Step 1: Look at mental skills/patterns that supposedly make you better at math or science (you get more Dawkins Points if you use a laughably small and non-diverse sample size, with a multiplier if you make up your own tests for any of these skills/thought patterns). Step 2: Arbitrarily equate a range of paranormal and religious beliefs without trying to distinguish among them. Step 3: When it turns out that people with those beliefs are more likely to be humanities majors, don't worry about any effects this may have on e.g. level of education in physics. Zzzzzzz
People who do believe in higher powers or the paranormal are one of two things. Almost always, and as was my case for a long period of time, I observe that it is the latter. We know and see that the world does not indicate any reason for higher powers, but fear the implications of that being false. What people who believe lack is only the culture and settings required to eeke them out of their views and into a place where they are comfortable exploring and changing the views that they hold. These things, I feel, attach religion to people. We fear the "infinite death and pain", that changes the weights and makes the cost-benefit calculation of following a religion skewed in religion's favor. We fear the fact that, without a God to guide us and show us good and evil we would be out there stabbing and stealing and murdering without guilt. We fear we'd be without help when others come to do bad things to us. We fear that our parents will hear our changes and see their child about to go to hell, about to abandon morality, a death more permanent than anything else, someone here to steal their eternal life, rather than their son or daughter who they love. Truth comes at cost. To call those who cannot overcome the barriers I just listed as stupid, idiotic, or anything but reasonable is in itself stupid. Those who believe in religion are people held hostage by their culture and their fears. If you are an atheist and want to see them change, free them rather than belittling them. Not understanding of the nature of the physical world. Emotionally invested or socially invested in their belief system. Fear of hell. Abandonment of morality. Abandonment of culture and family.
Hint: saying that believers are that way because they're scared of what will happen if they're not is not this. I mean, I guess it's condescending rather than belittling, if you want to split hairs. You have some very stereotypical beliefs about what religion and the religious are actually like. It's also a wildly arrogant viewpoint on your part. "People would agree with me if only they could understand my view of the world, but they can't, because they're too stuck in their culture." Remember that the people who're loudest about their beliefs aren't typically representative.free them rather than belittling them
What people who believe lack is only the culture and settings required to eeke them out of their views and into a place where they are comfortable exploring and changing the views that they hold.
This is a very very simplified version of what I said. What I described was based purely in my own personal experience with religion, and the behavior of all religious people I have seen up to this point. When someone I see gives me a reason, a valid reason, they hold a belief that isn't past culture or the things I had holding myself to religious beliefs, I will consider that viewpoint as well. Again, if my beliefs about what religious people look like are stereotypical, then I have been living a stereotype when speaking to friends, family, etc, watching debates on religious beliefs, and so on. I am not someone with no exposure to religious beliefs, and unless you have a valid alternative to what I have said I do not feel like you are doing anything other than leaping to the defense of something without having real backing for why you are doing so.saying that believers are that way because they're scared of what will happen if they're not is not this
It's a simplified version of what? You yourself acknowledge that you're stereotyping, and it's hard to get much simpler than that. Maybe all the religious people in your life really are coming at it from this perspective, but perhaps your own preconceived notions are influencing how you interpret what they say and do?
Again, just saying I'm wrong will change nothing, you need a concrete and valid example of why exactly religious people may be believing in what they do. If the examples are not concrete or valid, it is an example of a person falling into the first category I didn't discuss in detail, plan stupidity or lack of understanding of logic/the physical world.
You're coming at this from a place that's surprisingly common atheists: assuming that your life experience and the whole of human experience are equivalent.
I'm not repeating myself, I'm showing a couple of ways that your own viewpoint is myopic (which you've sorta acknowledged by admitting that you're stereotyping). That's really my only goal ... I'm not particularly interested in justifying my faith to you.
This claim of stereotyping is not a valid one without some form of backing for the idea of why it is, in fact, stereotyping. I can claim that men in general are going to be stupid, and you can show statistics to me about how a very good number of men are quite intelligent to prove me wrong. That is an example of an incorrect stereotype that I was using. I didn't ask you to justify your faith. I just want a logical and reasoned point of view that a religious person might have, which I did not consider, that would be the basis in why my views are false stereotypes rather than relatively accurate judgement of a large group. The only thing I can think of that I didn't mention in any capacity is the "Absolute and unquestionable knowledge that a higher power exist when looking onto the world" that I spent quite some time looking for through middle and high-school. That reason is little more than saying "I believe this for no reason other than I feel it is true." which isn't a reason at all, cannot be debated or discussed, and is generally useless in the context of the post I had just made. I wasn't describing you, I was describing religious people in general and how I, as an atheist, and others, should go about treating their religious beliefs in order to best undermine them by way of first understanding them. I quite well think that the post I made is a lot more positive and cooperative than the impressions given in the article, or the idea that religious people are just stupid and don't understand the physical world. If you have something better or a proper and concrete reason for me being incorrect, I'm happy to hear it, but otherwise this whole conversation is a waste of time for the both of us.
Then why did you yourself say that's what you were doing? Again, your argument is basically "I haven't thought of any way that makes sense, so there isn't any." This is what I meant when I referred to your presumption that your life experience is all-encompassing. If you can't even acknowledge that there may be other ways of thinking (rather than pre-judging anything I could say), you're not really listening. So...you were describing religious people "in general," I'm a religious person, but you weren't describing me? At least have the courage of your convictions, especially if you're presumptuous enough to have "undermining" religious beliefs as a goal. The sheer arrogance that it takes to both be so certain about the nature of the universe and to believe we all need to be saved by you is nothing short of incredible. I don't need your protection from myself, thanks.This claim of stereotyping is not a valid one
I wasn't describing you, I was describing religious people in general and how I, as an atheist, and others, should go about treating their religious beliefs in order to best undermine them by way of first understanding them.
My thought on this is that many people who have a high level of religious/paranormal belief give up their understanding of the physical world in order to minimize cognitive dissonance and also why try to understand physics/the water cycle when 'God's got it'?
No understanding of: - Frame of reference (as a concept), - Mistaking mass with density, - Vectors, - Acceleration. And telling me to repeat first semester physics and Cavendish experiment. WTF?! I can't believe I didn't hear him smacking his lips. Because when you are this stupid you need to keep peanut butter in your mouth to remind you off breathing. It's not even 5 AM here and I'm just exasperated. Thanks, man. I don't need my morning coffee. :P
He's one of the smart ones. The moon is a hologram after all That object at the beginning? you can see the damn bird's wings moving. The "wave" is an artefact of the Canon camera.It's not even 5 AM here and I'm just exasperated. Thanks, man. I don't need my morning coffee. :P
I can't get to the study. There's just an abstract there. All it says is that religious and paranormal belief is predicted based on poor understanding of the physical world. I'm thinking there must be definitions that they used to make that work. China has one of the lowest rates of religion. The US has some of the highest rates of religion. Are they saying that people in the US have the highest rates of poor understanding of the physical world (whatever that means) compared to people around the world? I'm very skeptical.
bfv posted a link to the full study. It looks a little shady while you're doing the captcha, but it's legit.