Are religious believers just miseducated?

Eglinton

Well I'm sure I'll bring wrath upon myself from religious types. But I honestly do think that if you believe in God etc etc, then you are not educated enough, intelligent enough or just afraid of the inevitability of death. I know this is simplistic and of course there are exceptions (mental problems, strict upbringing, way of life, poverty etc) but there you have it. Anyone agree?

Rev Hellfire

No.
To put it simply there are numerous examples of highly educated religious people in a large spectrum of disiplines, science included.
Maybe you could expand on your point a bit.

Zillah

I'd phrase it as not being successfully educated.

DublinWriter

I wouldn't say there's much of a corrolation between faith and intelligence, although it is temping to draw one.

A friend's father is has a PhD and lectures and is a devout Catholic.

But then again, there's always the exception!

Zillah

DublinWriter wrote:

I wouldn't say there's much of a corrolation between faith and intelligence, although it is temping to draw one.

"Intelligence" isn't a thing really. Its just a title given to a range of dozens of aspects of a person's brain. The part thats pertinent here is the capacity to exercise logic and the part that allows one to think for one's self. Those with faith are lacking in these.

Logic + modern knowledge + independent thought = no faith.

Dades

I suggest (but that's all) we leave intelligence out of it and concern ourselves with education and culture. Suffice to say many intelligent people are religious, and many are not.

IMO education is a big factor, but not necessarily because it 'enlightens' an individual but because it can eliminate the need for religion. Religion is a comfort, but if you have a good education, a good standard of living - do you need it?

Northern Europe has the best standards of education (correct me if I'm wrong), and the highest levels of non-believers. It also has the highest standards of living and are considered some of the best places to live (e.g. Denmark, Sweden). Where life is a little more gritty - religion is free hope of a better future.

Zillah wrote:

I'd phrase it as not being successfully educated.

You mean indoctinated with your own heathenism?

Sleepy

I don't know that it's a matter of education at all. Sure, if someone is completely uneducated and incapable of independent thought, they'll accept religious stories without question. However, far too many educated and intelligent people believe in God for it to be a simple matter of intelligence.

Theistic beliefs don't stem from logical thought patterns. The decision to believe in God/Allah/The Flying Spaghetti Monster is one rooted in a person's emotions. Whether that be fear (of the unknown, of death, of losing others), pride (in refusing to accept that there are certain things we don't know and attributing those to a deity just to have an answer), confusion or whatever, it is the emotion that drives an otherwise intelligent person to ignore logic and reason and choose to believe in that deity.

Faith is chosen. For many different and illogical reasons, it's a choice to delude oneself that one has "found the path".

pH

Summary of studies and the literature:

http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Intelligence%20&%20religion.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence

Sapien

I'm a fan of the Jonathan Miller/ Richard Dawkins, memetic theory of Religion as a Cognitive Disease. It describes its methods of propagation nicely, and accounts for the fact that so many people believe such bizarre things - many of them perfectly smart, ceteris paribus.

Beruthiel

It's something I've never understood.
I can understand people living their lives through Buddhism, it's a way of thinking, a frame of mind, something you make your boundries by.
Following some bloke who lived hundreds of years ago and thinking he's a god is beyond me though.

Eglinton

Zillah wrote:

Logic + modern knowledge + independent thought = no faith.

That about sums it up alright.

Owen

It's called Brainwashing. When a kid is told from the day they're born that there's a God, Heaven and Hell, and have that message reinforced over their life, then 85% of them will simply believe it. Thank FSM I'm one of the 15%!

Dades

Zillah wrote:

Logic + modern knowledge + independent thought = no faith.

Are you suggesting that all people who believe in a god, lack at least one of these?

Eglinton

The Atheist wrote:

Are you suggesting that all people who believe in a god, lack at least one of these?

I would imagine that 'lack of independent thought' would be the main culprit

robindch

> I'll bring wrath upon myself from religious types.

Aha, but chatter from the heathen! You may enjoy the JPSP paper "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments":

http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf (PDF original)
http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/unskilled.html (HTML copy)

...which shows that people at the lower end of the competency scale tend to inflate the assessment they make of their own abilities, and explains why this might be so.

A good read.

Scofflaw

Eglinton wrote:

I would imagine that 'lack of independent thought' would be the main culprit

Need for existential comfort? It's something that atheism doesn't offer in any simple way...

cordially,
Scofflaw

Schuhart

There's also a cultural element. Professing a faith gives a certain pomp and circumstance to life - First Communion is not just a religious thing, but a sort of marker of a child reaching a certain milestone.

dr.bollocko

Here here.
The general feeling that there isnt really a god at all, and that all the stories we are told are in fact just stories is a strange one to have.

Once you start to question religion on a very basic level, gaping hilarious holes in doctrine appear that have never been sealed. Im also atheist for reasons of elimination, and after deep thought on the matter, theism in any form just seems too ridiculous a theory to consider.
I think it would be best if we moved beyond the image of God as some bearded guy in heaven, and start trying to gain a deeper understanding of what the real controlling forces in the universe are. Because its not God, its not Jesus, and its not Che Guevara. I mean the Holy spirit.

DublinWriter

Schuhart wrote:

There's also a cultural element. Professing a faith gives a certain pomp and circumstance to life - First Communion is not just a religious thing, but a sort of marker of a child reaching a certain milestone.

Relgion is becomes more and more a marker for culture the deeper you examine it. Such ceremonies are cultural 'rites of passage' and even the most isolated of tribes in Africa and South America practised them for millenia, so maybe it's an formalised expression of something deep down in our human psyche?

DublinWriter

dr.bollocko wrote:

I think it would be best if we moved beyond the image of God as some bearded guy in heaven, and start trying to gain a deeper understanding of what the real controlling forces in the universe are. Because its not God, its not Jesus, and its not Che Guevara. I mean the Holy spirit.

Which was partly the reason I become Buddhist in the first place, as there's no belief in a God or uber deity of any kind, plus it draws on a Hinduist backgroud to explain some of the funamental laws of universe including Karma and Maya (illusion).

Zillah

The Atheist wrote:

Are you suggesting that all people who believe in a god, lack at least one of these?

Yes, quite frankly. Any professionals or educated types that have faith are most likely just suffering from childhood programming. They never developed the capacity to overcome that brainwashing. I don't like the term "brainwashing", it sounds so sensationalist, but it conveys the notion I'm getting at.

And also, quite frankly, theres a lot of people who are just ignorant or lack the capacity to follow simple logic. They have no idea about evolution or astronomy and essentially have a world view no more advanced than they may have had 200 years ago. How planes fly is irrelevant, they just do, its been a part of their life for so long it just "is".

(As an hilarious aside, one day I jokingly told my mother that sound went faster in space because there is no air to get in the way. She believed me. I immediately said "Nah, I'm only joking, theres no air in space at all and so there can't be any sound." She didn't believe me. The notion of a vacuum or sound being dependent on air was alien to her. I think that demonstrates the sort of inherently narrow grasp of the world as a whole some people have.)

Scofflaw

Zillah wrote:

(As an hilarious aside, one day I jokingly told my mother that sound went faster in space because there is no air to get in the way. She believed me. I immediately said "Nah, I'm only joking, theres no air in space at all and so there can't be any sound." She didn't believe me. The notion of a vacuum or sound being dependent on air was alien to her. I think that demonstrates the sort of inherently narrow grasp of the world as a whole some people have.)

It's not so long since I last heard someone say that rockets couldn't have flown to the Moon, because in space there's no air for the exhaust to push against.

Interestingly, we make appalling assumptions the other way round as well - I had quite a long (and frankly bizarre) conversation with someone who couldn't work out how stone axes from Tievebulliagh (Antrim) got to France. The idea that Stone Age man could actually travel more than a couple of miles, or cross a body of water, just wouldn't fit into his head.

For an awful lot of people, the idea that a process can produce sensible results without being directed by an intelligence just won't go in.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

It's not so long since I last heard someone say that rockets couldn't have flown to the Moon, because in space there's no air for the exhaust to push against.

lol

Its one of those mistakes you can really see people making, its seems to make sense at first, it sounds so plausible.

Asiaprod

DublinWriter wrote:

Which was partly the reason I become Buddhist in the first place......

Ditto for me, though I am not all that into the Hindu side of it. For me Buddhism enables me to lay down my own rules and boundaries. Ones that made sense to me at least.

aidan24326

DublinWriter wrote:

Which was partly the reason I become Buddhist in the first place, as there's no belief in a God or uber deity of any kind, plus it draws on a Hinduist backgroud to explain some of the funamental laws of universe including Karma and Maya (illusion).

Asiaprod wrote:

Ditto for me, though I am not all that into the Hindu side of it. For me Buddhism enables me to lay down my own rules and boundaries. Ones that made sense to me at least.

But why the need to wrap it all up in a package at all? Can't people just have their own beliefs, morality etc. without having to categorise? Why do you have to 'be' anything?

hairyheretic

It seems the majority of comments here are directed towards the larger organised religions. Do you see any difference between those and individual spirituality?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Beruthiel wrote:

It's something I've never understood.
I can understand people living their lives through Buddhism, it's a way of thinking, a frame of mind, something you make your boundries by.
Following some bloke who lived hundreds of years ago and thinking he's a god is beyond me though.

Oxymoron. Didn't Buddha live hundreds of years ago? Not a god, I grant you, but same idea. Anyway, Jesus and Buddha preached pretty much the same thing.

Personally, I find athiests more rigid and ignornat that those who believe blindly. Can an athiest prove, scientically and factually that there is no God? If not, isn't their lack of belief just as much a fiath as those who believe?

But I honestly do think that if you believe in God etc etc, then you are not educated enough, intelligent enough or just afraid of the inevitability of death.

Also think it's ignorant to believe faith is purely a result of education. Plenty of people have had life-changing episodes that they put down to some form of a higher intelligence or 'God'. Have youever had one? Again, can you prove them to be factually incorrect?

stevejazzx

zillah wrote:

Logic + modern knowledge + independent thought = no faith.

Eglinton wrote:

That about sums it up alright.

I would say more

sleepy wrote:

don't know that it's a matter of education at all. Sure, if someone is completely uneducated and incapable of independent thought, they'll accept religious stories without question. However, far too many educated and intelligent people believe in God for it to be a simple matter of intelligence.

Theistic beliefs don't stem from logical thought patterns. The decision to believe in God/Allah/The Flying Spaghetti Monster is one rooted in a person's emotions. Whether that be fear (of the unknown, of death, of losing others), pride (in refusing to accept that there are certain things we don't know and attributing those to a deity just to have an answer), confusion or whatever, it is the emotion that drives an otherwise intelligent person to ignore logic and reason and choose to believe in that deity.

Faith is chosen. For many different and illogical reasons, it's a choice to delude oneself that one has "found the path".

Going out on a limb and generalising a bit here but I would imagine that your highly educated person confuses spirituality and religon. Spirituality defined here as the peaceful way they intend to live their life.
So if you add spirituality to emotional need you get a religous belief out even a highly educated person. The capacity for logically progressive thought is there but they may chose to examine it differently. Intelligent people on accepting 'faith' are releasing their capacity for challenging their own religous beliefs head on. So already they are disadvantaged because no matter what results their intenal religous studies yield the religous society to which they belong answers thus

'God works in mysterious ways'
'You are but mortal and finite, God is immortal and infinite'
'You cannot unbderstand the plan he has for us'

So you once you believe in God himself, even as a highly educated, logical person, you instantly dismiss the results of your own thoughts. You surrender your inteligence to God. This is an emotional act and going out on another limb, is usually down to fear, a heavily conditioned childhood, a want for real sense in life, a lack of close loving relationships or even just feelings of isolation.

DublinWriter

stevejazzx wrote:

You surrender your inteligence to God.

Is that why creationists always tend to look so unevolved?

stevejazzx

DublinWriter wrote:

Is that why creationists always tend to look so unevolved?

Yes, that is correct:)

stevejazzx

Zillah wrote:

(As an hilarious aside, one day I jokingly told my mother that sound went faster in space because there is no air to get in the way. She believed me. I immediately said "Nah, I'm only joking, theres no air in space at all and so there can't be any sound." She didn't believe me. The notion of a vacuum or sound being dependent on air was alien to her. I think that demonstrates the sort of inherently narrow grasp of the world as a whole some people have.)

There is sound in space just far too sensitive for us to hear it.

Dades

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

Personally, I find athiests more rigid and ignornat that those who believe blindly. Can an athiest prove, scientically and factually that there is no God? If not, isn't their lack of belief just as much a fiath as those who believe?

The difference you're missing is that atheists don't disbelieve blindly. Consider this re proving there is no god: A claim must be falsifiable to be logically consistent*. In other words you can't claim something invisible exists, and then use the fact you cannot prove it is not there as evidence of said existance.

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

Also think it's ignorant to believe faith is purely a result of education. Plenty of people have had life-changing episodes that they put down to some form of a higher intelligence or 'God'. Have youever had one? Again, can you prove them to be factually incorrect?

But when they have a life-changing episode, do they come up with their own god to explain it, or a god they've been told about of their life? And why do life-changing episodes usually come at a time of emotional need?

* I knew that would come in handy

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

The Atheist wrote:

The difference you're missing is that atheists don't disbelieve blindly. Consider this re proving there is no god: A claim must be falsifiable to be logically consistent*. In other words you can't claim something invisible exists, and then use the fact you cannot prove it is not there as evidence of said existance.

But when they have a life-changing episode, do they come up with their own god to explain it, or a god they've been told about of their life? And why do life-changing episodes usually come at a time of emotional need?

* I knew that would come in handy

You cannot prove it one way or the other, so an opinion is based on faith.

Whether life-changing episodes (which don't nessecarilytake place at times of emotional meeds - bit of an assumption there) are credited to own Gods are Gods they've been told about is irrelevant. If I were to experience one and then put it down to a God I believe in based on my own research, am I ignorant?

Asiaprod

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

Oxymoron. Didn't Buddha live hundreds of years ago? Not a god, I grant you, but same idea. Anyway, Jesus and Buddha preached pretty much the same thing.

Allow me:

"but same idea," not even close to one, the Buddha was most insistent that people did not relate him to a God.

"Jesus and Buddha preached pretty much the same thing," there have been many posts in Christianity re this. I am one of those who believe that Jesus spent time in Kashmir and learned Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism first hand and then went and spread what he learned back home. They did not preach the same thing, Jesus taught what the Buddha taught and the church warped these teachings to meet its own ends IMO.

Asiaprod

aidan24326 wrote:

But why the need to wrap it all up in a package at all? Can't people just have their own beliefs, morality etc. without having to categorise? Why do you have to 'be' anything?

Maybe I see it a little differently. When I call myself a Buddhist people understand where I am coming from, what kind of person they are dealing with, and how they can expect me to react. The rest is I guess personal, I am proud of being a Buddhist and what Buddhism stands for. I don't see it as a wrapper, yes it is a label, but don't we need labels?

pH

Asiaprod wrote:

"but same idea," not even close to one, the Buddha was most insistent that people did not relate him to a God.

"Only please, Brer Fox, please don't throw me into the briar patch."

or possibly

Brian: I am NOT the Messiah!
Arthur: I say you are Lord, and I should know. I've followed a few.

or Possibly

Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!

stevejazzx

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

You cannot prove it one way or the other, so an opinion is based on faith.

but you can prove it less plausible each passing year.....

Beruthiel

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

Oxymoron. Didn't Buddha live hundreds of years ago? Not a god, I grant you, but same idea. Anyway, Jesus and Buddha preached pretty much the same thing.

Isn't that my point? Buddha is not a god. Jesus is supposed to be one.

Plenty of people have had life-changing episodes that they put down to some form of a higher intelligence or 'God'. Have youever had one? Again, can you prove them to be factually incorrect?

I await for them to be proven factually and logically correct.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Beruthiel wrote:

Isn't that my point? Buddha is not a god. Jesus is supposed to be one.

Plenty of people have had life-changing episodes that they put down to some form of a higher intelligence or 'God'. Have youever had one? Again, can you prove them to be factually incorrect?

I await for them to be proven factually and logically correct.

Can logic exlpain everything?

Sorry, but I'm on the fence here. Each side saying the other is ignorant to the workings of the world, be they scientific or religious.

stevejazzx

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

Can logic exlpain everything?

Yes, if there is enough obtainable information.

ikky wrote:

Sorry, but I'm on the fence here. Each side saying the other is ignorant to the workings of the world, be they scientific or religious.

Yes but the problem with religon calling science ignorant is that science is doing its formost to explain the universe while reliogon is simply saying there's nothing to explain, it was magic, aka God.

Dades

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

You cannot prove it one way or the other, so an opinion is based on faith.

Okay, now you're just ignoring what I've written and repeating yourself.

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

Whether life-changing episodes (which don't nessecarilytake place at times of emotional meeds - bit of an assumption there) are credited to own Gods are Gods they've been told about is irrelevant. If I were to experience one and then put it down to a God I believe in based on my own research, am I ignorant?

I'd like to point out that you described atheists as "more ignorant". I never called you, an atheist or a believer ignorant - so no - I wouldn't call you that.

But I would like to know what type of "research" somebody would do to come up with a belief in God.

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

Can logic exlpain everything?

No, but that's no reason to abandon it and go making stuff up.

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

Sorry, but I'm on the fence here. Each side saying the other is ignorant to the workings of the world, be they scientific or religious.

It's fine to be on the fence. It's crowded there I'd say.

robindch

> Each side saying the other is ignorant to the workings of the world, be
> they scientific or religious.

Yes, but one side does actually bother to take a quick look at the world before saying something about it. Whereas the religious side simple looks up a bronze-age book and quotes that as reality.

Which one, do you think, is more likely to reflect what's out there?

Beruthiel

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

Can logic exlpain everything?

Yes.
And if we cannot explain it today, there will be a time in the future when we have gone further in science when it can be explained.
Just because something cannot be properly explained now doesn't mean we go make something up or find something that might 'fit neatly' into the context.

Each side saying the other is ignorant to the workings of the world, be they scientific or religious.

The rather large difference being that science can actually back up their facts with logical proof.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Firstly, my pologies if I said or impleid thatathiests were ignorant, not my intnetion. I thinkwhat I said was that I "think it's ignorant to believe faith is purely a result of education". People come to theier beliefs by a wide variety of means.

Secondly, the opinon seems to be that if something cannot be proven to logically exist then it is wrong/incorrect. What about the idea of life on other planets? Does that not exist because it cannot be logcially proven?

Dades

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

Firstly, my pologies if I said or impleid thatathiests were ignorant, not my intnetion. I thinkwhat I said was that I "think it's ignorant to believe faith is purely a result of education". People come to theier beliefs by a wide variety of means.

Don't sweat it. I think the point of the thread was to consider how much of a factor education, or lack thereof is in belief. It was acknowledged from the outset that there are plenty of smart, educated theists. But it's dangerous ground and I can see how even discussing it looks somewhat 'smug' from other perspectives.

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

Secondly, the opinon seems to be that if something cannot be proven to logically exist then it is wrong/incorrect. What about the idea of life on other planets? Does that not exist because it cannot be logcially proven?

I think it's more the idea that if "something" has no evidence whatsoever to it's existence, then the question of proving it doesn't exist is irrelevant.

The idea of life on other planets at least has circumstantial evidence. If life could arise on our planet within a time frame, and the universe is so big and so old its a statistical possibility that life could have arisen somewhere, at sometime. See Drake's Equation.

stevejazzx

The Atheist wrote:

The idea of life on other planets at least has circumstantial evidence. If life could arise on our planet within a time frame, and the universe is so big and so old its a statistical possibility that life could have arisen somewhere, at sometime. See Drake's Equation.

Now if I was to sya 'drakes equation! forget about that, a mate of mine saw a ufo', that s like believing in god! Get it?

Sleepy

Scofflaw wrote:

Need for existential comfort? It's something that atheism doesn't offer in any simple way...

cordially,
Scofflaw

A need for existential comfort? Oh, right, you mean cowardice.

Scofflaw

Sleepy wrote:

Scofflaw wrote:

Need for existential comfort? It's something that atheism doesn't offer in any simple way...

A need for existential comfort? Oh, right, you mean cowardice.

Well, existential cowardice perhaps. It's the main reason why the "world wishes to be deceived", as your motto has it (Cabell?).

It's one reason, perhaps, why young men (teens/20's) often take up atheism - they don't know enough yet to be existentially afraid. It's often temporary though.

cordially,
Scofflaw

dr.bollocko

So either be scared by the real answers or comforted by the wives tales?
Just now Id rather be scared.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

dr.bollocko wrote:

So either be scared by the real answers or comforted by the wives tales?
Just now Id rather be scared.

Don't you mean comforted by real answers or scared by the old wives tales...?

Still feels a bit arrogant of humanity to assume that it is the top dog when it comes to inteelgience. And Science to claim it can (or at some stage will be able to) explain everything because intellect is the only form on intelligence worthwhile.

Zillah

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

What about the idea of life on other planets? Does that not exist because it cannot be logcially proven?

Science says life on other planets is very likely. It can be proven, just not yet (more strictly speaking it could be proven). No scientist say "There is life on other planets!" in the way the religious might say "There is a God!"

And Science to claim it can (or at some stage will be able to) explain everything because intellect is the only form on intelligence worthwhile.

Thats one of the most patently ridiculous things I ever heard. And I've been on the internet.

Science can explain everything as thoroughly as can possibly be understood by humanity.

Although I am fascinated; what forms of intelligence exist outside intellect?