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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:21
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quote:
Or maybe it is just that they are somewhat alienated from society because many people view them as second-class citizens or otherwise look down upon them. |
who are? religious people? i wouldn't say religious people are truly alienated because of their beliefs, at least not in most of america. In Europe or some parts of America socialism is so strong i'm sure they look down upon religious people (the french ban on practicing religions, for example) but socialism/liberalism still does pride itself on some level of equality and liberty so while sometimes they do go so extreme as to be almost persecuting religious people, on the whole socialists are probably respectful, stuff like what's happening in france aside.
anyway that don't make sense... if theyare persecuted, wouldn't they be unhappy?
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Yes, but my assessment of IQ tests, is not based on my own findings, but on what others have shown me.
IQ can be used to determine what a society values as intelligent. It cannot establish any meaningful 'intrinsic' intelligence. |
They actually aren't so bad. Intelligence is almost always used to mean the capcity to aquire and apply knowledge. Sometimes it also means reasoning ability (and you can't reason well if you are incapable or limited in your ability to be skeptical). I.Q. tests aren't perfect at measuring this, but they do a decent job.
quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Which is my point. These tests are moderated by a third factor afflicting the results. Which is why they show a discreprency between theists and atheists.
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I would think, that since religiousity does not affect intrinsic intelligence, that any difference can only be attributed to bias in the test. |
You are still getting it backwards. It would NOT be that being an atheist *causes* you to be intelligent. If anything, it would be that greater intelligence makes it more likely that you are an atheist. Do you see the difference in causality?
There might also be a third factor which tends to improve one's intelligence and make one an unbeliever.
I would again note that none of this means you can't be both intelligent and a theist.
As for the validity of these studies, this sort of thing is often found to be the case. The better a scientist you are, for instance, the more likely you are to not believe. You might not like that, but it is a well-established fact.
quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Why is this? Why is skepticism considered 'intelligent?' Sure, I agree with you that most skeptics are agnostic and atheist. However, just because they are skeptical, does not make them more intelligent than the theists. |
Being able to question information is an essential part of intelligently processing it.
And dangit, would you please try to bear in mind the causality. You are inflating this into a much larger thing than it actually is. Because you are taking this as some personal insult, you are having trouble seeing what is going on.
It doesn't mean a theist can't be as smart as an atheist. It doesn't mean all atheists are smarter than theists. It doesn't mean all atheists are smart. All it means is that if you look at everyone, measure their intelligence and faith, then the concentration of atheists is higher towards the higher end of the intelligence bracket as opposed to the lower. It doesn't conclude why that is the case, it merely states that it is.
Now, what I think is going on is that more intelligent people tend to find it easier to not believe than less intelligent people. Probably because the more intelligent you are the more you *tend* to question the facts everyone else accepts.
Again, this doesn't mean a theist is less intelligent than an atheist.
quote:
IQ tests are quite malleable, depending on the questions they ask. |
Actually people that tend to do well on one intelligence test, tend to do well on other ones. There is something there that it is measuring, and it is reasonably close to intelligence.
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Depends on whether you consider the majority to have this faith.
I don't think this is true. I think the majority are doubters and skeptics more inclined to rail and denigrate the faithful.
Consider that I am not trying to say that the irreligious are less intelligent than the religious, whereas you are trying to prove that the irreligious are more intelligent than the religious.
So don't give me that persecution jazz. I'm not the one trying to persecute you. |
Read my latest post before this. I am not saying the irreligious are more intelligent. You are misreading the statistics.
And as an atheist, I know personally what it is like to grow up in a society so filled with religion. It *is* alienating, and most people simply do not comprehend how someone can be an atheist. This means atheists have smaller support networks a fair bit of the time, especially when dealing with troubles of feeling alienating.
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Albert Speer
who are? religious people? |
No.
-Drachasor
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:21
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quote:
And as an atheist, I know personally what it is like to grow up in a society so filled with religion. It *is* alienating, and most people simply do not comprehend how someone can be an atheist. This means atheists have smaller support networks a fair bit of the time, especially when dealing with troubles of feeling alienating. |
yeah right. stop whining
and i've missed about from page 3 to page 5 so did anyone address the fact that the Bell Curve could be analogous to this?
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:21
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drachasor:
i think the fact that i didn't even think you meant athiest were alienated says a lot. i assumed you meant religious people.
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
How does this disprove God?
And you are wrong about Ockham's razor. It simply states that the simpler theory is more likely to be correct. |
And tossing god into any theory of the universe makes that theory needlessly complex. There is no need for such a concept in any explanatory theory.
For the record, I am an agnostic atheist. I am borderline hard-athiest because I believe it is in fact impossible to prove god exists.
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Albert Speer
and i've missed about from page 3 to page 5 so did anyone address the fact that the Bell Curve could be analogous to this? |
Just like the Bell Curve, people are misreading statistics. I guess you haven't been paying attention to the last page (or you don't know about how the Bell Curve was wrong).
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Albert Speer
yeah right. stop whining |
You confuse whining and explanations too readily.
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Yes I do. Now you are saying that greater intelligence makes you more likely to be an atheist. How is that different than what I say, which is that you believe atheists to be more intelligent than theists, not because of their atheism, but because of their natural talents? |
Because there is no reason why a theist can't be just as smart as an atheist.
Remember, this is about reconsidering accepted explanations. If atheism was the belief of the vast majority, then most people would be athiests, and you could well find more theists in the higher end of the intelligence bracket.
It doesn't have anything to do with with one group being proved smarter than the other.
-Drachasor
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:21
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where do you live Drachasor?
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I can comprehend an atheist, and I can understand why your support networks are smaller.
Atheists have no motivation to form support networks, while Christians have many motivations in their teachings for doing so. |
Thank you for that extraordinarily biased and baseless statement.
Atheists have smaller support networks because there are far fewer atheists in the general population and their beliefs are not well-respected/received by most.
The environment is alienating, as you demonstrated by your lack of understanding atheism (and general human nature to form support networks).
To be clear when I say "support network" I mean the family, friends, teachers, etc that someone can go to for emotional support in times of stress.
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Albert Speer
where do you live Drachasor? |
Ohio.
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
Wow, Sava. Your best troll in quite some time.
5/10.
-Arrian (Agnostic, for the record) |
If you do any topic vaguely along the line of atheist-theism then there is always a high chance of it getting carried away by misunderstandings and arguements.
-Drachasor
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:21
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quote:
They actually aren't so bad. Intelligence is almost always used to mean the capcity to aquire and apply knowledge.
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And how do you assess this?
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Sometimes it also means reasoning ability (and you can't reason well if you are incapable or limited in your ability to be skeptical). I.Q. tests aren't perfect at measuring this, but they do a decent job.
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So, if you assume belief in God to be illogical, doesn't that mean, you will always prove that the faithful are less intelligent?
You are begging the question Drachosor. You need to show why belief in God is in fact illogical, rather than assuming what you are trying to prove.
quote:
I would again note that none of this means you can't be both intelligent and a theist.
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You are saying that the average theist is going to be less intelligent than the average atheist. This is all I claimed.
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The better a scientist you are, for instance, the more likely you are to not believe. You might not like that, but it is a well-established fact.
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I was a scientist, and why should this be the case? The best scientists acknowledge the limitations of science. Look at the scientific discoveries made by faithful Christians here in the west. Does the number of discoveries by ardent atheists compare?
Science has no tools to measure the supernatural, and they admit that in the scientific method, developed by Bacon.
quote:
Being able to question information is an essential part of intelligently processing it.
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True, but you cannot doubt everything. You accept most of what you know on the authority of others. If you doubt everything you hear, then you will know nothing.
Questioning information, is not the same as rejecting the information. When presented with information, you need to have some ability to assess the information in such a way as to gage what is more probable. Then, it would seem most intelligent to take what you see as most probable, and to retain such information, until more probable information comes forth.
Many theists have became believers not because they insisted that God come down and reveal himself before they believed, but rather, that the evidence in favour of God was more probable than the evidence against.
So skepticism, ought to still lead to the acceptance of information that is the most probable, rather than the rejection of evidence because it does not fit with preconceived notions.
quote:
Now, what I think is going on is that more intelligent people tend to find it easier to not believe than less intelligent people. Probably because the more intelligent you are the more you *tend* to question the facts everyone else accepts.
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Right, but I would say that the intelligent also understand the limitations of their knowledge, and come to value the accumulated knowledge of past generations as a supplement to their own. So in rejecting tradition, you are not necessarily showing more intelligence than one who accepts the evidence of tradition to be greater than his own limited understanding.
quote:
Actually people that tend to do well on one intelligence test, tend to do well on other ones. There is something there that it is measuring, and it is reasonably close to intelligence.
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Again, I ask to see the questions. If IQ tests all ask the same questions, then it is obvious you would have the same results. They are the same test!
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Drachasor
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They don't all ask the same questions, and you need to look at societal as a whole on the results (as I touched on).
Yes, it is a fact that currently in American the average Atheist is more intelligent than the average Theist.
Guess what? The average White is more intelligent than the average Black.
Why is this? Because of how society is set up and the inherent inequities within it. Blacks aren't incapable of learning just as much as whites, but their socio-economic position hinders them (if you balance studies based on socio-economic position, then whites in a similar socio-economic spot score similarly on I.Q. tests compared to blacks).
With atheist and theists there is an inherent bias in our culture towards religion. That means that most people are going to be religious. The only people that are going to question it are going to generally have more intelligence than the average person, because that is simply how intelligence works. If the situation was reversed, and 90% of the population were atheists, then studies would show that theists were more intelligent than atheists (imho).
-Drachasor
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:21
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Cleveland, Cincinatti, or Columbus?
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Oncle Boris
It doesn't, because as I said science does not preclude assumptions as to what might be beyond its actual grasp. Interestingly, philosophical conceptions of God are very logical in nature and show strong influence from scientific procedures. |
God is defined as something forever out of the grasp of science. The reach of science is everything observable. You cannot ever observe god or anything that is clearly caused by god, therefore you must believe in him based upon *faith*.
I thought faith was an important part of religion, but apparently some of the people here think reason is more important. That's a bit odd.
quote:
Originally posted by Oncle Boris
It's like Dalton postulating atoms in the 19th century; he might have had some sort of 'logical intuition' leading to it, that turned to be proved by scientific standards. Before something can ever be described with scientific means, it has to be known qualitatively through the natural language, and that's exactly what - some of the - speculation about God is about. |
He was postulating them, he said they might exist and they explain some phenenon (though the important thing is that he was *postulating*). Guessing is not the same as proof, and the eventually proof for atoms required hard numbers, hard data. That is something that will never happen for a belief like "god".
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
And how do you assess this? |
You can ask people questions that require them to learn new material and apply that material within the same test. That's what I.Q. tests do.
quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
So, if you assume belief in God to be illogical, doesn't that mean, you will always prove that the faithful are less intelligent? |
It only means that they hold on to that particular irrational belief. It doesn't inherently mean they are less intelligent, and so it certainly will never be a proof.
quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
You are begging the question Drachosor. You need to show why belief in God is in fact illogical, rather than assuming what you are trying to prove. |
It's illogical because there is no evidence for the existence of god. It's that simple. To believe in go you must accept his existence on *faith*.
Faith is belief without evidence for something (or in spite of the evidence).
quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I was a scientist, and why should this be the case? The best scientists acknowledge the limitations of science. Look at the scientific discoveries made by faithful Christians here in the west. Does the number of discoveries by ardent atheists compare? |
When asked to rank the most important/influencial (in regards to science) members of their respective fields, the higher ranked members of the scientific community had a much higher chance of being non-believers than the average member of the community. That's just how it is, I needn't explain why this is the case. You get a similar result when you consider important papers published and the like.
quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Science has no tools to measure the supernatural, and they admit that in the scientific method, developed by Bacon. |
As I said, the Supernatural is inherently something that can't be measured. It is something that isn't part of nature, that isn't part of the observable universe. It is something that if believed in, is believed in despite the lack of evidence for it. It is believed on faith.
quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
True, but you cannot doubt everything. You accept most of what you know on the authority of others. If you doubt everything you hear, then you will know nothing. |
One can distinguish between things that are believable and can be shown to be true, and those that cannot be shown to be true. (and then one can evaluate the general trustworthiness of the speaker as well).
quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Questioning information, is not the same as rejecting the information. When presented with information, you need to have some ability to assess the information in such a way as to gage what is more probable. Then, it would seem most intelligent to take what you see as most probable, and to retain such information, until more probable information comes forth. |
As I have said, the people that don't question it automatically believe in god because of how our society is configured.
quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Many theists have became believers not because they insisted that God come down and reveal himself before they believed, but rather, that the evidence in favour of God was more probable than the evidence against. |
Then they are confused, because there is no evidence for god; indeed, there cannot be.
Most people I know who believe that have thought about it, know that it is a belief based on faith. It is not based on reason.
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Ockham's Razor was used to narrow between one God or many. |
True, but now it has a much wider meaning.
-Drachasor
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