A Reliable Negative Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity

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that was my exact point, we need these things, they are fact, we teach them and people accept them to be fact, and that is why it is law to teach them.

Athiesm worn like a badge of honour it is used to annoy the pious, in reality there is no such thing as an athiest because it is simpy a word used to tar a person who doesn't believe in religion. In reality, an athiest is simply a normal person.

 

Very true. The more I get involved in discusing religion vs. atheism, though, the more I'm tacitly accepting this label. It's just a word used to describe all those who lack a certain characteristic, namely religion.

It's like saying people who don't wear sandals must hate sandals. There's a bit more sense in saying that people who DO wear sandals less often have stinky feet, or that they at least don't *hate* sandals. People who don't wear sandals perhaps live in societies where sandals are not commonplace, or the weather it just too cold for it. Atheists are also a diverse population with no defining characteristic whatsoever (lack of a trait does not constitute a trait). And there are diverse reasons why the many atheists out their don't wear sandals - I mean worship a religion.

Since the term atheist will be widely used in religious circles, it has inevitably become linked to some language-redefining characteristics that in reality do not apply to the atheist population. Atheist has now become a charged term, loaded with lots of undeserved baggage. It has become like this because theists need these definitions to understand atheism and put it in the right place in their mind. Sometimes atheists need to remind theists that they've wrongly ticked the box "Other" on atheism, instead of "None".

A minor example of this, is when theists ask me what I think of the universe. How it was created, and all that. Going back and back, after reciting my limited knowledge of the big bang theory, the question remains: "Yeah, but who created that?" When I can't answer it to their satisfaction, they either say my reasoning is stupid because I admit I don't know, or tell me their faith has the answer. In their mind, there must be a conscious power who created everything. I like to poke fun at it and turn the reasoning around: "Yeah, but who created God? Someone must have created him too. You just said that everything had to be created by something." At this point, they get irritated.

One thing that might be considered a philosophy for atheists is the Scientific Method. Being able to accept that you don't know something for sure becomes a lot easier with it. Some things are beyond our ability to explain properly, and may always remain so. Religious stories are nothing more than stories with no proper explanations, and don't help us explain things at all. But let me reiterate that atheits have no common trait, and not all atheists are aware of the Scientific Method.

 

It's not really something I have to worry about, In the UK, religion (christianity more so) is dwindling, churches are either closing or relying on taxes to stay open, very few young people accept religion. Not that churches don't try to draw in young people, with rock bands, dance clases and comfy seats, but if you ask any of the girls in the dance group about the actual faith, they know very little.

 

@T2Bruno

I admit not wanting to pay $25 just to read a study relating to this discussion does hamper my knowledge of the study. If it was free & open I'd at least have already read part of it but there it is. And usually when I post a link to in online discussion people don't have to pay money just to read it so I don't think I'm being unfair (or at least not completely if I am). Anyway dynamics a study may miss is a valid thing to think about-an arguably part of scientific method as it may lead to the next question to be asked.

My impression from the article is that the study followed a certain group of people over a large portion of their lifetime. If it incorporated more studies than that into itself then great and it is good to see the researcher doing an even more through job. That doesn't mean that there weren't questions he or she didn't ask though and the article that used (or abused) the study even mentioned that.



@Shoshino & Coin

On atheism being a "lack of" something rather than a belief I disagree. I think that definition is simply illogical.

A belief can relate to a positive or negative existence of something else and still be a belief. I can believe there is currently no 70ft monster with tentacles knocking over buildings in the downtown of any of the cities in my state and have it be a belief (my belief could be wrong even though I doubt it). Nor is there anything to apologize for in the fact that it is a belief.

Atheism has a certain belief and is defining trait. Just like being a Catholic (or Protestant, or Shia, or Sunni, or Sufi, or Buddhist, or Hindu, and on) all have certain beliefs that can be marked as defining characteristics.

The term "atheist" isn't just used by "religious circles" but by the population as a whole-including many atheists themselves. Including this quote from commentary by an atheist leader in a court case: "Your petitioners are atheists and they define their beliefs as follows."

Also let me point out that religious people are "normal" too. Moreover since I think most people on the planet joined some type of religion-even if just nominally-then is normal for people to be religious. Does that mean I'm saying atheists are bad or don't belong? NO. They are humans and I expect most of them to have a moral code. Plus some are either personal friends of mine and/or people I can have reasonable discussions with online (including here).


@Gaear & Coin & Shoshino

There is some truth in the remark about Scientology because it did sue the Cult Awareness Network until the latter went bankrupt and was then bought by the former. I'm not concerned about how "weird" Scientology is as much as how manipulative, greedy, and sometimes destructive to families it has been. Weird can be wearing a new funny hat every other day. Baring someone from talking to friends & family is socially isolating, controlling, and can put people into a situation where they can be more easily deceived and manipulated. Scientology isn't the only group to do this but they get more notoriety. There is a difference between a mind control organization and a religious (or civil) organization. Going back to legal bit, I think Scientology may be willing to sue others when it doesn't have grounds but it isn't likely to bother the Boards here because it/they have other more direct and bigger fights.

 

pplr summed up my argument. There's atheist as a mere descriptive term and there's atheism as it is used by particularly outspoken atheists who make it a point to attack religious people because of their beliefs, regardless of anything else. It's a western thing, like gay (descriptive, sexual preference) and the other gay (drag/leather stereotypes), redneck (descriptive, southerners with poor/limited education) and the other redneck (bigoted, religious zealots who hate technology) and nerd/geek (which can be anyone who's smart but has a poor social life) and nerd/geek culture (Star Wars, Star Trek, D&D, technology).

In the east, as far as I know, there's the descriptive term and then separate term/s for everything else.

 

I don't drive a bus, do people define me as a "non bus driver"? no, but if someone drives a bus we call them a bus driver.

 

In a strictly technical sense, you are indeed a non-bus driver. I don't really understand the correlation bus driving actions and religious beliefs though.

 

Im pointing out that atheist doesn't really exist, you don't need to distinguish both something as being and somethign as not being, only one of them, we call firefighters -firefighters and police officers - police officers, pilots - pilots I could go on, we don't distinguish the people who aren't.

 

Actually, I think it depends on the social situation. In terms of religion, since the topic is highly scrutinized, non-believers are called "non believers" or aethiests by many. But since nobody cares about "trash collecters" enough to have heated discussions about trash collecting, generally people who don't collect trash aren't called "non trash collecters". But if for some reason "trash collecters" were to rise to power, fame or infamy you could bet your bottom dollar that the term would pop up. You can thank social media for that.

 

^ That was pretty funny Blades.

@Sho -

Sure they do, they're people who don't believe in god. It's a useful distinction. I suspect that what you're really meaning here though is the old argument that a lack of belief is itself not a belief, but that doesn't mean that people who don't believe in god don't exist or that the condition is not observable.

Your work examples are examples of actions that a person does or does not carry out. As Blades said, it's generally pointless to distinguish those things, because no one cares. The religious belief question is generally a philosophical one though - i.e. an idea - and people love to discuss ideas, so identifying the inverse of one is useful in order to debate it. Which in the case of religion and politics, everyone everywhere tends to want to do ad infinitum.

As to the question itself, it's been debated hotly dozens of times before (here, billions of times elsewhere), and no one ever convinces anyone else of anything anyway, so I've got no comment on that.

 

This discussion reminds me of the differences between monophyletic and polyphyletic clades in phylogenetics. A group that has a single ancestor can be considered a real clade, but over the years, taxonomists have mistakenly identified polyphyleteic clades. An example would be Pachydermata (thick skinned mammals), lumping Hippos, Rhinos, Elephants and Whales together into one group. Although they do have a common ancestor, there's a host of non-thick skinned mammals in between them.
Warm-blooded animals were also considered to be a single clade based on body temperature, until we could prove that birds and mammals evolved from different reptiles. There's plenty more examples where that came from.

So, let me try to explain that 'atheists' are polyphyletic.
- I grew up in a society where the majority of people are not religious, so ending up non-religious is nothing special.
- Some people are from societies where religion is the norm, but decided to clash with the mainstream, just to be different.
- Some may have developed true moral objections to the practices in a religion, and avoided it, or broke away from it.
- Some may have 'married out of' religion, by submitting to a dominant atheist partner (the opposite is more likely, but it might happen).
- Some might have had arguments with people of a certain religion, causing them to avoid/break away from it.
- Some religions may have outcasts, considered to be so shameful and undesirable, that they are banned from any religious gatherings. They were forced out.
- Some people may have come to the careful conclusion that religion has nothing to offer them.
- Some may have been 'converted' by the Scientific Method.
- Religions require contributions, often monetary and mandatory. The high tithes may be what keeps some people out of the faith.
- An ominous nightmare might spook a person so much, that they choose to avoid/break away from the religion.
- Some people may simply not like the silly outfits or dress codes.
... the reasons people are atheist are varied. So varied, that it's pointless to make any kind of statement about the group of people. It's not a monophyletic group.

Atheism does not have a prophet or holy book. It did not start at any time - there is no "single ancestor". Atheists are not unified under a single movement, most don't care (as much as theists) about spreading atheism. There are no rules defining an atheist's behaviour, and they do not all share the same values, moral code, or ethics.

Yes, there are some small organisations for atheists, but these are the exception, not the rule. They are usually in heavily religious countries, where it's impossible to avoid being labeled an atheist (with all the additional baggage that comes with it), and people must band together to form a unified front against the dominant theist environment.

I expected that there would be strong objections among theists about this statement (atheism is not a belief, and they are not a real group), because there have been a lot of value judgements about this polyphyletic group. But all the things that have been said about atheists rely heavily on the pre-assumption that it's a monophyletic group just like any religious movement. But it definitely isn't, and anyone who maintains this despite the obvious evidence to the contrary is indoctrinated, and just repeating religious propaganda.

 

You listed off a bunch of reasons as to why someone may become atheist. But being an atheist, as Gaear noticed, is an observable condition.

Also it doesn't matter that all atheists don't have the same moral code or organizations. Those are simply subsets of an observable condition.

Religious peoples sometimes go by different moral codes and certainly belong to different religious organizations yet that doesn't mean they aren't religious. Nor that their being religious somehow isn't an observable condition.

Scientific Method is based on and applied with, at least in part, observable conditions.

Suggesting that there aren't atheists seems to contradict those aspects of Scientific Method that can be applied.

It isn't "religious propaganda" that prompted me to say atheism is a belief but my attempt to apply logic.

Now you don't have to share all of the beliefs of the leader I quoted before but the fact is that she very clearly had beliefs and felt she could state them proudly.

Atheists may not have a "holy book" but they do have leaders and writings.

The woman I quoted was a formal leader. I would argue that Dawkins & Harris are better known for their writings. At times they may serve as informal leaders but more of their impact can be measured by the books they have written and speeches made that convey various ideas or (and I do argue the word applies) beliefs.





As a side note I'm know there are times when it is happened but I don't care for someone changes religion simply because he or she has a partner of a different faith. My understanding is that religion is supposed to be, or at least a good part of it, about a person's relationship with or understanding of God and, perhaps, the universe. Changing that simply because of a partner who has a different one or because someone had a nightmare doesn't seem that thought through.

Though I have heard of people having life changing dreams.

And I guess part of what rubs me wrong with the partner thing is how similar it is to the notion that someone has to convert just to marry someone else of a different faith.

 

Actually Tal I'd like to mention a few things about that.

1. No matter how someone starts (unless something sad happens like a childhood death) he or she will likely reach an age where religious discussions happen and then no matter where one goes from those discussions it is a belief.

2. I would argue the "natural" or initial state everyone is in happens to be agnosticism. When someone is born or very young he or she is simply too young to understand or discuss religion, philosophy, and a number of other things to much of a great depth.

Agnosticism is the point where people really don't know-and there are two ends (even extremes in my mind) of agnosticism. One end is people who have researched religion heavily and decide there is not really a way people can know (for sure) if there is a God during their physical lives on Earth. And other end is people who have never heard or thought of religion (usually too young to) and thus don't know in the deepest sense of the words.

For 2 examples to think on

1. Think of if someone asks you if a certain town or building is along a specific bus/train/highway route. If you've never been on that route nor looked at a map of it you don't now if the town/building is there or not. That is how I suspect people start with regards to religion-agnosticism.

If you have taken that route a while ago or have never taken it but still have seen a map of it then you're better informed and can give the person a yes or no with a better chance of being right. Replace the town/building with a religious being (perhaps even an angel rather than God) and your memories or map with what you've read or heard and you can end up either a religious person or atheist who feels informed enough to be able to say something other than "I don't know". Now your answer could still be wrong (by misremember or an inaccurate map) but you would be more informed (or at least feel that way).

2. On a more directly religious note consider the greek gods of old. I think they are myths but I have learned a bit about them as such rather than from people who believed they were real. So the belief various gods aren't real can certainly be taught.

Now-at my current age-I already have a group of religious beliefs (I'm a practicing Catholic) so my default if someone approached me about the greek gods now would probably to not believe his or her gods existed. If I had no religious beliefs at all and someone came and talked to me about the greek gods my initial response may be to say I've never heard of that but not to say the greek gods do or do not exist. I am careful enough today in other situations to try to acknowledge if I don't know something (say if one person claimed another said something while the other claimed not-and there weren't any other witnesses to the event I could speak to).

One catch that I do make an exception for is that I wonder if we (as humans as a whole and not just individuals) are slowing learning more theologically and perhaps that followers of the old greek gods had learned something with an element of truth in it and, as time passed, more was learned.




Breaking from my examples, that reminds me of a comment you made how no religious group that avoided claiming to be the only one came to mind for you. For me it readily did.

My understanding is that there are small group of very mystical (not mythical as these are very real human beings) muslims (and probably Hindus & Christians too) that see truth in all religions. Also I'm under the impression there were some religious people back in the days of the actual Roman Empire that did the same. These days I think of meetings, conferences, and even some agreements between modern religious groups (including some major ones) show a certain amount of respect if not outright acknowledgement that the other group will go to heaven too and so on. And an even deeper version of that which came to mind for me a little after the first group (the mystics) is the modern day Unitarians.



Sorry, this last bit can be a post in itself and I realized that after finishing it. The point of Tal's and my response to it can be seen in the first and last sentence of the story without having to go through all of details if you don't want to.



As for making people believe something if you're charismatic or persistent enough-that only works to an extent. Someone I know joined what (at least at that time) was a mind control organization. I didn't know what it was at the time but I was trying to get a feel of its theology and I'd realized that you could ask certain questions of a group and the answers often had broader implications (a quick way to likely learn a more than what you were specifically asking about). So I got into a conversation with the then local leader of the organization and twice I caught him not answering a question I asked and pointed that out. We didn't finish our conversation because other stuff came up but he apparently felt the situation went well enough for him that afterwards he did an actual sermon on me (that didn't portray me well) to a group of his followers including the person I do and had known for a long time.

When I heard about the sermon afterwards I think my response was "He said WHAT?!"

Before then I had actually had a feeling that a cult leader would just be able to sway people (including myself) with his charisma but it didn't work (at least on me). I later heard that the guy has either an English or (perhaps more specifically) a drama degree (I think undergrad).

When I found out this was an actual mind control organization (it was on the Cult Awareness Network bad list back *before* C.A.N. was bought by Scientology). I really started doing research on it (its writings, what it had done, and on). At one point I asked if I could go with the person who I'd known for a while to one of its Bible studies-in part because I felt I'd be able to poke some holes in the interpretation they would present.

I very nearly got the person to leave the organization and think I would have had there not been the emotional hook of his wife-who got him into it and I suspect wouldn't want to leave because it was her choices that got them both involved. That said I think the group and I stalemated because while he didn't leave they weren't able to get him to turn his back on me (many mind control organizations try to get member to break with others, including friends and family, because they don't want the member to have outside influences).

Many of the people other than me who knew this person for a long time had noticed something was wrong or off about this group before I find out it was a mind control organization and mentioned that to one of them. A lesson from it that may be even if a charismatic person can con one person into something he isn't likely to be able to con everyone-and perhaps not even most people.

 

OMG ... and here I was hoping we'd start to see paragraphs again instead of the one liners....

I will say that I, for one example, do not recognize any leader of my non-believe.

 

Religion cannot be scrutinized with the Scientific Method, as religion has made it abundantly clear. It depends on the belief that there are things in the world that cannot and must not be seen by us. The test is to believe without evidence, and if we were to get even a tiny clue to the existence of God, angels, the devil or whatever, our beliefs would not be based on faith alone, which is what God wants. In science, we'd call this non-falsifiable (if you can't test it, nothing can be said about it). And much like the scientists who choose to table a discussion if there is no way to test things, I also table religion until some actual evidence/falsifiability appears.
And when statements like "God's word is good/the law/absolute" are made, it definitely doesn't lend itself open to scrutiny of any kind. It's actually a warning not to scrutinize holy texts. This encourages all kinds of cognitive biases towards the faith. It's always funny to look at attempts by religions to discredit scientific articles: They clearly don't know how to do it. But of course the discrediting is done for their own audience, it doesn't need to be serious scientific scrutiny.

I'd question the morality of any God who wants me to close my eyes to the world He created, and require me to believe unprovable stories, or get eternal punishment for not believing. I don't see the merits of faith, and I probably never will.

There is some merit in that viewpoint. But humans are not the only ones who start out with a tendency to form beliefs.



The story is basically, that back in the 60s laboratory pigeons were observed to be doing strange ritualistic dances around feeding time. The pigeons believed that their actions might influence whether they'd receive food or not. But in reality, they got their food at the same time each day no matter what they chose to do.

The pigeons felt a need to make sense of their captivity. The belief that in some small way, they could control their own existence, even if it was just having an influence on how they got fed.
I'd guess that they did what many humans do when they observe something amazing (getting food while trapped in a cage): they drew all the wrong conclusions. Now there is a cause & effect relationship established in their little brains, when in fact there is none. We as intelligent humans should be able to scrutinize things better than a pigeon can. This is why I'd argue that it isn't religion that separates us from animals (animals have their own superstitions), but the Scientific Method.

I disagree. This is a too broad interpretation of what constitutes a belief.
This is the eternal dichotomy in viewpoints:
"I believe God doesn't exist."
"I don't believe God exists."
The former is how religious people like to categorize those without a religion, but naturally I think it's the latter. I remember some awesome jokes about people who "believe God doesn't exist": They worship an empty shrine, they not-celebrate Christmas as an article of their faith, and they pray every day in the belief that they don't have a soul so that when they die they just die. Now that's devotion to your beliefs!

What you said about agnosticism could be construed as the ideal vantage point for any atheist. "I don't know (for sure)." is the hallmark of the Scientific Method, and I strive to incorporate words like 'probably', 'likely', 'I think' etc into the language I use, to emphasize the lack of certainty. It's something I'm sooner proud of than ashamed of. It's not about hesitation or being non-confrontational. It's about being accurate in language. I'm an agnostic, though this word has probably gained a different meaning in religious circles. I don't know for sure, so I don't believe. Atheist and agnostic all wrapped up in one douchey bundle, that's me.
BTW, I think 'douche' is a label that atheists get when they are too strong in a discussion for theists to keep their cool.

 

I had to read that twice before i got the joke, but it's a good one!

 

Oh hell, why not? I don't believe in God. No reason to. That said, I tend to find strong Atheism obnoxious. The concept of a higher power is a very broad one, and rigid Atheists like Richard Dawkins tend to liken belief in a deity to belief in pink unicorns, the Sasquatch, or Zombie Reagan running on the Republican ticket in 2016*. It isn't an appropriate comparison, and I'm convinced these types of arguments are really only put forward to sell books -- they are inflammatory by design.

Books proving or attacking various religions are a huge industry, and keeping the debate as acrimonious as possible is in the best interest of the publishers and authors from both camps. When Richard Dawkins debates some Christian/Muslim/Hindu/Jew/Taoist/Buddhist/Pastifarian, his book sales go up. The book sales of the other guy go up, too. It's just business, capitalism at its finest.

Even if science somehow managed to answer every question from now to the big bang, we would still be no closer to understanding the great philosophical questions of today. Why are we here? What is our purpose? How does Michael Bay keep making movies? 10,000 years from now, assuming we're still alive, we'll still be arguing about it - and we'll be no closer to the answer than we are now.

Some questions are better off left unanswered. Other than the **** ton of money in book royalties, there just isn't anything to gain from seeking an answer to that question.

* Zombie Reagan can't run because the Gipper has already served two terms...

 

Ther flipside of that coin is how harshly anyone defending their non-religious life choices in a dominant theist surrounding are judged by the society they live in. If any atheist (especially from an actual atheist minority organization) expresses dislike for overly religious displays during Christmas season in any way, for example, Fox News turns on the alarmlights and sounds the sirens, stating how Christmas is under attack from evil oppressive, organized atheists. Even inflammatory jokes like displaying other religions during christmas, or an atheist display, are taken so seriously, that the News will have you believe it's the beginning of the endtimes.

Richard Dawkins is an eloquent man, and I'm guessing that his unfair comparisons pale in the light of the judgements he receives from theists. Of course he sells books, and gets payed for lectures and whatnot. But there are tons more religious spokesmen who get payed much higher sums for speaking uplifting pseudo-logic at gatherings and conventions. I guess it could be said that Dawkins makes the mistake of accepting the atheist label he is given, and following narrative conventions in the same way that religions do, in order to persuade audiences. Not that I think it convinces many people to leave their religion - it's mostly words of encouragement for non-believers who listen. But I do like how he demonstrates scientific methodologies from time to time. He tacitly confirms the opinions that theists have, by taking a role as atheist leader, and organizing non-believers like a religious flock. But in the shadow of all this potential hypocrisy and self-contradiction, he does provide a voice for a minority population, many of who agree with him (but not all).

Let me just mention that it's not hard to activate theist's confirmation bias. Simply speaking your opinion about religion often results in the kneejerk reaction: "You're attacking my religion and oppressing me! See, atheists are organized!"
It's awfully convenient for religions if non-believers are not allowed to speak up about their views, because that would be a sign of "atheist-belief". But this is not a fair point to make. The definition of what constitutes an 'atheist' (including what they can and can't do) is to blame for many theists believeing this.