Atheism and intelligence

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This article seems specifically designed to boost my ego.

Agreed, though IMO this one's about as slippery as ID is for theists.

I would say that the people doing that study are rather ignorant.

Point 1) IQ tests are relative to the area they are designed for. If you gave an African a IQ test built for Americans, they will fail it. Works the other way as well.

Point 2) More conservative and religious a group is, the more likely they are to refuse anything new. They do not encourage learning, and they discourage anything that brings into question their belief system. Point is, anything that says their religion is wrong cannot be true because their book says so.

Now someone needed to take the time to do a study to prove that people who do not have restricted learning are smarter than people who do have restricted learning. It sounds sort of like the people pointing out that conservatives are more afraid of things than liberals. To me that seems rather obvious.

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Personally I hate anything that calls Atheists smart. For two reasons, one calling yourself atheist means you know there is no god or creator. If you "know" something that can't be proven, you are just as dumb as the other side.

Reason two, I saw Christopher Hitchens ranked as a highly intelligent person. The only reasoning behind calling him intelligent would be his hate for religion(I say this because many of the higher rankers just happened to be atheist/agnostic). They ignored the fact this is a man who said that waterboarding was not torture, and then to prove his point had it done to him. Honestly it takes a rather stupid person to refuse to listen to Navy Seals, who go through torture training, on what is and is not torture.

I myself do no have a strong opinion. The article though is entirely about this. What was researched were particular ideas that are evolutionarily novel (in the view of the researchers).

According to the article.....

More intelligent people are more likely to have thought and reasoned about evolutionarily novel ideas and situations (about which they then make choices) than those with lower measured IQs. Thus, adaption of the evolutionarily novel thus correlates to higher intelligence. The group who have the potential to go one way or another in respect of the evolutionarily novel, is comprised primairly of the more intelligent members of the population and disproportionately fewer people of lower intelligence.


No it doesn't.

Dictionary.com - a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

www.merriam-webster.com - one who believes that there is no deity

www.thefreedictionary.com - One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

I do not see how you could take Atheist as anything other than someone who knows there is no god.

To me then it sounds like if there's an elite group of intelligence its those parsing the center and blazing a trail through the issues on all sides with no need for dogma - or additionally people who are truly coming up with new ideas in philosophy (some happen to be atheist, some happen to be theist, but their contributions IMO are more on the basis of understanding society, the human construct, reality as we know it, and really challenging what we think we know). Liberals and conservatives both are far from being novelty on the face of things these days, that was a point I made earlier of course - atheism and theism as well; all of these are too well grandfathered in at this point.

An atheist is someone who does not believe in one or more deities/higher powers. Some might believe such do not exist, some simply do not believe that any necessarily exist.


The article does not discuss novelty on the face of things, but very specifically "evolutionary novelty". You seem to be thinking in time scales of 100s of years, but evolutionary novelty (and this is very specifically and narrowly what is being discussed in the article and was the focus of the research reported) refers to a scale more on the order of 10s or 100s of 1000s of years. If the notion has been relevant for only 500 years, it is probably still evolutionarily novel. There has been little to no scope for liberal or conservative views to be favoured by evolution. The concepts are evolutionarily novel.

To that I say. "lol what?"

Because there is such a thing as agnostic atheists- people who do not believe in God, but also do not claim absolute knowledge on the topic. This actually probably covers most atheists. Atheist means not-theist, ie not professing faith in God. People who are undecided about their religious views (and thus not actively worshipping a particular deity) or who just don't care about religion are all atheists without claiming to "know" there is no god.

www.merriam-webster.com Agnostic = 1 : a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
2 : a person unwilling to commit to an opinion about something <political agnostics>

You cannot say that there is no god(atheist) and claim that you are unsure about there being a god(religious agnostic, more commonly called agnostic).

Dictionaries differ and are very poor sources for social actualities. You are arguing semantics, not personal beliefs.

First:

Second:


third:


My use of Atheist was said to be wrong, I thought linking several dictionary made my point, when they all say the exact same thing.

Atheist = no god
Agnostic = not saying one way or the other

This is the basic view taken by Richard Dawkins, probably the most famous atheist alive today. Now since his view also follows every other persons view I have ever met as well as dictionaries all over the internet, I think I can be safe in saying that an Atheist believes there is no god.

What exactly is the definition of a "Spiritual but not religious" person? I don't understand it, for exampl,e I'm not religious but I think deep philosophical thoughts and have an advanced understanding of the way my own mind works (or so I'd like to think). I do anything to feel certain emotions, nostalgia mainly. Does that make me "Spiritual"?

There doesn't seem to be a clear definition.

Actually I think you will find the quote above is more correctly attributed to me than to Sand....


Atheist simply means someone who does not have a belief that one or more God's or "higher powers" exist. Agnostic generally refers more to unknowability, although it can be used more loosely to refer to atheists who do not believe that there is necessarily no extant God.

As to who defines what atheism means, why not consult atheists. I often encounter all kinds of meaning attributed to atheism from non-atheists, but I do not find too many atheists disagree that anyone who lacks a belief that one or more deities or higher powers exist, is therefore an atheist. I do not go around dictating to Christians what the characteristics of every Christian must be. I take their word for it that it has to do with beliefs about Jesus being the son of God sent to redeem the sins of humanity and the rightness of following his advice and teachings.

Evidently, since no God or deity can be proven to exist, are all religious people stupid for thinking they know something that cannot be proven, and how about everyone who believes invisible and incorporate unicorns do not exist, or who are confident there is no teapot orbiting pluto; or does this really very silly and empty line of reasoning only apply to the particular group you are inclined to malign?

Frankly both the reasons you gave for deciding that no Atheist can be clever were ludicrous.

Nothing ludicrous about people saying that a person who says they know something they can't is an idiot. I didn't bring religious people into the discussion because the topic is on Atheists and not the others. You seem to have made an assumption about me as well. I am in no way religious, and yes people who believe in things they cannot ever prove because a 2000 year old book, or their friends girlfriend said so, are in fact all idiots.

I assumed that reading/looking into the patron saint of atheism Richard Dawkings would give me enough information to know what I need to know. Now it seems there are different groups of atheists with their own belief system. Mostly based on twisting the meaning of the word to fit what they want. There is another group of people that also like to do this by the way.

As for my other reason, it still stands, and this topic is proof. Atheists have decided that they not only need to attack religion they need to paint them all as stupid, and this also makes them somehow smart. You are stupid if you don't believe what I believe sounds a lot like you are going to hell if you don't believe what I believe.

Sorry about the Sand thing, not really sure how I mixed your names.

Yes there is. Ultimately all "knowledge" is reducible to uncertainty. All you are claiming is that everyone who thinks they know anything at all is an idiot; in fact most intelligent people believe they know things.

Which is only all the more ridiculous. The fact is over human history there is proven example after example of people who professed to believe things that cannot be proven and therefore they did not "know", who were clearly not idiots. The assertion is clearly ludicrous given the enormous body of counter evidence. Example after example throughout human history of people who were not idiots and yet who believed things that could not be proven; many believed wrong things in fact.


This is also ludicrous. Richard Dawkings has produced some good work in respect of biological evolution and that is the extent of my interest in him. His views on matters theistic have nothing to do with mine. I have no idea what a non-theistic saint would be. Something like a square circle I expect.


Atheism is not a belief system. Various atheists will have whatever belief system they have. The only common element will be an absence of a belief that one or more dieties or higher powers exist. Obviously believing there are no Gods or that some particular deistic belief, or all such are false is entirely consistent with atheism and many atheists probably do hold such beliefs. But holding such beliefs is not what atheism is. Atheism describes an absence of beliefs, not any particular set of beliefs held by some biologist who also happens to be an atheist.


Ridiculous. Some atheists attack other groups, just as some religious people attack other groups who do not share their religion, and some fans of one sports team attack fans of another sports team, and some people of one sex attack people of another sex, and some people in all these groups and more attack each other.

Might I suggest you lay off the stereotyping and black and white thinking a little?


Ironically in calling everyone who does not believe as you do an idiot, you are the individual posting in this thread who most demonstrates this trait. Evidently, the article and research certainly do not entail that having a particular belief is correlated with stupidity.


ok.