Kishkumen wrote: There are clear advantages to living in a strong religious community, even if it means hanging out with a larger number of intellectually mediocre people to avail yourself of such benefits.
Spoken like a true elitist.
Kishkumen wrote:So, for those who prize their intellectual vanity above all else, such a study will provide them a wonderful sense of affirmation. Those who may not be so eager to pat themselves on the back, however, may take a more tempered approach to this research.
I am glad you are not eager to pat yourself on the back!
It is a pity that you've never known Christianity.
Jaybear wrote: Here is the results of a survey of NAS scientists in 1998 published in Nature that supports the correlation:
Our chosen group of "greater" scientists were members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality).
To be considered more intelligent you have to submit to the cult of academia. Worse you have to believe in crap like evolution. In other words lay down your brain to take up a new brain conceived in the coven of the robes with stripes and chains and medallions. And because of overkill of information where thousands of universities CRANK out hundreds of publications each per year flooding every field fraud is likely out of control....just to keep the money coming in. No other cult on the planet is more authoritarian with an hierarchy of absolute tyrannical fanaticism that will pulverize and destroy all dissent (talk about your alpha male baboons!) than the accepted LEARNED INTELLIGENTSIA.
If that does not count for a religion what does? So all you got is the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the prudent...which shall fail.
Great! Does this mean I can trade in my 'religious believer' card for a boost in IQ (or well-roundedness, or moral excellence, or intelligence)? Facepalm.
Stranger, please don't shoot me Or hate me for a fraud: I am just the messenger Of your inscrutable God.
I am delighted to hear that there are nowadays so many atheists and so vocal that they are actually annoying believers on a major scale. Sounds like things are evening up at last.
But alas, it will take centuries of effort before atheists will have done as much sheer pig-ignorant annoying of believers as believers have inflicted on atheists in the past.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Chap wrote:I am delighted to hear that there are nowadays so many atheists and so vocal that they are actually annoying believers on a major scale. Sounds like things are evening up at last.
But alas, it will take centuries of effort before atheists will have done as much sheer pig-ignorant annoying of believers as believers have inflicted on atheists in the past.
Chap wrote:I am delighted to hear that there are nowadays so many atheists and so vocal that they are actually annoying believers on a major scale. Sounds like things are evening up at last.
But alas, it will take centuries of effort before atheists will have done as much sheer pig-ignorant annoying of believers as believers have inflicted on atheists in the past.
Er, Brendan O'Neill is an atheist.
So? The only thing I have to have in common with another atheist is a lack of belief in a deity.
If there happens to be an atheist who finds other atheists annoying, betcha that believers are finding them even more annoying.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
In a 2008 global Gallup poll, nearly 70% of Australians stated religion as having no importance,[21] much higher than their American counterparts and on par with similarly secular countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, Finland and France. Only a few Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark) and post-Soviet states (Estonia) are markedly less religious.
Along with that, we've had several atheist prime ministers, including the last one, Julia Gillard (now replaced by Kevin Rudd).
An Aussie contemplating the growing Christian and Islamic threat:
