Joe Rogan-Religion is helpful for dumb people

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I am not implying religious people are dumb people although quite a few are, religion seems to be just a useful tool for dumb people. Caution some cursing in the vid but the guy is fairly spot on.

I can agree that there are many dumb people and bigots among Christians, but so what? Dumb people are everywhere.
The problem is when you say that religion is "JUST a useful tool for dump people", because you are saying that it is the only use of religion, implying that all religious people are weak-minded simpletons.

My mom believes in GOD because she says, "he must exist, because so many people believe in him".

She once argued , "Do you think they would build all those beautiful religious buildings in Italy if he didn't exist?".

He is an embarrassment to atheists. His argument is more or less that average people use religion as a way to avoid existential terror. That may be true in many cases, but why is it dumb?

Why the Christian God? Do you think the ancient Egyptians would have built their pyramids if the gods they worshipped didn't exist?

If not believing in someone's deities means you're insulting them, by disrespecting their life's work, then there's absolutely no way not to insult a lot of people, both in the present and in the past.

I dunno, even though I'm mostly deist, I can't easily write off religion like that; speaking exclusively of Christians, while there are certainly negative aspects to fundamentalist strains, I can't overlook the tremendous amount of charitable endeavors many denominations contribute towards. Saying that someone motivated by their own Christian morality to partake in community service is somehow dumber than a non-religious person motivated by humanism to do the same job is arrogantly nonsensical to me. It reminds me of a great Onion article titled "Local Church Full Of Brainwashed Idiots Feeds Town’s Poor Every Week".

What I do think is dumb is blind dogmatic adherence, e.g. "I believe in this because it's what my parents believed!". Those who are unquestioningly swayed by the words of their pastors, televangelists or, worst of all, politicians as to what their beliefs are are the close-minded "dumb people" likely being referred to. Accepting any man-made doctrine as rigid truth is a major intellectual disadvantage in my eyes.

Then again, we're weighing centuries and centuries of theology against the guy who hosted a show where people ate bugs for money, so take it all with a grain of salt.

Big talk for a guy like Rogan

I've noticed there are many atheists who are more obsessed with religion and God than most theists seem to be. 'AspieOtaku', is this the third or fourth such discussion about this that you have started here?

evangelicals can be of any stripe, though I will admit that internet atheists(like the ones on youtube) tend to be vocal, and not always in a pleasant fashion.

This of course coming from the guy who drove The Man Show into the ground.
I actually liked that show, so I'm still holding a grudge.

She is Christian, however, the same principal applies everywhere.

People see huge numbers of people, and fantastic buildings and conclude: All these people can't be wrong. There must be a GOD.

It has been said that ASD people are less likely to accept "group-think" of being loyal to a group, and accepting their thinking in place of our own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

So, perhaps, her beliefs seem strange to you.

You're off by at least an order of magnitude...

You mean her belief that Christians must be right because they make nice buildings?

She believes that GOD must exist, because his worshipers are making all these beautiful buildings. She doesn't think they would waste their time on it if he didn't exist.

Her beliefs don't seem strange to him because he has ASD, but because they are strange.

I don't think they are strange. They are likely the dominate type of thinking.

You accept that a group of people knows more than you, and you use their opinion as your own.

There are famous psychology experiments about this called the "Asch conformity experiments" that indicated humans will conform to the group opinion -- even when the group opinion is clearly wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conf ... xperiments

Again, as I noted above, ASD people are said to be less inclined towards "group think", so perhaps, you are less inclined to utilize a groups's opinion as your own.