Why IS It That Super-Smart People, Almost INVARIABLY, Turn Out to Be Atheists? Hear it HERE…Straight from the Horse’s Mouth!

[JBChiangRai]

13 minutes ago, Eleftheros said:

Is the government of Iran worse than the government of China?

 

That would be a very difficult case to make.

I think you can say almost every religious government is bad, you can't say the same about secular government.

[JBChiangRai]

2 minutes ago, Eleftheros said:

You have an absurdly uninformed concept of faith.

 

Faith does not mean abandoning all responsibility for your own life and handing it over to some unseen deity.

 

In fact, faith is the exact opposite. Faith means believing that if you do the very best on your own account, it will ultimately be to your benefit as a person, no matter what challenges and suffering you face.

To me "faith" means believing in something with a complete lack of evidence to support it.

[likerdup1]

On 7/26/2023 at 11:35 AM, GammaGlobulin said:

It is a well known fact that ALL scientists are atheists; they just dislike publicly admitting the fact. Keep in mind that Feynman was a very happy guy who even enjoyed playing the bongos, I am told.

 

 

Where is this conclusion from? This IMHO is hyperbole. This looks to be opinion and not any kind of established statistic. There are plenty of very intelligent and accomplished scientists in many fields who believe in some sort of Higher Power, Creative Intelligence, God, Power Greater .. Higher Intelligence etc.

 

In the field of physics the more they uncover the more mysterious the laws ruling nature become. I believe there are some actual converts from atheism to belief in that field. Just look at Quantum Physics. If the double slit experiment or quantum entanglement aren't enough to boggle the mind and question conventional thinking I don't know what is. There is much much much more than the 5 senses can perceive. Beyond the 5 senses is where God works in my experience.

Edited July 29, 2023 by likerdup1

[JBChiangRai]

Just now, likerdup1 said:

Beyond the 5 senses is where God works in my experience.

Beyond the 5 senses is where God works in your imagination. You're welcome to try and give factual evidence of your experience.

 

I repeat, there is absolutely no evidence for any god.

[herfiehandbag]

On 7/27/2023 at 5:43 AM, Lacessit said:

Just curious - can you name some famous scientists who were or are Muslims? It does seem rather strange God should be so selective of the Christian faith.

Possibly Islam, certainly these days, is, umh, rather "self selecting" when it comes to that sort of thing.

[likerdup1]

4 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

Beyond the 5 senses is where God works in your imagination. You're welcome to try and give factual evidence of your experience.

 

I repeat, there is absolutely no evidence for any god.

Individual experience is where God begins. I've had a very positive and life changing experience with a Higher Power. There is no need to convince anyone else. No need for me to be evangelical or convert anyone.

 

My personal experience is all that matters and my life is better for it. No need to argue. It's simply a personal relationship I choose to foster. I have a personal relationship with a Higher Power that has brought me back from hell on earth. I wouldn't live any other way my friend. You go your way I'll go mine.

[herfiehandbag]

11 hours ago, Skeptic7 said:

Was a Catholic. 

Hitler was brought up by a Catholic mother.

There is no evidence that once he was out of his teens, she no longer had any influence, and she had died, that he either practiced Catholicism or received any of the Sacraments.

Edited July 29, 2023 by herfiehandbag

[spidermike007]

On 7/27/2023 at 5:14 AM, GammaGlobulin said:

It is my opinion that any scientist who truly believes there is a god is ipso facto NOT a scientist, but something else.

And that, furthermore, that "something else" is a stain upon the very name of Science!

 

 

You seem to have an issue with organized religion, per se. Alot of people do. But, that does not mean that a higher power of some sort does not exist. Many scientists believe in a higher power. You don't. You can spend the next year trying to defend your position and it changes nothing. You are not a believer in something you cannot see. That is on you. Don't try to pigeon hole the entire scientific community with the same limitations you have. 

[Lacessit]

48 minutes ago, Eleftheros said:

What has been happening over the past 3 years is almost the perfect example of the central importance of religious values such as humility, compassion, kindness, honesty. and the importance of truth.

 

In the hands of secular governments we got arrogance, dishonesty, vanity, greed, resentment, revenge and soulless brutality.

In Australia, we got Robodebt. The  Prime Minister of Australia was the architect of that scheme, which caused several people to commit suicide. It was basically war upon the poor.

Said Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is a devout Pentacostal Christion.

In Afghanistan, explain to me how prohibiting the education of women enhances any of the values you mention.

You are laboring under the delusion humility, compassion, kindness, honesty and the importance of truth are the exclusive preserve of religions. They are not, and there is ample evidence of that being the case.

You want truth? Celibacy in priests has nothing to do with enhanced holiness or moral authority. It was formulated by the Catholic Church to protect church property from inheritance claims.

Any psychiatrist will tell you when natural human sex drives are suppressed, it is statistically inevitable a proportion of persons under interdict will develop perversions.

There are quite a few examples before the courts, of senior church officials who covered up for priests who were sex offenders, by shifting them between parishes.

In Russia, the Orthodox Church supports the genocide of Ukrainians. How do you reconcile that with religious values?

[Lacessit]

31 minutes ago, herfiehandbag said:

Possibly Islam, certainly these days, is, umh, rather "self selecting" when it comes to that sort of thing.

I hypothesize Muslims are so busy steeping themselves in religious dogma, so they can go on pilgrimage to Mecca, that there's not much room for other forms of learning.

[Seth1a2a]

Why IS It That Super-Smart People, Almost INVARIABLY, Turn Out to Be Atheists? Hear it HERE…Straight from the Horse’s Mouth!

 

How smart was Feynman ?  He married 3 times. Trial and error I guess.   Apples and Oranges of the same order where one size of genius does not necessarily fit all sizes of intellectual requirements .  He did not win a nobel in theology but you assume that because he's smart his conclusions are transferable to all and sundry .

 

Conversely , there was Georges Lemaître

Georges Lemaître, (1894-1966), Belgian cosmologist, Catholic priest, and father of the Big Bang theory.

Trained in both , he  used one discipline to verify his beliefs in the other. 

 

A  cosmologist and a Catholic priest walk into a Universal bar . One orders the math for a Big Bang Theory and the other one orders the belief that it is possible that all of this could be real ..... They both get the same drink.

 

In a way believing, or believing in someone because you consider them to be more worthy, enlightened or intelligent than yourself seems just as weak,  lazy and naive as following a self proclaimed messiah or messenger of any concept or belief.  It's up to the individual to make their own observations and arrive at their own conclusions.  I get no thrill or satisfaction from Hiding behind so called  "Super-Smart People" 

 

This type of discussion can go on for years without any real resolution .

The "Do you believe in God and why" thread on aseannow is now over 594 pages long with 17835 replies.

 

Edited July 29, 2023 by Seth1a2a

[Eleftheros]

1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

You are laboring under the delusion humility, compassion, kindness, honesty and the importance of truth are the exclusive preserve of religions.

That's not what I said.

 

I said that those are "religious values", that is they are most frequently mentioned in religious texts and stressed as being the foundation of a moral life. Religious values are not the same as organized religion.

 

If your assessment of the Australian PM's actions are fair and accurate, then he was not acting in accord with religious values, no matter what he says is his religion.

 

For that matter, Joe Biden says he is a practising Catholic, and apparently attends Mass every Sunday, yet last year he signed an executive order safeguarding abortion rights in the US.

 

So when I spoke of "secular governments", that describes governments which have abandoned religious values - or any moral or ethical values, if you prefer it - to bring about the appalling and soulless attacks on their own societies.

 

All we saw over the last 3 years was arrogance, contempt, vanity, dishonesty, greed and hypocrisy, which are the opposite of religious values, though may well be engaged in by people who claim to adhere to a religion.

[GammaGlobulin]

2 hours ago, likerdup1 said:

There are plenty of very intelligent and accomplished scientists in many fields who believe in some sort of Higher Power, Creative Intelligence, God, Power Greater .. Higher Intelligence etc.

 

To me, you sound a bit like Exxon stating that there are MANY accomplished scientists who believe that Global Warming due to anthropogenic causes is a MYTH.

 

Please name the Natural Scientists of whom you speak. 

 

 

Edited July 29, 2023 by GammaGlobulin

[Hummin]

5 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Some of us do not need religion for a sense of stability, or as a moral compass. Given what has been happening, the claim to the latter is very shaky, if not ridiculous.

Still just refering to history and how societies work, and how people getting engaged for good and bad,  as well reasons how things comes and goes same as ideology.

 

It is a nice study how Alexander the great and Djenghis Khan worked around religion and how they ruled their Empires concerning religion. 

[mike_rad]

18 hours ago, RocketDog said:

What nonsense!

On regular basis scientists confirm Einstein's work. Gravitational lensing is a good example. His very earliest work showing that light can also manifest in

particle form is another. That has long been accepted as demonstrably correct from the simplest of experiments.

To date his grossest error was a refusal to accept his own findings, which laid the groundwork for quantum theory. Oh, and he also suffered the God Delusion. Hey nobody is perfect.

Not at all. See the discussion:

 

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Challenge_the_Claim_Special_Theory_of_Relativity_Has_Been_Disproved_Theoretically

 

 

[mike_rad]

22 hours ago, Spiderfingers said:

To the best of my knowledge, Albert Einstein was a scientist and "super-smart."

 

Super smart people don't need to resort to plagiarism. 

[Lacessit]

18 minutes ago, Eleftheros said:

That's not what I said.

 

I said that those are "religious values", that is they are most frequently mentioned in religious texts and stressed as being the foundation of a moral life. Religious values are not the same as organized religion.

 

If your assessment of the Australian PM's actions are fair and accurate, then he was not acting in accord with religious values, no matter what he says is his religion.

 

For that matter, Joe Biden says he is a practising Catholic, and apparently attends Mass every Sunday, yet last year he signed an executive order safeguarding abortion rights in the US.

 

So when I spoke of "secular governments", that describes governments which have abandoned religious values - or any moral or ethical values, if you prefer it - to bring about the appalling and soulless attacks on their own societies.

 

All we saw over the last 3 years was arrogance, contempt, vanity, dishonesty, greed and hypocrisy, which are the opposite of religious values, though may well be engaged in by people who claim to adhere to a religion.

What I am saying is one can develop moral and ethical values without the involvement of religion. You seem reluctant to accept that point of view.

 

There are plenty of people who lead law-abiding and moral lives without ever setting foot in a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple. They may have done it as part of the brainwashing many children are subject to.

 

My assessment of the Australian PM is based on the outcome of a Royal Commission. Multiple individuals have been referred under seal to various government bodies for civil and criminal proceedings. Based on the remarks of the Commissioner, there is little doubt the former PM will be among them.

 

https://theconversation.com/robodebt-royal-commissioner-makes-multiple-referrals-for-prosecution-condemning-scheme-as-crude-and-cruel-209318

 

The question of abortion is a thorny one. The Roman Catholic Church regards it as a mortal sin, I understand abortion is permitted under Muslim law up until a certain number of weeks after conception.

 

As a male, I don't presume to tell a woman what she should do with her body. Bringing a child into the world with no hope of quality of life IMO is not rational.

 

 

[LS24]

Richard is in heaven now.

[Eleftheros]

1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

What I am saying is one can develop moral and ethical values without the involvement of religion. You seem reluctant to accept that point of view.

Well, that of course is the key question which has been debated for centuries by people who, I expect, are smarter than me or you. It's a very deep question, and the answer is not self-evident. In fact, the answer may be unknowable.

 

Religious types would say there is some mechanism behind turning observed facts into values, atheist types would put this ability down to human reason alone, and radical socialists would say there are no values anyway, since everything is a mere expression of power dynamics.

[mike_rad]

Related topic:

 

An article published a few years ago titled, "Prominent Yale Professor Explains How Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Doesn’t Match The Science" but last time I checked that web site was down. It might still be found elsewhere. I did save it so here's the intro:

 

Scientists who have rejected the basic premises of Darwin’s theory continue to be condemned and shunned by the mainstream community and powerful people. The average person who gets a bachelor’s degree in science is trained to simply repeat the same old textbook rhetoric as to why evolution is the be all and end all of human existence, without actually looking into why the theory is highly questionable.

 

One of the latest dissenters is David Gelernter, a prominent scientist and distinguished professor of computer science at Yale University. He recently published an essay in the Claremont Review of Books explaining his objections to a premise behind Darwin’s theory.

He first points to the famous “Cambrian Explosion” which occurred half a billion years ago, in which a number of new organisms, including the first ever known animals, pop up suddenly in the fossil record over a period of approximately 70 million years. Apparently, this giant explosion of spontaneous life was followed by evolution, slow growth and “scanty fossils, mainly of single celled organisms, dating back to the origins of life roughly three and a half billions years ago.”

 

From here, he explains how Darwin’s theory predicts that new life forms evolve gradually from preceding ones. but if this is applied to the Cambrian creatures as well, it doesn’t work. The predecessors to the Cambrian creatures are missing, something that Darwin himself was disturbed by as well. Furthermore, even without this fact, many scientists have already used other aspects of the fossil record to demonstrate that Darwin’s theory is clearly wrong.
 

[Lacessit]

6 minutes ago, Eleftheros said:

Well, that of course is the key question which has been debated for centuries by people who, I expect, are smarter than me or you. It's a very deep question, and the answer is not self-evident. In fact, the answer may be unknowable.

 

Religious types would say there is some mechanism behind turning observed facts into values, atheist types would put this ability down to human reason alone, and radical socialists would say there are no values anyway, since everything is a mere expression of power dynamics.

One can argue there are both religious people and atheists who do evil, as well as good.

Socialism does have values of fairness and equality, although those are perverted by some leaders. Australia has had a number of socialist governments, which historically have been much more progressive and kind than the conservative ones.

It always amuses me when Americans start frothing at the mouth at the mere mention of socialism, as if it is evil incarnate. They are blissfully unaware one of the pillars of their society possesses many socialist features. It's called the US military.

[Srikcir]

20 hours ago, RocketDog said:

light can also manifest in

particle form is another.

The only similarity between a photon and a particle is momentum. Photons has according to current science NO MASS versus particles, is pure energy versus no known particle travels the speed of light. Unlike particles, photons are not affected by the weak nuclear force. But photons are affected by gravitational force, albeit not from mass like a particle.

 

[GammaGlobulin]

20 minutes ago, mike_rad said:

Related topic:

 

An article published a few years ago titled, "Prominent Yale Professor Explains How Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Doesn’t Match The Science" but last time I checked that web site was down. It might still be found elsewhere. I did save it so here's the intro:

 

Scientists who have rejected the basic premises of Darwin’s theory continue to be condemned and shunned by the mainstream community and powerful people. The average person who gets a bachelor’s degree in science is trained to simply repeat the same old textbook rhetoric as to why evolution is the be all and end all of human existence, without actually looking into why the theory is highly questionable.

 

One of the latest dissenters is David Gelernter, a prominent scientist and distinguished professor of computer science at Yale University. He recently published an essay in the Claremont Review of Books explaining his objections to a premise behind Darwin’s theory.

He first points to the famous “Cambrian Explosion” which occurred half a billion years ago, in which a number of new organisms, including the first ever known animals, pop up suddenly in the fossil record over a period of approximately 70 million years. Apparently, this giant explosion of spontaneous life was followed by evolution, slow growth and “scanty fossils, mainly of single celled organisms, dating back to the origins of life roughly three and a half billions years ago.”

 

From here, he explains how Darwin’s theory predicts that new life forms evolve gradually from preceding ones. but if this is applied to the Cambrian creatures as well, it doesn’t work. The predecessors to the Cambrian creatures are missing, something that Darwin himself was disturbed by as well. Furthermore, even without this fact, many scientists have already used other aspects of the fossil record to demonstrate that Darwin’s theory is clearly wrong.
 

If YOU consider Gelernter a "prominent scientists", then all meaningful discussion is OVER...Here is why......

 

 

Above image can be found at:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gelernter

 

 

[Eleftheros]

23 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

One can argue there are both religious people and atheists who do evil, as well as good.

That is undoubtedly so true as to not be in dispute. Because we are all human, flawed and very imperfect.

 

But that in turn is an explicitly religious belief, that we are all "fallen" creatures and that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

 

The moment you think you are beyond reproach, beyond error, certain to be correct, then that leads directly to the kind of arrogance and venal dishonesty that has been the hallmark of political action in the last 3 years.

 

Of course, you could make the same argument without invoking religion, but religion makes accepting our "fallen" nature into the starting point of building morality. Which is why I would call it a 'religious value'.

[sirineou]

3 minutes ago, Eleftheros said:

That is undoubtedly so true as to not be in dispute. Because we are all human, flawed and very imperfect.

 

But that in turn is an explicitly religious belief, that we are all "fallen" creatures and that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

 

The moment you think you are beyond reproach, beyond error, certain to be correct, then that leads directly to the kind of arrogance and venal dishonesty that has been the hallmark of political action in the last 3 years.

 

Of course, you could make the same argument without invoking religion, but religion makes accepting our "fallen" nature into the starting point of building morality. Which is why I would call it a 'religious value'.

I have read a very apropos quote that I am not the source of. 

"Bad people do bad things, and good people do good things , It takes religion to get good people to do bad things"

[Eleftheros]

49 minutes ago, sirineou said:

I have read a very apropos quote that I am not the source of. 

"Bad people do bad things, and good people do good things , It takes religion to get good people to do bad things"

Substitute the word "ideology" for religion and I think the quote has something to say. I'm thinking, in particular, of Mao's Red Guards ....

 

The moment you have a mass of people who are 100% convinced that they are right and that anyone who opposes them is not just wrong but evil, then very bad things are almost guaranteed to happen, whether in a religious or secular context.

Edited July 29, 2023 by Eleftheros
Clarification

[Lacessit]

2 hours ago, Eleftheros said:

That is undoubtedly so true as to not be in dispute. Because we are all human, flawed and very imperfect.

 

But that in turn is an explicitly religious belief, that we are all "fallen" creatures and that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

 

The moment you think you are beyond reproach, beyond error, certain to be correct, then that leads directly to the kind of arrogance and venal dishonesty that has been the hallmark of political action in the last 3 years.

 

Of course, you could make the same argument without invoking religion, but religion makes accepting our "fallen" nature into the starting point of building morality. Which is why I would call it a 'religious value'.

Guilt and sin are the coercive instruments religions use to cement their claims to a higher morality. If you can explain to me how a new-born babe has a "fallen nature", I'm all ears.

[GammaGlobulin]

3 hours ago, Srikcir said:

The only similarity between a photon and a particle is momentum.

Another similarity might be that both can exhibit wave properties, and have wavelengths when in motion.

 

[Eleftheros]

3 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Guilt and sin are the coercive instruments religions use to cement their claims to a higher morality. If you can explain to me how a new-born babe has a "fallen nature", I'm all ears.

I have already explained that I am not here to defend organized religion.

 

My stance is simply that 'religious values', those values that are stressed by major religions seem to me to have proved their practical value over time.

 

That we are all flawed and imperfect people, which is fundamental to Christianity, seems to me to be an important basis for action in the world. Certainly, I could have hoped that our political leaders could have had some sense that they might have been fallible, because without their blind arrogance we could have been spared much of the dreadful train wreck of the past 3 years.

 

If you choose to derive the notion that we are all flawed beings from a purely secular standpoint, fine. It just seems to me, as I have said before, that this is nicely described as a 'religious value.'

[ozimoron]

21 hours ago, notmyself said:

I suspect the reason you have to keep asking is because you don't understand or refuse to. None have shown themselves to be valid so the question of which one/s are true and which one/s are not is effectively meaningless. Another way of looking at would be if you support a football team and they lose. The score / number of goals they lose by isn't going to effect the result.

Please don't feel compelled to respond if that basic logic is beyond you. I could possibly explain with the aid of sketches/ pictures but life is too short. Sorry.

I understand perfectly. My point is that religious people are incapable of ever answering this question and refuse to attempt to do so. Always.

 

Not one person here has attempted to explain how there can only be one god yet many religions not have they attempted to explain why their religion is true and the other not. It's just crickets. Put them on the spot and they fold.

Edited July 29, 2023 by ozimoron