Goodbye Religion

I've noticed when a point is made that is difficult to pick apart - it's ignored....what follows is an observation secular people often misunderstand the religious about like men and women do.

Trying for the life of me figure out how my statement IQ does not necessarily relate to religion in a civil way led to the conclusion: "Chuck does not believe any study?"

 

Perhaps people took you at your word when you said this with no limiting adjectives attached a few posts back.

 

The problem of the internet - harder to qualify statements.

Yes, I should have made it clearer I meant "some studies."

Problem with this topic is any real or imagined disagreement is likely to get a strong and quick reply.

 

Yup, people will interpret what you say to mean what they want, it's your job to make that more difficult.

 

chuck i understood what you meant without clarification. i think some people just like to nit pick and exaggerate. it was pretty clear that you understood some studies are fine and others aren't so fine.

 

My experience has been that many posts are ignored, regardless of the point's validity. Just because nobody disagrees, that doesn't mean everyone agrees.

 

You just haven't looked around. I put this up in the belief in god poll:

http://secure.asanet.org/images/journals/docs/pdf/spq/Mar10SPQFeature.pdf


That's just one; there are several others.

My OPINION is that the stronger inverse correlation is knowledge/educational attainment vs religious belief rather than mere IQ, but since the positive correlation between IQ and educational attainment is well established, there is a case that higher IQ corresponds by itself to decreased religiosity.

My OPINION is that if one were to measure scope and breadth of knowledge (which may not be quantifiable), that THAT is the stronger factor separating religiosity from irreligiosity. I base that OPINION on a supposition that as knowledge increases, the more one recognizes that natural explanations satisfy most mysteries. Eventually one reaches the conclusion that the likelihood of something needing a supernatural explanation is so tiny it becomes negligible. I have that OPINION because it explains MY irreligiosity.

Knowledge and IQ only correlate together: IQ does not necessarily mean high (or low) knowledge. If you separated a population sample into four segments: High IQ/High Knowledge, High IQ/Low Knowledge, Low IQ/High Knowledge and Low IQ/Low Knowledge, you'd find irreligiosity in the High Knowledge segments more than in the High IQ segments. That's my OPINION.

There may be studies done along those lines but I haven't looked for any that make the distinction between knowledge and IQ, so can't cite any (at this time).

Now my OPINION does not negate the findings of the study above; my OPINION only postulates more at work in the correlation it finds than IQ.

 

In response to changing in God We Trust. LOL
I'd change it to "See, God Doesn't Exist, Otherwise This Would Be Worth A Lot More"

 

very simple; more you understand less magic you need to explain it.

Back to subject, there was a huge spike in religiousness after 9/11, it is only natural that it will go down when it is forgotten. It is only natural that people turn to religion in the difficult times (war, bad economy, natural disaster, etc).

 

Too bad too, if people praised God in the good and the bad times things would be much better all the time.

 

Why would a god need flattery to be goaded into doing what's right? That makes as much sense as you withholding food and protection from a pet goldfish because it doesn't praise you or express gratefulness.

This god of yours, every time you describe its nature, comes across as an execreble monster, something to be avoided, not remotely attractive or inviting. What do you see in such a piece of obscene filth? You blithely assume everyone "seeks" this jackass; I don't seek anything of the kind and never have.

It was Allah that sent those jets into the WTC towers, another damned jackass god. Do you think of Allah as a jackass? If you do at least you're not closed to the possibility that gods are jackasses, mostly mirrors of the worst of human psychopathy.

Now Chuck will chime in and complain I'm insulting religious people. No, I'm insulting a dangerous concept. A concept that arouses incalculable strife around the world. A concept that gave birth to such afflicting behaviors as righteousness and sanctimony, under whose banner many innocents have been destroyed.

The fact that you think a god needs to be flattered all the time or it won't do what's right underscores the corrupt morality of the concept.

 

Because the Abrahamic God was created in the image of man.

 

APK,

Wondering if you would read Evidence Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell?

At least if I read the pdf you refereed me too?

Why is it I'm strongly advocating a viewpoint just like you, yet I'm among other things a "whiner?" For some reason I doubt you would say such things if I agreed with your beliefs.

 

Man, how much coffee did you have this morning?

Do you by chance have or had any children?

 

Here's a better idea. Find a critique (better still, critiques) of that paper that are equivalent to these critiques of McDowell's book.

Evidence That Demands A Verdict: A Critique of Josh McDowell's Book.

BARNES & NOBLE | The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Fully Updated to Answer the Questions Challenging Christians Today by Josh McDowell | Hardcover

McDowell's books are not studies, they are not peer reviewed, they are expressons of opinion, heavily biased by preconceived beliefs. He also wants money and uses the dias of his book to ask for it.

Learning is not a tit for tat enterprise. You should read that pdf only if you want to. I obviousy recommend it, but unless you WANT to look it over don't bother.

I doubt I'll read McDowell's book - certainly not the entire thing. The reviews are sufficient to inform me whether it is worth reading, and the verdict their evidence demands is: no. It has nothing to do with the subject matter, it has everything to do with the method of argument, which, as spelled out in detail in the critiques, isn't argument at all but prosletyzing.

Find a book, no, find a STUDY, peer reviewed, conducted by IMPARTIAL investigators that concludes RELIGIOSITY IS VITAL AND CANNOT BE SUBSTITUTED - checking something like that out would not be a waste of time, if prepared scientifically by impartial investigators. Some of the intercessory prayer studies approach that, but their conclusions uniformly show no measurable effect.

Perhaps I've misread most of your posts, but they all strike me as complaints about tone, from BOTH sides of the debate. I've seen little (if anything) from you explicitly advocating for your belief. I think that's EXACTLY what you should be doing: point for point spelling out WHY you believe what you do, laying out your evidence, MAKING YOUR CASE instead of constantly carping about how unfair one side or the other is. Makes you sound like Palin, always whining that the world is out to trip her up; how all her problems are attributable to a world out to get her. Quit bitching and ASSERT YOUR POSITION.

EXPECT challenge to it. You guys haven't challenged me at all, all you've done is complain about my tone. Take my points and REFUTE THEM, case by case, tenet by tenet. Dismantle their logic.

That way we might begin to approach truth, as we dissect each other's arguments.

 

right.. God is oh-so-o into micromanagement

 

all 3 major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Muslims) believe in the same god :tape:

 

None. You want to take a stab at answering the question?

Or is the question impertinent, an affront, a question that shouldn't be answered even if it had an answer; the questioner should be pilloried just for imagining such a question could be asked? That crack about coffee is strong evidence you believe the latter, implying that such a question could only be the result of some "abnormaility", such as having drunk too much coffee.

I don't know. Seems like a damn excellent question to me. Why would some supreme omnipotent ALL LOVING entity need flattery to get off its fat hind end and do what's right?

 

True, however they are three different religions because they see God differently in substantial ways.

So to say there is no God because Christianity, Judaism, Islam have differences is a fallacy - they ARE three different religions.

Just as some of you bristle if Stalin is mentioned as a bad boy of atheism, I have a similar reaction if I read posts about greedy televangelists, or pedophiliaic priests, implying the entire religion is bad.

It could be argued the terrorists of 9/11 mispracticed Islam as badly as Brevik mispracticed Christanity when he slaughtered Norwegian teens....Richard Dawkins and others are using some really bad actors as representing a religion...really suspect people.

 

That explains completely all those Christians praying on 9/12 for protection to the same god that just smashed them the day before. Kind of like a battered wife beseeching her raging husband to protect her from her raging husband. Totally reasonable.