Some Questions For Atheists

[Corpuscles]

Please do not put all Christians in the same boat as those people.

Please could you explain why, you think you are a true Christian?

How do you know your "Heinz 57 special flavour" is the one wwweally twwooly correct one?

.... no need for proof, anything you say, (within logic & reason) I will accept as fact!

 

[BomberGal]

This crap about the earth being 1000's of years old is only put forward by fundamentalist nut jobs. No one believes the world is 1000's of years old, the pope said the OT is not to be taken literally. The problem with people looking into Christianity is that they know very little about it and thus make stupid comments that just make them look bigoted.

The bible makes no claim to the age of the Earth, rather fundamentalist preachers have. Please do not put all Christians in the same boat as those people.

Um, sadly I know plenty of people who believe the earth is only thousands of years old.

 

[BomberGal]

Do as you would be done by

Its as simple as that.

Which is not Christian at all but in fact a message that pops up in every single religion, is prevalent throughout secular philosophy, and is often the first thing suggested when people are asked to create a single golden rule.

 

[Bretski]

And thats the same reason good things happen...religious nutters and god botherers like you are brain washed sheep ..and you have the temerity to question others intelligence.
Stupid stupid thread from a stupid stupid person .

Oi don't assume he's one of thoes religious "nutters". Sure there are plenty of religious nutters who think everything that looks like God intervention IS God intervention, but they are the "nutters", Linga happens to be one of the sensible ones, did you make that comment before researching his integrity?

 

[medusala]

You think the four gospels comprise of one verse? Come on med, you aint fooling anyone, especially me, that Christianity is just some fuzzy be a nice guy religion. You can pretend it is but the only person you're convincing is yourself.

you are way out of step with Australia on this one.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@...bfdda1ca506d6cfaca2570de0014496e!OpenDocument

In response to the 2001 Census of Population and Housing question, stated religious affiliations were: 27% Catholic; 21% Anglican; 21% other Christian denominations; and 5% non-Christian religions. Just over a quarter of all persons either stated they had no religion, or did not adequately respond to the question to enable classification of their religion

 

[fairdinkum]

you are way out of step with Australia on this one.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/46d1bc47ac9d0c7bca256c470025ff87/bfdda1ca506d6cfaca2570de0014496e!OpenDocument

In response to the 2001 Census of Population and Housing question, stated religious affiliations were: 27% Catholic; 21% Anglican; 21% other Christian denominations; and 5% non-Christian religions. Just over a quarter of all persons either stated they had no religion, or did not adequately respond to the question to enable classification of their religion

And how many of these people actually go to church? If I were to tell you right now 'I am a Christian', does my saying so make it so?

 

[medusala]

And how many of these people actually go to church? If I were to tell you right now 'I am a Christian', does my saying so make it so?

Why do you have to go to Church to be a Christian?

If I say I am a Christian, who are you to tell me I'm not?

 

[Richo83]

you are way out of step with Australia on this one.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@...bfdda1ca506d6cfaca2570de0014496e!OpenDocument

In response to the 2001 Census of Population and Housing question, stated religious affiliations were: 27% Catholic; 21% Anglican; 21% other Christian denominations; and 5% non-Christian religions. Just over a quarter of all persons either stated they had no religion, or did not adequately respond to the question to enable classification of their religion

And this disproves my point how? The majority of Australians said they were Christian, doesn't disprove my argument.

 

[Butane]

My g/f ticked Christian(catholic) in the last census.

Silly bitch doesn't believe in god at all. But considers herself Catholic because her grandparents were and her parents were as well even though they didn't believe in god or a god.

 

[MadMac]

My g/f ticked Christian(catholic) in the last census.

Silly bitch doesn't believe in god at all. But considers herself Catholic because her grandparents were and her parents were as well even though they didn't believe in god or a god.

That is soooo un-Christian

 

[Niximus]

My g/f ticked Christian(catholic) in the last census.

Silly bitch doesn't believe in god at all. But considers herself Catholic because her grandparents were and her parents were as well even though they didn't believe in god or a god.

My GF too. The stupid thing is that when I question her, her beliefs are nothing near that of the Catholic Church. She only identifies herself as a Catholic because of the family connection.

 

[Sloth]

1) If God does not exist then we all get the same feat. Mother Theresa ends up as the same Hitler, and 6 million bugs being killed is equivalent to the holocaust as life is not worth anything.

Yeah so? Deal with it.

 

[fairdinkum]

Why do you have to go to Church to be a Christian?

If I say I am a Christian, who are you to tell me I'm not?

Here is why I asked:

My g/f ticked Christian(catholic) in the last census.

Silly bitch doesn't believe in god at all. But considers herself Catholic because her grandparents were and her parents were as well even though they didn't believe in god or a god.

My GF too. The stupid thing is that when I question her, her beliefs are nothing near that of the Catholic Church. She only identifies herself as a Catholic because of the family connection.

Add to these that my girlfriend would have done the exact same thing. Her mum still prays to god every night and is a devout Catholic. My girlfriend leads a very un-catholic lifestyle and yet I'd bet any amount of money that she, too, would tick 'catholic' or 'christian' simply because of her mother.

My point is that ticking a box doesn't make someone a Christian. Unless you are about to explain to me how my typing 'I am a Christian' makes me a Christian?

 

[Corpuscles]

Our esteemed Op doesn't seem to be around to answer my question

But it amuses me as to how the fundies and to a certain extent the mainstream ( Billy Graham etc) introduce by ritual Christain lost sheeps into the "flock"

They ask them to come down the front and accept JC as their saviour to come into their heart etc blah blah... then apparently this ghost comes inside them to take over control!

Having scoured the "heaven sent rule book" I can't find any reference whatsoever to such ritual or application form process!

The closest is apparently JC said to a religious wealthy Jew... "you must be born again"... and apparently after JC ascended the creator of Christianity (a Roman named Paul) observed everyone blabbering in foreign languages... so he reckoned it must be a sign of that special ghost!!!....thus the modern mock up ritual.

Funny thing is JC also later says to Nicodemus the wealthy Jew... "sell all you have and give to the poor".. but somehow that part isn't in the modern ritual!????? (It has now been modified to buy a book and donate part of your income regularly../ only the church and/or pope know what mercedes benz cars and lear jets would please the poor!)

 

[medusala]

And this disproves my point how? The majority of Australians said they were Christian, doesn't disprove my argument.

sure it does. you think Christianity is an inherently evil and subversive institution.

Would people tick yes if they shared that view?

 

[Blues_Man]

sure it does. you think Christianity is an inherently evil and subversive institution.

Would people tick yes if they shared that view?

It appears many were dragged along to sunday school by their god bothering parents who were dragged along by their god bothering parents ..and so here we are today with god botherers dragging their poor kids along to be brainwashed.

Many of the young ones grow up and get some education and realise ."hey this is bullshit..theres no santa claus no tooth fairy no boogy man and no God !"
Others just continue along in their stupididity, just happy to have a crutch to lean on, and continue perpetuating the god myth.

Most are harmless but many are pure trouble makers.

 

[btdg]

My GF too. The stupid thing is that when I question her, her beliefs are nothing near that of the Catholic Church. She only identifies herself as a Catholic because of the family connection.

Agreed. Many intelligent people raised in Christian families realise the inherent contradictions and stupidity of the whole shebang, and give up their religion early on in life. But its just far easier to continue pretending to 'believe' rather than explain to parents (or particularly grandparents) that you are an atheist.

I'm an atheist, my girlfriend is an atheist, both of our parents are non-christian 'believers' who basically just tick a box on the form, but if we ever got married, it would be in a church in a religious ceremony. If it wasn't, the shock would kill off half of the older generation of the family, and the other half would disown us (particularly the evangelical cousins who keep hassling us to go along to their church)

 

[medusala]

Many of the young ones grow up and get some education and realise ."hey this is bullshit..theres no santa claus no tooth fairy no boogy man and no God !"

Do you think there is a negative correlation between faith and IQ?

 

[btdg]

Do you think there is a negative correlation between faith and IQ?

Yes!

 

[Chase the Ace]

Do you think there is a negative correlation between faith and IQ?

Clearly

 

[btdg]

To lend more support to that proposition, check out this series of studies on the topic:

STUDIES OF STUDENTS

1. Thomas Howells, 1927
Study of 461 students showed religiously conservative students "are, in general, relatively inferior in intellectual ability."

2. Hilding Carlsojn, 1933
Study of 215 students showed that "there is a tendency for the more intelligent undergraduate to be sympathetic toward… atheism."

3. Abraham Franzblau, 1934
Confirming Howells and Carlson, tested 354 Jewish children, aged 10-16. Found a negative correlation between religiosity and IQ as measured by the Terman intelligence test.

4. Thomas Symington, 1935
Tested 400 young people in colleges and church groups. He reported, "There is a constant positive relation in all the groups between liberal religious thinking and mental ability… There is also a constant positive relation between liberal scores and intelligence…"

5. Vernon Jones, 1938
Tested 381 students, concluding "a slight tendency for intelligence and liberal attitudes to go together."

6. A. R. Gilliland, 1940
At variance with all other studies, found "little or no relationship between intelligence and attitude toward god."

7. Donald Gragg, 1942
Reported an inverse correlation between 100 ACE freshman test scores and Thurstone "reality of god" scores.

test
scores 100
50%
119
80%
%
rank
test rank test rank
believers non-believers
8. Brown and Love, 1951
At the University of Denver, tested 613 male and female students. The mean test scores of non-believers was 119 points, and for believers it was 100. The non-believers ranked in the 80th percentile, and believers in the 50th. Their findings "strongly corroborate those of Howells."

9. Michael Argyle, 1958
Concluded that "although intelligent children grasp religious concepts earlier, they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and intelligent students are much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs."

10. Jeffrey Hadden, 1963
Found no correlation between intelligence and grades. This was an anomalous finding, since GPA corresponds closely with intelligence. Other factors may have influenced the results at the University of Wisconsin.

11. Young, Dustin and Holtzman, 1966
Average religiosity decreased as GPA rose.

12. James Trent, 1967
Polled 1400 college seniors. Found little difference, but high-ability students in his sample group were over-represented.

13. C. Plant and E. Minium, 1967
The more intelligent students were less religious, both before entering college and after 2 years of college.

14. Robert Wuthnow, 1978
Of 532 students, 37 percent of Christians, 58 percent of apostates, and 53 percent of non-religious scored above average on SATs.

15. Hastings and Hoge, 1967, 1974
Polled 200 college students and found no significant correlations.

mean
SATs 1022
1108
1119
1148

group religious slightly
anti-
religious moderately
anti-
religious strongly
anti-
religious
16. Norman Poythress, 1975
Mean SATs for strongly anti-
religious (1148), moderately anti-religious (1119), slightly anti-religious (1108), and religious (1022).

17. Wiebe and Fleck, 1980
Studied 158 male and female Canadian university students. They reported "nonreligious S's tended to be strongly intelligent" and "more intelligent than religious S's."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STUDENT BODY COMPARISONS

1. Rose Goldsen, 1952
Percentage of students who believe in a divine god: Harvard 30; UCLA 32; Dartmouth 35; Yale 36; Cornell 42; Wayne 43; Weslyan 43; Michigan 45; Fisk 60; Texas 62; North Carolina 68.

2. National Review Study, 1970
Percentage of students who believe in a Spirit or Divine God: Reed 15; Brandeis 25; Sarah Lawrence 28; Williams 36; Stanford 41; Boston U. 41; Yale 42; Howard 47; Indiana 57; Davidson 59; S. Carolina 65; Marquette 77.

3. Caplovitz and Sherrow, 1977
Apostasy rates rose continuously from 5 percent in "low" ranked schools to 17 percent in "high" ranked schools.

4. Niemi, Ross, and Alexander, 1978
In elite schools, organized religion was judged important by only 26 percent of their students, compared with 44 percent of all students.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STUDIES OF VERY-HIGH IQ GROUPS

%
among
IQ>140 10%
18%
62%
57%
28%
23%

belief ♂ ♀ ♂ ♀ ♂ ♀
strong little none
1. Terman, 1959
Studied group with IQ's over 140. Of men, 10 percent held strong religious belief, of women 18 percent. Sixty-two percent of men and 57 percent of women claimed "little religious inclination" while 28 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women claimed it was "not at all important."

2. Warren and Heist, 1960
Found no differences among National Merit Scholars. Results may have been effected by the fact that NM scholars are not selected on the basis of intelligence or grades alone, but also on "leadership" and such like.

3. Southern and Plant, 1968
Studied 42 male and 30 female members of Mensa. Mensa members were much less religious in belief than the typical American college alumnus or adult.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STUDIES Of SCIENTISTS

1. William S. Ament, 1927
C. C. Little, president of the University of Michigan, checked persons listed in Who's Who in America: "Unitarians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Universalists, and Presbyterians [who are less religious] are… far more numerous in Who's Who than would be expected on the basis of the population which they form. Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics are distinctly less numerous."

Ament confirmed Little's conclusion. He noted that Unitarians, the least religious, were more than 40 times as numerous in Who's Who as in the U.S. population.

2. Lehman and Witty, 1931
Identified 1189 scientists found in both Who's Who (1927) and American Men of Science (1927). Only 25 percent of those listed in the latter and 50 percent of those in the former reported their religious denomination, despite the specific request to do so, under the heading of "religious denomination (if any)." Well over 90 percent of the general population claims religious affiliation. The figure of 25 percent suggests far less religiosity among scientists.

Unitarians were 81.4 times as numerous among eminent scientists as non-Unitarians.

3. Kelley and Fisk, 1951
Found a negative (-.39) correlation between the strength of religious values and research competence. [How these were measured is unknown.]

4. Ann Roe, 1953
Interviewed 64 "eminent scientists, nearly all members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences or the American Philosophical Society. She reported that, while nearly all of them had religious parents and had attended Sunday school, 'now only three of these men are seriously active in church. A few others attend upon occasion, or even give some financial support to a church which they do not attend… All the others have long since dismissed religion as any guide to them, and the church plays no part in their lives… A few are militantly atheistic, but most are just not interested.'"

5. Francis Bello, 1954
Interviewed or questionnaired 107 nonindustrial scientists under the age of 40 judged by senior colleagues to be outstanding. Of the 87 responses, 45 percent claimed to be "agnostic or atheistic" and an additional 22 percent claimed no religious affiliation. For 20 most eminent, "the proportion who are now a-religious is considerably higher than in the entire survey group."

6. Jack Chambers, 1964
Questionnaired 740 US psychologists and chemists. He reported, "The highly creative men… significantly more often show either no preference for a particular religion or little or no interest in religion." Found that the most eminent psychologists showed 40 percent no preference, 16 percent for the most eminent chemists.

7. Vaughan, Smith, and Sjoberg, 1965
Polled 850 US physicists, zoologists, chemical engineers, and geologists listed in American Men of Science (1955) on church membership, and attendance patterns, and belief in afterlife. Of the 642 replies, 38.5 percent did not believe in an afterlife, whereas 31.8 percent did. Belief in immortality was less common among major university staff than among those employed by business, government, or minor universities. The Gallup poll taken about this time showed that two-thirds of the U.S. population believed in an afterlife, so scientists were far less religious than the typical adult.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conclusion

The consensus here is clear: more intelligent people tend not to believe in religion. And this observation is given added force when you consider that the above studies span a broad range of time, subjects and methodologies, and yet arrive at the same conclusion.

This is the result even when the researchers are Christian conservatives themselves. One such researcher is George Gallup. Here are the results of a Fall 1995 Gallup poll:

Percentage of respondents who agreed with the following statements:

Religion is Religion can
"very important "answer all or most
Respondents in their life" of today's problems"
------------------------------------------------------------
Attended college 53 percent 58 percent
No college 63 65

Income over $50,000 48 56
$30,000 - $50,000 56 62
$20,000 - $30,000 56 60
Under $20,000 66 66

Source: http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Intelligence & religion.htm

 

[medusala]

very small sample sizes.

4 and 5??? liberals are more intelligent? Please.

One wonders why Christian countries are so much wealthier than non Christian countries?

Why is there such a big correlation between state atheism and poverty?

STUDIES OF STUDENTS

1. Thomas Howells, 1927
Study of 461 students showed religiously conservative students "are, in general, relatively inferior in intellectual ability."

2. Hilding Carlsojn, 1933
Study of 215 students showed that "there is a tendency for the more intelligent undergraduate to be sympathetic toward… atheism."

3. Abraham Franzblau, 1934
Confirming Howells and Carlson, tested 354 Jewish children, aged 10-16. Found a negative correlation between religiosity and IQ as measured by the Terman intelligence test.

4. Thomas Symington, 1935
Tested 400 young people in colleges and church groups. He reported, "There is a constant positive relation in all the groups between liberal religious thinking and mental ability… There is also a constant positive relation between liberal scores and intelligence…"

5. Vernon Jones, 1938
Tested 381 students, concluding "a slight tendency for intelligence and liberal attitudes to go together."

6. A. R. Gilliland, 1940
At variance with all other studies, found "little or no relationship between intelligence and attitude toward god."

7. Donald Gragg, 1942
Reported an inverse correlation between 100 ACE freshman test scores and Thurstone "reality of god" scores.

 

[skilts]

very small sample sizes.

4 and 5??? liberals are more intelligent? Please.

One wonders why Christian countries are so much wealthier than non Christian countries?

Why is there such a big correlation between state atheism and poverty?

I presume you mean that christian countries are wealthier than those who follow a different team, and are situated in the Middle East, among a shitload of oil.

 

[medusala]

I presume you mean that christian countries are wealthier than those who follow a different team, and are situated in the Middle East, among a shitload of oil.

atheists/communists havent done so well

 

[fairdinkum]

Do you think there is a negative correlation between faith and IQ?

Richard Dawkins certainly does!

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