How the Web is killing faith

vega... stick to the "6k package"... TEDs material is for people with open minds!

Yoda if you “looked” I’ll just bet it shocked you that your diet of Mad Magazine has left you quite short of being educated

Originally Posted by DarkAngel:

He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.^[11][12] It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, Two New Sciences.

Depends on your point of view. He did his best work while under house arrest. Now the religious will say, he was arrested on purpose!

Sometimes religion is the catalyst for a greater expanding of the mind.

Could it be that religion has no bearing on work ethic, desire to reach a high degree of education? Maybe it is the family network and support that really matters.

I would say that religion would be a part of a home support network. However, as long as the family supports each other and cares about the education and welfare of their children, households that are atheist would do just as well. Throwing money at education has proven that the system fails unless the parents are involved in their children's upbringing. If the parents are simply the biological breeding ground, the children will fail, religious or not.

I could not find the article you mentioned either DA, but this is most interesting.

http://www.psychologytoday.com...ligent-the-religious

Humans are designed by evolution to believe in God

It is natural to believe in God, so more intelligent individuals are more likely to be atheists.

Religion is a cultural universal, and its practice is observed in every known human society.  However, as I explain in earlier posts (Why do we believe in God?  Part I, Part II), recent evolutionary psychological theories suggest that religiosity may not be an adaptation in itself but may be a byproduct of other evolved psychological mechanisms variously called the “animistic bias” or the “agency-detector mechanisms.”

These theories contend that the human brain has been selected to overinfer agency – personal, animate, and intentional forces – behind otherwise natural phenomena whose exact causes cannot be known.  This is because overinferring agency – and making a Type I error of false positive – makes you a bit paranoid, but being paranoid is often conducive to survival.  In contrast, underinferring agency – and making a Type II error of false negative – can result in being killed and maimed by predators and enemies that were incorrectly assumed not to exist.  So, evolutionarily speaking, it’s good to be a bit paranoid, because being paranoid can often save your life.  Religiosity – belief in higher powers – may be a byproduct of such overinference of agency and intentional forces behind natural phenomena.

If these theories are correct, then it means that religiosity – belief in higher powers – may have an evolutionary origin.  It is evolutionarily familiar and natural to believe in God, and evolutionarily novel not to be religious.  Consistent with this reasoning, out of more than 1,500 distinct cultures throughout the world documented in The Encyclopedia of World Cultures, only 19 contain any reference to atheism.  Not only do these 19 cultures exist far outside of our ancestral home in the African savanna, but all 19 of them without an exception are former Communist societies.  There are no non-former-Communist cultures described in The Encyclopedia as containing any significant segment of atheists.  Nor is there any reference to any individuals who do not subscribe to the local religion in any of the ethnographies of traditional societies.

No one said what?

I responded to what is written in this thread.  Considering your response to me, it comes as no surprise that you didn't catch it.  I guarantee you any believers who read this thread would know what portions of this thread I addressed.  Actually, anyone who is intellectually honest would know.  Whatever.

Yoda, try hard as you may, your ragged intellect will never qualify you as one of Rram’s apostles.

Go home with seven. LOL

Originally Posted by vega:

vega, try as hard as you wish... you'll always be a classless troll!

and as far as "rram's apostles" ... i wouldn't pay 3 cents for the whole pitiful, hate mongering lot!

wow, D.A.

i bet vega was in remedial classes!

"The immense majority of intellectually eminent men disbelieve in Christian religion, but they conceal the fact in public, because they are afraid of losing their incomes." 
– Bertrand Russell (Born: 1872 - Died: 1970)

For anyone who tries to suggest "The Argument from Admired Religious Scientists" it should be obvious that the great scientists (and everyone else for that matter) living prior to the 19th century (Newton, Kepler, Galileo, etc.) were living in times where atheism was not really a good option to proclaim publicly However, as we also know, today (in a time where the consequences are reduced) there are very few great scientists who are religious. Coincidence? I think not. The research does indicate that religious faith is inversely proportional to IQ and/or level of education. And still, even if the majority of the greatest scientists in the world today had personal faith in a god or gods - it wouldn’t by itself mean that any gods actually existed. We understand that the truth is unaffected by what the majority believes. Truth is found in facts and evidence. What any scientist believes in outside their own field of evidence and expertise is irrelevant to suggest the positive probability of the supernatural since even geniuses are quite capable of holding unfounded, dogmatic and unproven beliefs that fall outside their scope of expertise.

The research does indicate that religious faith is inversely proportional to IQ and/or level of education. And still, even if the majority of the greatest scientists in the world today had personal faith in a god or gods - it wouldn’t by itself mean that any gods actually existed. We understand that the truth is unaffected by what the majority believes.

 Since science cannot prove or disprove the existence of any deities, the argument can continue forever.

  The fact that the level difference is slight  (a six point range) is really meaningless.

From another article about IQ which you may read at the site but I posted the conclusion...

,

http://www.psychologytoday.com...the-low-down-high-iq

The Low Down on a High I.Q.
Two skills that set high I.Q. folks apart.
Published on June 30, 2009 by Stephen Mason, Ph.D. in Look At It This Way

What's the one thing that puts Homo Sapiens at the top of the heap? Bears are stronger, horses are faster, dogs have better noses and birds can take off without a ticket. As everyone knows, it's our brains that set us apart. And, as everyone also knows, some brains are better than others.

But now comes the tricky part. How do you know which ones are the better ones? The truth is, very few people know exactly what it is that makes one person more smart and another person less smart. They may say something like "Intelligence" or "IQ" but what does that mean? A person who is smart, or maybe even a genius, typically has just two things going for them - Words and Numbers.
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Look At It This Way
The value of a high I.Q. is that you can use it to make complicated things simple. And when you reduce intelligence itself to its simplest components, you find nothing more than a superior ability with words and numbers; two skills that can be sharpened and improved at any stage of life.

Zazu, I don't see where you quoted a study in the part about education. As I've said, I've read studies that indicate non-religious have a slight advantage in the IQ dept., but where those with religious beliefs have more formal education. I have two theories as to why this is true, but I'll address the one more easily proved.

Most studies of anything take place in an academic venue; therefore, students are the primary target for testing/surveying. The college years are those in which most question beliefs, accounting for the difference. The second study concerning completed formal education obviously could not be conducted on college students. These subjects had probably reached the age of 30 at least. It would be very intriguing to see the complete data on both such tests.

Oops, that was Robustus. Sorry, Zazu.

Originally Posted by FirenzeVeritas:

The bold statement at the top of my reply was recopied from A Robustus. He made that statement, not I. The fact that the IQ's vary only 3 points from the average is a very small difference.

I agree that using a college base for the sample probably does lead to the expected difference.  As people age, they tend to become more religious. I would like to see a repeat of IQ and religious leaning in a group over 50.

Yes, if you'll notice, I corrected that in the second post. Again, my apologies.

Originally Posted by FirenzeVeritas:

My apologies to you.  I thought the second was an accidental posting and did not even read it to the end.

I do not like this format very much.

FV or Zazu,

I'm confused by the confusion. Let me know if you have any questions.