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Jaguar
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Montgomery County, MD
Apr 2000
time: 00:21
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Alright, the point that I would make in response to this thread is that if smarter people believe in something, that doesn't make it superior.
Smart people generally do well in school. In Geometry, they teach you all about proving theorems. In Chemistry, you have to back up your ideas with observations and the scientific method. In political discussion, which smart people tend to involve themselves in, faith is kept out because a consensus has been reached that religion and politics shouldn't be mixed. The thing that all of these have in common is that they all discourage accepting things on blind faith. Of course smarter people will tend towards atheism, but it's not necessarily because they are willing to be nonconformists. It's the exact opposite. In most intellectual theaters, faith has no place. So naturally, smart people, whose lives revolve around such intellectual activity, are going to be less religious.
So, the high levels of atheism among intellectuals is not due to superior reasoning ability, but to typical human conformity.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:21
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immense stupidity like this thread only deserves a response of trolling... come on now. Sava appears to have this inferiority complex and probably got a smug smirk on his face and a hard-on in his pants when he found this information. yup.
and for you jaguar, it depends on what sort of schooling. Business school or law school grads aren't scientists. would they tend towards disbelief in god as well? your reasoning for 'intelligent tendency towards athiesm' wouldn't quite work for them. they don't worry about biology and chemistry.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:21
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agnosticism, jaguar... agnosticism and deism... the possibility of god is always there.
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Berzerker
Stefu and Kid are onto something, tagging along with higher intelligence are greater curiosity and skepticism - higher standards of proof. Religion appears to lack the proof needed to satisfy greater enquiry by skeptics, so "Doubting Thomas'" are less inclined to accept a belief in God based on what someone else told them to believe. But frankly, the more intelligent (generalisation alert) have not made a sufficient enquiry into the existence of God to know one way or the other. Simply rejecting religion out of a dis-satisfaction with other people's proof for it is not enlightenment. Look for the proof yourself first... |
You know what, this actually has been done many, many, many times. The fact is that any belief in the supernatural *requires* faith, which is belief in the absence of evidence.
Personally I choose to minimize by belief in things that have no evidence for them.
That is simply how it is. I've examined it for myself. I've read the works of others who have examined it. I've spent a lot of time thinking it over.
I rejected religion because it requires a foundation of belief without evidence. Naturally it means that people trying to prove their religion end up having arguements that are lacking, but I didn't reject faith because their arguments weren't good (rather, I rejected faith for the same reason that caused their arguements to be bad).
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Verto
Standardized tests show Blacks are intellectually inferior to the Great White race. |
This is the same as the Bell Curve, and the Bell Curve does not show blacks to be intellectually inferior to white inherently.
Socio-ecnonomic biases tend to reign supreme in areas such as this, and correlation does not equal causation.
And even if, in this case, being smart tended to make you less religious, that does not mean that someone religious can't be smart.
Some people need to take a beginning logic class.
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by monkspider
Belief in Religionism /= Belief in God |
But clearly if you don't believe in religion then you don't believe in god. (Religion in the general sense, not the institutions). Afterall, believing in god is a religious belief (there are just other religious beliefs too).
-Drachasor
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Flip McWho
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New Zealand
May 2002
time: 17:21
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quote:
But clearly if you don't believe in religion then you don't believe in god. (Religion in the general sense, not the institutions). Afterall, believing in god is a religious belief (there are just other religious beliefs too). |
Not true. You can believe in God without having any religious beliefs as such. Believing in God is just a belief, religious beliefs start when you start believing in religions. (i.e Catholicism, Islam etc)
Last edited by Flip McWho on 10-10-2004 at 14:10
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by notyoueither
That's stunning logic. You leap from there is no way of knowing to they know with not a single leg to carry you there. |
No, you misunderstand. They have no belief in god:
be·lief Audio pronunciation of "belief" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (b-lf)
n.
1. The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another: My belief in you is as strong as ever.
2. Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something: His explanation of what happened defies belief.
3. Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.
An agnostic does not believe in god. Therefore they are an atheist. "Atheist" is a very generic term:
a·the·ist Audio pronunciation of "atheist" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (th-st)
n.
...One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.
and:
dis·be·lief Audio pronunciation of "disbelief" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (dsb-lf)
n.
...Refusal or reluctance to believe.
plus:
ag·nos·tic Audio pronunciation of "agnostic" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (g-nstk)
n.
...1.
.........1. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
.........2. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
...2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.
Unless you are the very rare type of agnostic that believes in god (and in practice I almost never see the word used in this way--though perhaps that is because almost know one is an agnostic believer), then you are an agnostic that doesn't have a belief in god. You are not a "hard athiest" (you don't deny the existence of god--"true" atheist in the above), but you do have disbelief. That's an atheist.
This is predicated on that fact that people either believe in something, or they do not. You can be uncertain as to the correctness of that belief or disbelief, but you still either have it or don't. Now, perhaps I wasn't wholly accurate when I said all agnostics are atheists, but the fact is that most everyone that refers to themselves as agnostics are atheists.
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Flip McWho
Not true. You can believe in God without having any religious beliefs as such. Believing in God is just a belief, religious beliefs start when you start believing in religions. (i.e Catholicism, Islam etc) |
re·li·gion Audio pronunciation of "religion" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-ljn)
n.
...1.
......1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
......2. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
...2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
...3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
...4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
Hmm, point, I suppose if you believe in, but lack reverence for, god, then you don't have any religious beliefs.
-Drachasor
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Flip McWho
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New Zealand
May 2002
time: 17:21
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Yeah I've always counted that your've got to worship God in some way for religion to blossom. If you don't then all your do is believe.
quote:
Go smoke some pot Sava |
Nothing wrong with pot.
It helps you fly.
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Flip McWho
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New Zealand
May 2002
time: 17:21
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quote:
Unless you are the very rare type of agnostic that believes in god (and in practice I almost never see the word used in this way--though perhaps that is because almost know one is an agnostic believer), then you are an agnostic that doesn't have a belief in god. You are not a "hard athiest" (you don't deny the existence of god--"true" atheist in the above), but you do have disbelief. That's an atheist. |
Refer to that link I posted for an theist agnostic. An atheist commonly denies the existence of God. An agnostic commonly states that you can't prove and not prove the existence of God. There is no automatic denial in there. You seem to leap from the fact that they don't openly believe in a God as a sort of denial.
EDIT: Also as an aside. Sometimes a dictionary isn't the best thing to define something. Hell I remember being told in a philosophy paper that if we use a dictionary to define a term they'll shoot us out of a cannon and into a ship full of dogshit.
EDIT (again): For better clarity, maybe. I think I should go to bed.
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Drachasor
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With specialized terms, then yes, the dictionary isn't best.
With a more common term like "atheist" it is better.
As you noted I am not saying an agnostic denies that god exists, so don't to to foist that statement upon me.
In my experience (and I was one of the primary operaters of an atheism irc chatroom for many years)*, the term "atheist" is used both to describe those that disbelieve and those that deny.
-Drachasor
*among many other things
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Last Conformist
quote:
And agnostiscism, technically speaking, is a type of atheist.
An atheist is someone that isn't a theist. Agnostics aren't theists. Typically the term "agnostic" is used by people to try to soften the blow of them being atheists (not always the case, but often). |
This is semanticist bullshit. The normal definition of an atheist is some who believes there is no god - this does not include agnostics. Etymology is not definition. It's hard to avoid the conclusion you're intentionally trying to muddy the waters. |
I know etymology isn't a definition, that's why I used the dictionary.
The normal definition for an atheist is someone that disbelieves or doubts the existence of god. That includes almost everyone (in my experience) that identifies themselves as agnostic. Perhaps there are many more people that are agnostics that do believe in god, but they must identify themselves as something else first and foremost (because I have only very rarely met one, relative to the agnostics). Few are the people that believe in god and say there is no proof he exists.
I am sorry there is a large overlap of the term "agnostic" and "atheist", but that's just how it is. Everyone is either a theist or an atheist; it might comply with etymology, true, but it also complies with the dictionary definition. One either believes in god, or one does not.
You don't like how the word "atheist" is defined in the dictionary, well, that's just how it is. Dictionaries are *based* on common usage. While some agnostics that don't believe in god greatly dislike being associated with the term "atheist", that is simply the term they applied with. If you ask the average person off the street: "what's the word for someone that doesn't believe in god?", they'll say "atheist." That's how the dictionary gets its definitions (very roughly speaking, of course).
I have already admitted I overstated the case when I said all agnostics are atheists. However, as I have said above and before, most people that call themselves "agnostic" are indeed atheists. The agnostic theists are very rare.
I think you need to stop confining "atheism" to a word that means someone that denies the existence of god. It is much broader than that.
-Drachasor
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10-10-2004 09:49
to Chegitz. nice job consistantly fulfilling my expectations
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