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Atheist Are Brain Damaged


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Next you'll say you're not in jail either. There are so many different ways to be smart. Boiling down all the various ways the mind can excel into IQ is fairly futile. Many christians are smart -- including BG. I mean the thing he does on here, whatever it is, is pretty masterful. But there is a certain kind of reasoning ability that is ultimately incompatible with formal religion (by which I mean the specific tenets of fundamentalist christianity, judaism, islam, etc. as distinguished from the varieties of pantheistic/mysterious/god-is-the-universe spiritualities). People who have that ability either 1) reject formal religion or 2) suppress this aspect of their mind temporarily or permanently. This guy is a good example of the conflict that occurs when that kind of suppression has taken place. This is the kind of reasoning that happens to be good for science -- the practice of figuring out the truth -- which is why we get such a different breakdown of religious belief among scientists compared with the general population: Scientists%20and%20Belief%201.gif
I once worked with a kid who had a degree in anthropology who worked at the construction site I was working when I was operating a dozer. More than once I saved his life because he would literally wander out into the fill when loaded scrapers hauling 32 cubic yards of dirt at speeds of 25+ mph were dumping dry loads that created dust that obscured visibility. I would move my dozer to protect him while he looked at rocks with his back to the scrapers looking for fossils.He also once told me the tooth I found was a Saber Tooth Tiger fang. Turned out it was a camel tooth and he had it upside down.Anyway..he was a scientist.So your contention that you can cherry pick a profession and compare it to everyone else, is so silly as to be beneath you...a scientist.Besides, I thought you guys were selling that 98% of scientist were global warmers? How can 33% of the scientist be declaratively smarter than the rest and still buy global warming hoax?
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He also once told me the tooth I found was a Saber Tooth Tiger fang. Turned out it was a camel tooth and he had it upside down.
Where were you working that would have a camel tooth lying around? That seems even less likely than a saber tooth tiger fang if it was somewhere in this country. I'm not asking because that excuses the jackass anthropologist...wait a minute. Was he an anthropologist, or was he a kid with a degree in anthropology who worked construction?
Anyway..he was a scientist.So your contention that you can cherry pick a profession and compare it to everyone else, is so silly as to be beneath you...a scientist.
I don't think vb's argument was that every single scientist is sooper dooper smart. In fact, approximately 33% are crazy!
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Where were you working that would have a camel tooth lying around? That seems even less likely than a saber tooth tiger fang if it was somewhere in this country. I'm not asking because that excuses the jackass anthropologist...wait a minute. Was he an anthropologist, or was he a kid with a degree in anthropology who worked construction?
Excavating a hill to make a road often attracted anthropologist to look for fossils. I almost discovered a full skeleton of a seal at an elevation of about 2,500 at least 40 below the surface. ( Almost because I saw the rock with the skeleton during a pass with my dozer, and planned on checking it out next pass, but some idiot anthropologist saw it first. ( no money for discovering ))This guy was an anthropologist.
I don't think vb's argument was that every single scientist is sooper dooper smart. In fact, approximately 33% are crazy!
VB's argument depends on this contention.
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VB's argument depends on this contention.
Scientists being more intelligent on average is not the same as every scientist being more intelligent than average. Plus a bunch of other stuff I wrote but deleted because it didn't make much sense.
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Scientists being more intelligent on average is not the same as every scientist being more intelligent than average.
It is when you lump them all together and pretend their numbers are equal to the rest of the population.What's to stop say..a guy like me, from claiming that the stupid scientist are on the right side of his graph?I'll tell you what....NOTHING....So I'm saying it.
Plus a bunch of other stuff I wrote but deleted because it didn't make much sense.
Which is different from the stuff in here how?
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It is when you lump them all together and pretend their numbers are equal to the rest of the population.What's to stop say..a guy like me, from claiming that the stupid scientist are on the right side of his graph?
There's some confusion here. What was the point of your anthropologist story? That some scientists aren't smart? And you think that vb would disagree with that or that his argument hinges on every scientist being smart?
Which is different from the stuff in here how?
Oh please, the anthropologist could have done just as well with that setup.
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It is when you lump them all together and pretend their numbers are equal to the rest of the population.
The point was that they were not the same as the rest of the population. What? I don't know what you mean by cherry-picked. I picked this profession specifically because it benefits from a certain kind of intelligence. And trust me, there are some pretty dumb scientists.
What's to stop say..a guy like me, from claiming that the stupid scientist are on the right side of his graph?
Results. The progress of science itself.
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The point was that they were not the same as the rest of the population. What? I don't know what you mean by cherry-picked. I picked this profession specifically because it benefits from a certain kind of intelligence. And trust me, there are some pretty dumb scientists.
You know the implications of that 'poll' is slanted towards a certain meaning that doesn't bear out to reality.
Results. The progress of science itself.
Should we discuss which group of people, atheist or Christians, have done more for the advancements of all the sciences?Cause I can start here
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You know the implications of that 'poll' is slanted towards a certain meaning that doesn't bear out to reality.
How so? You really don't think as a group scientists are less likely to believe in the christian god? It certainly fits my experience. When I meet other scientists it is basically assumed that this stuff is not believed.
Should we discuss which group of people, atheist or Christians, have done more for the advancements of all the sciences?Cause I can start here
Just make sure you finish here: galileo-was-wrong-small.jpg
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How so? You really don't think as a group scientists are less likely to believe in the christian god? It certainly fits my experience. When I meet other scientists it is basically assumed that this stuff is not believed.
Like you meet other scientists in your MRI experiments...
Just make sure you finish here: galileo-was-wrong-small.jpg
You know what? I'm going to ignore that the scientist of the day were the ones that told the church that Galileo was wrong, and Galileo, who was a Christian, used the Bible to defend himself.I'm going to ignore that and take 1 name off my lists of thousands of Christians who basically started all scientific disciplines.Of course you do not get to add him to your side...cause he's still a Christian and such.
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Like you meet other scientists in your MRI experiments...You know what? I'm going to ignore that the scientist of the day were the ones that told the church that Galileo was wrong, and Galileo, who was a Christian, used the Bible to defend himself.I'm going to ignore that and take 1 name off my lists of thousands of Christians who basically started all scientific disciplines.Of course you do not get to add him to your side...cause he's still a Christian and such.
Why would I want him on my side? He was wrong.
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Why would I want him on my side? He was wrong.
Cause you have so many others on your side that are wrong?It completes the set.
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Any intellectually honest person will admit that he does not know why the universe exists. Scientists, of course, readily admit their ignorance on this point. Religious believers do not. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be appreciated in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while condemning scientists and other non-believers for their intellectual arrogance. There is, in fact, no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: the creator of the universe takes an interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend eternity in hell. ... [ellipsis in original]An average Christian, in an average church, listening to an average Sunday sermon has achieved a level of arrogance simply unimaginable in scientific discourse—and there have been some extraordinarily arrogant scientists. - Sam Harris, from "Letter to a Christian Nation"

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One could say that a believer's humility stems from the idea that there is someone greater than man. If you aren't a believer, who or what do you believe is greater than humans?
I reject the question as meaningless (obviously).
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One could say that a believer's humility stems from the idea that there is someone greater than man. If you aren't a believer, who or what do you believe is greater than humans?
If you aren't a believer, there's no such thing as one creature being "greater" than another. I'm not "greater" than an ant any more than a super intelligent extraterrestrial being would be "greater" than me, in the way your question is phrased.Edit: Although one could argue a scale of "greatness" based on intelligence, self-awareness, etc., in which case that person would be willing to admit that there very well could be extraterrestrials who are "greater" than humans.
Then what's the point about complaining about believers' arrogance in this matter?
That's exactly the point. For example, one of the ways that I judge someone in terms of being a good human being or not is how they feel about our treatment of animals. And, in my experience, religious conviction seems to be directly correlated to feeling "greater" than animals and therefore not caring as much about treating them well. Again, that's in my experience, and there are certainly christians who love and work for animals just as there are atheists who abuse them.
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If you aren't a believer, there's no such thing as one creature being "greater" than another. I'm not "greater" than an ant any more than a super intelligent extraterrestrial being would be "greater" than me, in the way your question is phrased.
That's not the way my question was meant to be phrased. "Higher up on the food chain," "further along the evolutionary scale," however you want to phrase it. I'm pretty sure humans have a more advanced mind than animals. Can't "greater" mean "more important?" If in some hypothetical situation that I'm not even going to bother coming up with the details you were faced with the choice of saving a human or saving an ant, are you going to struggle with the choice? I mean, you eat animals. I feel like that alone suggests something as to how we view our place relative to animals.I feel like you guys are trying to get philosophical about the question. There is more value in an average human's life than in an average animal's life. None of this needs to affect how someone treats an animal because you don't often need to choose between animals and humans in your actions.
That's exactly the point. For example, one of the ways that I judge someone in terms of being a good human being or not is how they feel about our treatment of animals. And, in my experience, religious conviction seems to be directly correlated to feeling "greater" than animals and therefore not caring as much about treating them well. Again, that's in my experience, and there are certainly christians who love and work for animals just as there are atheists who abuse them.
In my experience, which is admittedly much less substantial than yours, I have seen no such distinction.
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That's not the way my question was meant to be phrased. "Higher up on the food chain," "further along the evolutionary scale," however you want to phrase it. I'm pretty sure humans have a more advanced mind than animals.
Oh. Why would an atheist ever not admit that there could be something out in the universe that's further along the evolutionary scale than humans? I'd think that only religious people who think that god created the universe just for us might think that.
Can't "greater" mean "more important?" If in some hypothetical situation that I'm not even going to bother coming up with the details you were faced with the choice of saving a human or saving an ant, are you going to struggle with the choice?
Yeah, it's all relative. And "greater" could mean a lot of things, so I'll just stick with your intended meaning.
I mean, you eat animals. I feel like that alone suggests something as to how we view our place relative to animals.
Yes and no. I don't eat wild animals. I eat animals who were only born because we were going to raise them for food, and whenever possible only from sources that treat the animals well.
I feel like you guys are trying to get philosophical about the question. There is more value in an average human's life than in an average animal's life.
I assign more value to a human than an animal in a situation like what you mentioned above (life and death), but there is a greater philosophical question at hand. You could argue self-awareness, intelligence, etc., but there are ways to break that down. For example, you'd probably still save a mentally retarded child over a monkey, even though by many methods of testing the monkey is more intelligent and self-aware.
None of this needs to affect how someone treats an animal because you don't often need to choose between animals and humans in your actions.
"God made this earth and put the beasts here for us" leads to different philosophies and actions than "all living things are here by chance". Again, just in my experience, religion tends to lead to people putting themselves on a higher pedestal than just the utalitarian view of an atheist when it comes to the treatment of animals. And, again, that's a very general statement, and there are many religious people who love animals more than the average atheist.
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Oh. Why would an atheist ever not admit that there could be something out in the universe that's further along the evolutionary scale than humans? I'd think that only religious people who think that god created the universe just for us might think that.
I don't think they would deny that it's possible. But still, isn't "there is something out there greater than me (God)" less arrogant than "there might be something out there greater than me?"
Yeah, it's all relative. And "greater" could mean a lot of things, so I'll just stick with your intended meaning.
Which is what? I didn't have a specific detailed meaning in mind when I said it. I was just thinking in terms of arrogance, of feeling superior. Your meaning of greater seems much more intangible than how I meant it.
Yes and no. I don't eat wild animals. I eat animals who were only born because we were going to raise them for food, and whenever possible only from sources that treat the animals well.
The point still stands.
I assign more value to a human than an animal in a situation like what you mentioned above (life and death), but there is a greater philosophical question at hand. You could argue self-awareness, intelligence, etc., but there are ways to break that down. For example, you'd probably still save a mentally retarded child over a monkey, even though by many methods of testing the monkey is more intelligent and self-aware.
Isn't this still a tally-mark for my side?I don't even know how this got started. I know knucklehead posted a quote about the arrogance of believers, but I don't know why. I just feel like believing there is a higher power is kind of the opposite of arrogance. I will concede that believing you are made in that higher power's image seems to be right in arrogance's alley.
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Then what's the point about complaining about believers' arrogance in this matter?
Humans are not the center of the universe. In the religious view, the universe was created almost just as a house for us. In the natural point of view, we are not special relative to anything else in the universe in terms of value. We are a small part of a complex natural system. Think of the shift in cosmology from geocentrism - the entire universe revolves around the earth - to the modern view where the earth has no privileged position within the scheme of things. The original view arose out of some kind of arrogance.
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