Stormseeker wrote:Well i will bite and take the opposite side of the argument. With your theory there should be more atheist inventors than religous per capita. So just how many big atheist inventors are there? Since they are more clever how many make it into high political offices or corporations?(*grins* since i am atheist and clever i win either way this argument goes)
According to an article in Scientific American, a popular-science magazine, 90% of the general population surveyed professed a distinct belief in a personal god and afterlife, while only 40% of the scientists with a Bachelor of Science degree surveyed did so, and only 10% of those considered "eminent."[6] An ongoing Templeton Foundation study that began in 2005 on Religion among Academic Scientists, whose principal researcher is Elaine Howard Ecklund, a sociologist and postdoctoral fellow at Rice University, has examined scientists' religious beliefs (counting social scientists as scientists). The study so far has concluded that 38% of the natural scientists, 24% of the doctors, and 31% of the social scientists surveyed said they do not believe in God. The study sample comprises 1,646 faculty at elite research universities.[7]
A 1998 survey[8] by Larson and Witham of the 517 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences showed that 72.2% of the members expressed "personal disbelief" in a personal God while 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism" and only 7.0% expressed "personal belief". This was a follow-up to their own earlier 1996 study[9] which itself was a follow-up to a 1916 study by James Leuba[10]. These studies have been criticized by a number of different groups, not necessarily religious[citation needed]. This is because the study was by mail and received a return rate of 50%.
I think a lot of the inventors from a century or more ago were typically quite relgious. I believe this is most likely because of our social natures that even questioning the existance of God was just not the done thing. If people never question the existance of God while they're still developing, it is much less likely for them to do so later in life... That and I suspect it's nice to have an afterlife and a benevolent overlord watching over you.
Current PCs:
NWN1: Soppi Widenbottle, High Priestess of Yondalla.
NWN2: Gruuhilda, Tree Hugging Half-Orc
I don't think scientists question the definition God so much as they question the man-written book called "the bible" and the man-implemented social structure called "the church". I think most scienteists believe in more personal aspect of God, or God as an arbitrary creator, ie, the force that started the whole thing billions of years ago. *shrugs* All to macro for one person to grasp anyhow.
I think most educated people realize that the church and the bible is merely tools for mindcontrol.
It wasn't all that long ago you could be put to death for claiming you were an athiest. I suspect many great minds of the past were indeed athiests, but couldn't claim it publically, and had to in fact make the opposite claims. Genius and a lack of belief in god tend to run together. Still, they are very small minorities.
Gallup 2006: 14% do not hold a belief in God; 3% of these people are certain that God does not exist.
Only those who are certain that no gods or supernatural beings exist are true athiests (notice the Gallup folk couldn't even phrase the question correctly they are so Judeo-Christian), so assuming they actually meant what they said, 3% of 14%, or 0.42% of the population is truly athiest, at least as far as god is concerned.
Of course, to be fully athiest, one must have no magical thinking at all. So, no belief in luck, fate, karma, synchronicity, ghosts, afterlife, etc. It's a very small number of people who qualify as having minds that are totally free of magical thinking and superstitious belief. We're like an emergent species.
Joos wrote:I don't think scientists question the definition God so much as they question the man-written book called "the bible"
... But the only indication of the existance of God is the bible, innit? So if you don't believe in the bible... what do you believe? It wouldn't be Christianity... Spiritualism, maybe? I would think most scientists are more likely materialists rather than spiritualists.
Current PCs:
NWN1: Soppi Widenbottle, High Priestess of Yondalla.
NWN2: Gruuhilda, Tree Hugging Half-Orc
Joos wrote:I don't think scientists question the definition God so much as they question the man-written book called "the bible"
... But the only indication of the existance of God is the bible, innit? So if you don't believe in the bible... what do you believe? It wouldn't be Christianity... Spiritualism, maybe? I would think most scientists are more likely materialists rather than spiritualists.
Call it God, Allha, Creator, Ultimate Being, Ao, whatever. A god can't have proof of existance, or there would be no faith; religion would simply be an absolute, hence an unbeliever would be a moron at best. That's I can't respect anyone who is trying to tell me what to believe. He is merely pushing his beliefs onto me.
That is also one of the reasons why I don't believe in Sin; (one of) the most important aspects of Christianity as a tool for mindcontrol.
As for indication of god's existance, I cannot help you. If you believe in the existance of a soul, then there have to be something more to this reality than what you can touch with you mere hands.
I think the basic fundamental truth is that people everywhere share about the same stunning amount of stupidity, relatively.
Apart from that, being "religious" per se doesn't makes you neither more stupid nor any smarter than if you aren't - claiming something different would be in the ballpark of ignorant, zealous fanatics. Whom for the record I believe to be quite stupid, no matter whether they are religious or not.
My point is that religious people are just a cross section of the population, so the relative figures for dumb, normal and smart are going to hold true for the population as they are for the subset... pretty much well what Alara just said.
Joos.... The church was invented by God.... just sometimes people gets it's 'implementation' way off...thats not Gods fault. Christians believe the Bible was written by men as they were inspried by God, kind like being used as a pen. Thats an oversimplification by a long shot of the bible as it exists today... but the truth is out there...
NickD...... I believe in God and an afterlife.. and I have a Bachelor in Science and soon will hold a Masters in Science.. for what its worth... the two aren't mutually exclusive. I say that people come to find God because they DO question things, and the worldy view does not cut it for them. Elaine Howard Ecklund (your cited researcher) really has just shown what everyone who does their best to live by the bible already knows.... that people who are willing to make that kind of sacrifice and decision are few and far betwen.
ElCadaver wrote:My point is that religious people are just a cross section of the population, so the relative figures for dumb, normal and smart are going to hold true for the population as they are for the subset... pretty much well what Alara just said.
What the studies show is that religious people are a non-representative sampling, and therefore they aren't just a cross section of the population. Of course, atheists are also a non-representative sampling.
Religiosity coorelates with low IQ and less education, atheism with high IQ and greater education. This fact has been demonstrated empirically many times. There will always be exceptions, but those are the trends, and they are very strong, Alara's ignorant claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
Religiosity coorelates with low IQ and less education, atheism with high IQ and greater education. This fact has been demonstrated empirically many times. There will always be exceptions, but those are the trends, and they are very strong, Alara's ignorant claims to the contrary notwithstanding
Actually as you mentioned before for most of history belief(or public expression thereof at least) wasn't really a choice, so it is not all too suprising that the privilieged classes (ie educated in most cases) would be the section of society most probable to express such beliefs as they are the section of society most innoculated against negative reactions.
Also most of the studies have been heavily Western biased, I'd be interested if the same trends held up in the former Eastern Bloc nations where Atheism was the official system of belief. It would be especially interesting to see the numbers while the former Communist govenments where actually in power, though i have no idea if such data is even available.
Edit: China would be an interesting place to look as offically something like 60% of the nation identifies as non-religious (though of course impossible to know if this means atheist or is merely a symptom of repression). Chances are under the differing social pressures and expectations the correlation would break down somewhat but who knows, there aren't many places where these alternate social pressures exist..
Lurker at the Threshold
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Well i guess i aint a true atheist. The jury is still out for me on a lot of things...there is just not enough information to make a clear choice for me.
ElCadaver wrote:NickD...... I believe in God and an afterlife.. and I have a Bachelor in Science and soon will hold a Masters in Science.. for what its worth... the two aren't mutually exclusive. I say that people come to find God because they DO question things, and the worldy view does not cut it for them. Elaine Howard Ecklund (your cited researcher) really has just shown what everyone who does their best to live by the bible already knows.... that people who are willing to make that kind of sacrifice and decision are few and far betwen.
My father has that stuff, is the head of the science department at his school and has written a number of science textbooks and I think he's a Christian too (believe it or not, the topic never really came up, but he does have bibles in his bookcase). My brother is also very intelligent and is Catholic. I am not saying that intelligent people cannot be religious. I know a number of intelligent Christian people, and the last two sentences of my quoted text questions the validity of the rest of it...
But I would still say the majority of Christians are Christian because they were told that God exists as a child and they would never even consider questioning his existance.
Current PCs:
NWN1: Soppi Widenbottle, High Priestess of Yondalla.
NWN2: Gruuhilda, Tree Hugging Half-Orc
And where do you think the Protestant religion came from? Good ol' Henry VIII essentially created the religion because the Pope wouldn't grant him a divorce. And millions of people since have been having guilt-free sex as a result.
God bless 'em.
Seriously though, the only diffence between a religion and a cult is time. Heck, Christianity was once considered a cult afterall.
Kate
"We had gone in search of the American dream. It had been a lame f*ckaround. A waste of time. There was no point in looking back. F*ck no, not today thank you kindly. My heart was filled with joy. I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger. A man on the move... and just sick enough to be totally confident." -- Raoul Duke.
And where do you think the Protestant religion came from? Good ol' Henry VIII essentially created the religion because the Pope wouldn't grant him a divorce. And millions of people since have been having guilt-free sex as a result.
Eh? What about Martin Luther? Henry just expanded on his ideas!
Joos.... The church was invented by God.... just sometimes people gets it's 'implementation' way off...thats not Gods fault. Christians believe the Bible was written by men as they were inspried by God, kind like being used as a pen. Thats an oversimplification by a long shot of the bible as it exists today... but the truth is out there...
Yes, the truth. The most likely truth is that the bible as we have it today, was put together from religous writings (copy paste as we know it today) by a non-christian Roman emperor who needed a tool to keep his empire from falling to pieces. That the roman emperor also was a high priest of Jupiter (Zeus) both before and after doesn't give the Catholic church much credence either.
Joos wrote:Yes, the truth. The most likely truth is that the bible as we have it today, was put together from religous writings (copy paste as we know it today) by a non-christian Roman emperor who needed a tool to keep his empire from falling to pieces. That the roman emperor also was a high priest of Jupiter (Zeus) both before and after doesn't give the Catholic church much credence either.
Er... what emperor are you talking about, here? I've been studying Roman history for a while and this doesn't sound familiar at all. The bible WAS completely assembled by various committees through its history, and the particular stories were largely lifted from other sources (compare Jesus and the Roman Dionysus story, for example, or any of the other mystery religions like the cult of Isis), that much is true.
