The dumbing down of America continues...

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Byrns

. I'm sure that there many, many Christians (Jews, Muslims, hindus, etc.) that are smarter, richer, and wiser than many the organised religion "haters".

True, but many studies have shown an inverse relationship between education and IQ, and belief in God.

[Byrns]

Originally Posted by troutman

True, but many studies have shown an inverse relationship between education and IQ, and belief in God.

Proof?

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Byrns

My point is that atheists, agnostics, or non-believers seem to spend a whole lot of energy and time protesting, arguing, and belittling those who don't share the same views on the origins of the universe.

The religious side attacks a lot more than the atheist, agnostic, or non-believer side. I don't recall an atheists protest that wasn't provoked from something on the religious side. The largest backlash typically comes from the scientific community because their work is being impeded or stopped because of peoples religious beliefs. This also goes for peoples freedoms that are being infringed upon because of other peoples religious stances. Most atheists etc, don't have a problem if you keep your beliefs to yourself, but when you start doing the opposite and pushing it on everyone is when the trouble starts.

Also a lot of atheists, agnostics, non-believers also put forth the argument that teaching, instilling, and promoting this kind of thinking advocates anti-intellectualism and credulousness.

Go ahead attack Falwell, but just because someone believes in a higher power doesn't make them stupid or weak minded. I'm sure that there many, many Christians (Jews, Muslims, hindus, etc.) that are smarter, richer, and wiser than many the organised religion "haters".

I don't understand what you're attempting to get at with this. People in this thread aren't attacking Falwell because he solely believed in a higher power, it's because he was a terrible person.

Question #2. Why do atheists, agnostics, or non-believers have such a problem of someone opening a muesum based on the bible?

MarchHare made an good argument for this.

* I personally agree that ideals of the creation "theory" should not be taught at public schools.

I would support the teaching of creation in creative writing class, not in science class. The reason I think that is because it is not a science and has no scientific backing that warrants it to be teached as such. Whether you like it or not the bible is hardly a history record in these matters.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Byrns

Proof?

There is an entire chapter on this in The God Delusion, well-documented and foot-noted. Check it out, or google the research yourself. If I have time, I'll link what I can.

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/view...php?=&p=118667

Mensa (the society for individuals with high IQ) which publishes Mensa magazine, in 2002, had an article published by Paul Bell that concluded that of 43 separate studies carried out since 1927 on the relationship between religious belief and one's IQ and/or educational level, all but four found an inverse connection. That is, the higher one's intelligence or education level the less one is likely to be religious or hold 'supernatural beliefs" of any kind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio...d_intelligence

Why do we care so much? We face a great deal of discrimination for one reason.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Byrns

Proof?

http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Inte...20religion.htm

A sampling:

1. Thomas Howells, 1927
Study of 461 students showed religiously conservative students "are, in general, relatively inferior in intellectual ability."

[...]

8. Brown and Love, 1951
At the University of Denver, tested 613 male and female students. The mean test scores of non-believers was 119 points, and for believers it was 100. The non-believers ranked in the 80th percentile, and believers in the 50th. Their findings "strongly corroborate those of Howells."

[...]

16. Norman Poythress, 1975
Mean SATs for strongly anti-
religious (1148), moderately anti-religious (1119), slightly anti-religious (1108), and religious (1022).

[...]

The consensus here is clear: more intelligent people tend not to believe in religion. And this observation is given added force when you consider that the above studies span a broad range of time, subjects and methodologies, and yet arrive at the same conclusion.

You're free to look up the original articles from the journals in which they were originally published, but as the researchers no doubt followed the scientific method when conducting their studies, I suppose you'd have no reason to believe their results anyway.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Byrns

Proof?

Here is a compilation of such studies/surveys.

http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Inte...20religion.htm

EDIT: MarchHare how do you keep doing that?

[MarchHare]

EDIT: MarchHare how do you keep doing that?

It would seem our Google skills are equally matched, but my typing prowess is superior to yours.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by BlackEleven

It's not the belief in God here that is being attacked, at least by most people. Its the belief that some guy sailed around in a wooded boat for 40 days feeding sheep to dinosaurs, like in the originally posted article. I think we can all agree this is pretty absurd.

It is the fact that a rational human being could believe such a thing actually took place that is being attacked. Such beliefs are not only stupid, they're dangerous. If you can convince a person of this story using religion as the justification, then you can convince that person of almost anything, including thoughts like homosexuals and doctors who perform aboritions deserve to die. It's this kind of thinking that alarms some people, and that's what they fight against.

Its unfortunatly ironic that virtually every religion out there preaches tolerance and love at the core of the religion, yet people do horrible things to each other in the name of their religion because people, like Falwell, are able to twist their beliefs into something else.

And a thousand years ago people might look back at a book and think its absurb that men traveled to the moon in a small three man capsule in a trip that took more then 10 minutes.

Sure there are people that take whats said in the bible to a literal level, but its thier freedom to do that without having to worry about prosecution based on religion. They might believe that god created all life on this planet and it didn't evolve but was put into place as is, and God decided to remove some specis (Dinosaurs) because they had outlived thier usefulness. Whats to say, and playing devils advocate here, that the meteor collisision that killed off the dinosaurs wasn't sent by the maker himself?

People on the whole have the right to believe what they want to believe, and calling them stupid or suicidal or ######ed because they don't fit into your own personal interpretation of the world really reflects a high level of intolerance and ignorance.

In a free society you can believe what you want to believe, and you shouldn't be forced or pressured into adopting someone elses beliefs. Its thinking like that that lead to the acceptance of the inquisition. You don't believe in Jesus, lets fix that by strapping you to a wheel that rotates you over a fire, and you will believe what I want you to believe.

Just because you don't believe in a god, or a ark, dosen't make you more enlightened then your fellow man, or smarter then your fellow man, it just makes you a man. But what denigrates you is when you try to strip someone or pressure someone away from thier personal beliefs system with insults and pressure.

Frankly I'n not a religious person, but I believe in god. I believe that there are stories in the bible that might have seemed true at the time, but grew in stature, or are alagories of real events.

Noah might not have built an ark that held two of each animals. But there might have been a flood, and Noah had the foresight to put together a raft, and he put a couple of cows, and a couple of dogs and a couple of sheep on that sucker with the family and the story grew.

Moses might not have split the red seas, but he could have lead his people across a swamp, and when the pharoah tried to follow him with his army equiped with heavy war chariots and war horses they got stuck or drowned, and the story got exagerated.

He might not have gotten the ten commandments from god himself, but his belief in god might have inspired him to create the 10 commandments.

Does it hurt you personally if someone dosen't believe in evolution, not really, and are you prepared to figuratively burn someone at the stake because they don't believe in it (deny them jobs, or respect or a position of leadership), because that goes against everything that we as a society are supposed to believe in.

Sorry about the rant, but a couple of posts in this string really tipped my goat.

[Flashpoint]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

People on the whole have the right to believe what they want to believe, and calling them stupid or suicidal or ######ed because they don't fit into your own personal interpretation of the world really reflects a high level of intolerance and ignorance.

Unless they are wrong. And I don't mean subjectively, I mean factually incorrect.

A man believes he can fly. And is about to jump off a building. Is calling him stupid, or suicidal, or ######ed a high level of intolerance?

No, it isn't. He is wrong. And if he lands on someone else, he is going to hurt them, as well as himself.

And if he wants his beliefs given equal respect as the so called "law of gravity" in schools, then you are going to see exactly how intolerant I, and every other rational educated adult out there can be.

Religon has less immediate impact than the aforementioned "Mr. Crater", but praying isn't going to help global warming any, now is it?

[MarchHare]

Sure there are people that take whats said in the bible to a literal level, but its thier freedom to do that without having to worry about prosecution based on religion.

Absolutely. As I mentioned several times over, the vast majority of atheists are extremely tolerant of Christians holding whatever religious views they want, so long as they do so privately. Once again, non-believers are only angered when Christians bring their beliefs into the public sphere, such as trying to legislate their own morality or trying to teach Christian views in public schools. You'd be very hard-pressed to find an atheist who wants to actively persecute someone based on religion.

In a free society you can believe what you want to believe, and you shouldn't be forced or pressured into adopting someone elses beliefs.

Hear, hear! Now go spread that message to the evangelical Christians who spend extradinary amounts of time and money lobbying governments to adopt laws that confirm with their religious views and have their beliefs taught in public schools.

Frankly I'n not a religious person, but I believe in god. I believe that there are stories in the bible that might have seemed true at the time, but grew in stature, or are alagories of real events.

Noah might not have built an ark that held two of each animals. But there might have been a flood, and Noah had the foresight to put together a raft, and he put a couple of cows, and a couple of dogs and a couple of sheep on that sucker with the family and the story grew.

Moses might not have split the red seas, but he could have lead his people across a swamp, and when the pharoah tried to follow him with his army equiped with heavy war chariots and war horses they got stuck or drowned, and the story got exagerated.

He might not have gotten the ten commandments from god himself, but his belief in god might have inspired him to create the 10 commandments.

If you accept that certain portions of the Bible may have been exaggerated myths, isn't that opening a huge can of worms? At what point do you accept that everything in the Bible was a myth?

Also, for what it's worth, the Vatican has adopted the position that, given the overwhelming scientific evidence for evolution, it is now the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church to believe that evolution was the process by which God created life on Earth. To me, this seems like a very reasonable stance. The theory of evolution doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't a God, but it doesn't require one either.

Does it hurt you personally if someone dosen't believe in evolution, not really, and are you prepared to figuratively burn someone at the stake because they don't believe in it (deny them jobs, or respect or a position of leadership), because that goes against everything that we as a society are supposed to believe in.

You'll find that it's the opposite that is true more often than not; it's the non-believers who are burned (quite literally throughout history!) at the stake. Atheists have been denied positions of leadership for decades. How many American presidents, for example, have been anything other than a practicing Christian? The majority of US citizens are believers, and thus the voters have a bias against electing an atheist, even if he or she is supremely qualified for the position.

[BlackEleven]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Just because you don't believe in a god, or a ark, dosen't make you more enlightened then your fellow man, or smarter then your fellow man, it just makes you a man. But what denigrates you is when you try to strip someone or pressure someone away from thier personal beliefs system with insults and pressure.

I don't think we're really far off in what we're saying. I don't have a problem with relgion either, until it gets to the point where people use it to justify hate and intolerance. I think at that point, pressure is needed to change their belief system before they go and hurt or kill someone in the name of their religion.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Flashpoint

Unless they are wrong. And I don't mean subjectively, I mean factually incorrect.

A man believes he can fly. And is about to jump off a building. Is calling him stupid, or suicidal, or ######ed a high level of intolerance?

No, it isn't. He is wrong. And if he lands on someone else, he is going to hurt them, as well as himself.

And if he wants his beliefs given equal respect as the so called "law of gravity" in schools, then you are going to see exactly how intolerant I, and every other rational educated adult out there can be.

Religon has less immediate impact than the aforementioned "Mr. Crater", but praying isn't going to help global warming any, now is it?

Terrific, but here's the issue, and I could be wrong and I apologize if I am. And again to clarify I'm possibly debating on the opposite side of this debates from my true feelings, but then again I might not be.

But when we talk about religious beliefs, I'm not seeing people who believe in the bible disputing things that are undebatable facts. No one is trying to debate the laws of gravity, or that fire is hot, or that the combination of sperm and egg makes babies, there's no debate on that. But when people start debating religion, they tend to believe that people in the book are so ignorant that they don't believe in common proofs (fire hot, man can't fly).

Is creationism a silly premise, maybe to me it is, but to me if I believe in god, then possibly I believe that he kick started the whole chain of events due to the possible randomness of the initiation of life on this planet, and that at the moment, there is no direct proof of intelligent life evolving in our own galactic neighborhood.

The lumping of all people who have deep religious beliefs as extremists is the thing on this board and in society in general is what I have problems with, and it goes without saying that people with extreme religious views that don't respect people who don't share that viewpoint falls into the same problem area for me.

[AC]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

You'll find that it's the opposite that is true more often than not; it's the non-believers who are burned (quite literally throughout history!) at the stake. Atheists have been denied positions of leadership for decades. How many American presidents, for example, have been anything other than a practicing Christian? The majority of US citizens are believers, and thus the voters have a bias against electing an atheist, even if he or she is supremely qualified for the position.

A recent study also showed that Atheists are the least trusted minority in the USA.

Based on a telephone survey of more than 2,000 households and in-depth interviews with more than 140 people, researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, homosexuals and other groups as "sharing their vision of American society." Americans are also least willing to let their children marry atheists. "It tells us about how Americans view religion," said Penny Edgell, an associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher. "Many Americans seem to believe some kind of religious faith is central to being a good American and a good person."

http://www.ur.umn.edu/FMPro?-db=rele...&ID=2816&-Find

I always liked the old adage that 'The family that prays together, stays together' because statistically, atheists have a much better divorce rate.

Jews - 30%
Born-again Christians - 27%
Other Christians - 24%
Atheists - 21%

By the way, great posts in this thread so far MarchHare!

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Another interesting point that I'd like to see Bible literallists address...the original texts for the gospels were written in some other language (Greek? It doesn't matter) and have gone through numerous translations and edits over the centuries, for example four gospels were included others excluded (Gospel of Thomas).

My point is that the Bible many evangelicals hold as the literal truth is an edited, revised document. Not to say it doesn't have good stuff in it someplaces, but c'mon people give your heads a shake...

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Absolutely. As I mentioned several times over, the vast majority of atheists are extremely tolerant of Christians holding whatever religious views they want, so long as they do so privately. Once again, non-believers are only angered when Christians bring their beliefs into the public sphere, such as trying to legislate their own morality or trying to teach Christian views in public schools. You'd be very hard-pressed to find an atheist who wants to actively persecute someone based on religion.

Granted, but isn't that going down the slippery slope against the freedom of expression. Don't take your religion out of your house and into public. Don't parade your sexuality.

On the school thing, in Canada you have a choice of schools so you can send your kid to a christian school or a Muslim school. Or are you saying that overall we should legislate the teaching of bible studies out of any school and deny people from making a choice based on thier own beliefs?

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Hear, hear! Now go spread that message to the evangelical Christians who spend extradinary amounts of time and money lobbying governments to adopt laws that confirm with their religious views and have their beliefs taught in public schools.

As I've said in previous posts, I'm on board with that, but again now your talking about that whole slippery slope debate again. Can you really outright deny or ban a person his religious views no matter how extreme. Do we as individuals in a free state have the right to condemn someone for believe too hard. Now of course we need to seperate out extremist from violent extremism, but thats the only place where society as a group has a right to interject its majority beliefs.

Originally Posted by MarchHare

If you accept that certain portions of the Bible may have been exaggerated myths, isn't that opening a huge can of worms? At what point do you accept that everything in the Bible was a myth?

See you might have me there, in this kind of debate, however it comes down to viewpoints and when you have a right to slam somebodies view points, one mans belief in myths is another mans beliefs in absolute truths. Personally I believe that there is a hint of truth in every story in the bible as long as you believe in mans ability to exagerate to get his point across. Remember that the bible could be interepreted as flawed only because its a document about God written by his most flawed creation in man.


Also, for what it's worth, the Vatican has adopted the position that, given the overwhelming scientific evidence for evolution, it is now the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church to believe that evolution was the process by which God created life on Earth. To me, this seems like a very reasonable stance. The theory of evolution doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't a God, but it doesn't require one either.

Originally Posted by MarchHare

You'll find that it's the opposite that is true more often than not; it's the non-believers who are burned (quite literally throughout history!) at the stake. Atheists have been denied positions of leadership for decades. How many American presidents, for example, have been anything other than a practicing Christian? The majority of US citizens are believers, and thus the voters have a bias against electing an atheist, even if he or she is supremely qualified for the position.

Its not a matter of denial, its a matter of democracy isn't it. If the majority of voters don't feel that a person is suitable or jives with societies beliefs then he's not going to win an election. Or are we going to have to start appointing leaders based upon an even representation of thier belief systems, and if so isn't that subverting democracy itself.

Interesting points tho.

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by Byrns

My point is that atheists, agnostics, or non-believers seem to spend a whole lot of energy and time protesting, arguing, and belittling those who don't share the same views on the origins of the universe. Go ahead attack Falwell, but just because someone believes in a higher power doesn't make them stupid or weak minded. I'm sure that there many, many Christians (Jews, Muslims, hindus, etc.) that are smarter, richer, and wiser than many the organised religion "haters".

Question #2. Why do atheists, agnostics, or non-believers have such a problem of someone opening a muesum based on the bible?

* I personally agree that ideals of the creation "theory" should not be taught at public schools.

Why is it that the religious nutbars continually try to convert those of us who want nothing to do with their religion? That includes converting the other the nutbars who believe in other religions too! Why waste the energy trying to convert someone who does not want to be converted?

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

Another interesting point that I'd like to see Bible literallists address...the original texts for the gospels were written in some other language (Greek? It doesn't matter) and have gone through numerous translations and edits over the centuries, for example four gospels were included others excluded (Gospel of Thomas).

My point is that the Bible many evangelicals hold as the literal truth is an edited, revised document. Not to say it doesn't have good stuff in it someplaces, but c'mon people give your heads a shake...

There have been a couple pretty famous, so to speak, mistranslations as well. Some that I have heard (correct me if I'm wrong, not a bible expert) that the parting of the Red sea, actually said parting of the Reed sea, which was a considerable smaller body of water (lake to river type of thing).
Another was one I read from the God Delusion, which was the mistranslation of the 72 virgins. It was actually berries or something minimal like that. I can't confirm if that is true or not, but I think less people would be blowing themselves up if the reward was a basket of berries.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

Another interesting point that I'd like to see Bible literallists address...the original texts for the gospels were written in some other language (Greek? It doesn't matter) and have gone through numerous translations and edits over the centuries, for example four gospels were included others excluded (Gospel of Thomas).

My point is that the Bible many evangelicals hold as the literal truth is an edited, revised document. Not to say it doesn't have good stuff in it someplaces, but c'mon people give your heads a shake...

Granted, and the bible was also written by many different people over a large number of generations, and again its a document written on the premise of divine intervention. In other words, god didn't sit there and dictate to these people, but inspired them to write about thier interpretation of events that occured around them in thier own human words.

It was also overseen and kept by flawed human beings who had political agenda's at the time of thier passages.

Even if an evanglist holds a bible as a literal proof, where the argument breaks down is that those literal pages are interpreted by a man or woman with thier own view of what its trying to say. Thats why a KKK member in Kentucky believes that he can prove that the white race is the best race based on passages in the stories of Cain and Abel (sp?), or that someone else can prove with passages from the bible that god loved all of his children equally and that man no matter what color or race should be held above all.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Burninator

There have been a couple pretty famous, so to speak, mistranslations as well. Some that I have heard (correct me if I'm wrong, not a bible expert) that the parting of the Red sea, actually said parting of the Reed sea, which was a considerable smaller body of water (lake to river type of thing).
Another was one I read from the God Delusion, which was the mistranslation of the 72 virgins. It was actually berries or something minimal like that. I can't confirm if that is true or not, but I think less people would be blowing themselves up if the reward was a basket of berries.

The Reed Sea is considered to be a translation bungle, I believe I pointed it out just a couple posts ago. There are many illlustrations of language issues, you have to remember also that some passages in the bible were written in what are considered to be dead languages (I think one of them was called attic greek)

It would be like translating na###o without a Na###o there to help you out.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Lanny_MacDonald

Why is it that the religious nutbars continually try to convert those of us who want nothing to do with their religion? That includes converting the other the nutbars who believe in other religions too! Why waste the energy trying to convert someone who does not want to be converted?

Why is it that atheists try to force thier views on people with religion, who want nothing to do with that debate. That includes trying to convert agnostics over to become complete atheists.

Why waste the time and energy trying to convince or convert someone who dosen't want to be convinced or converted?