response, you inflated my comments to mean things that were not even implied. And if you cannot remember what you typed, well, read it.

[edit on 28-7-2009 by Watcher-In-The-Shadows]