Are athiests more intelligent than theists?

[mr. incrediball]

everybody considers themselves intelectually superior to each other in some way.

[Neoteny]

everybody considers themselves intelectually superior to each other in some way.

I am amazing at making up latinized phrases. The champion, I would say... et omnus chronos...

[mr. incrediball]

everybody considers themselves intelectually superior to each other in some way.

I am amazing at making up latinized phrases. The champion, I would say... et omnus chronos...

bingo

[got tonkaed]

I was thinking that GT was good at debate...until now.

at 21 there are many things that is you just don't know...

thats fair, i cant really argue against the fact that i dont have a whole lot of life experience. I can sort of only be what i am to a point i guess though, i cant exactly wind the clock forward.

Out of curiosity though, why does my age make me less of a debater (though id probably argue im not a very good one)

admittedly that is much more clever when i realize what i have actually said.

[Colossus]

Neo, I'm not drawing any conclusions of the validity or invalidity of your conclusion that God as an explanation is a bigger leap of faith than 'nothing' or 'unexplained' as an explanation. All I'm driving at is that quantitation of which belief is a bigger leap of faith is impossible. So, your argument that believing in God is a bigger approximation than your view is should be presented with a recognition that such a view is from your perspective. No one can tell you that your perspective in this case is wrong, just as you cannot reasonably tell anyone else that they're perspective is wrong, because neither perspective (God or not God) is disprovable. That's all I'm saying. This is where the faith comes in, like I said before, and that has to be a personal choice.

Your acknowledgment that there are aspects of nature that are beyond man's grasp is a recognition of something larger than man. An irretrievable complexity that cannot be understood. Whether that is simply Nature or the Universe or the Infinite or whatever, it is still fundamentally a recognition that there is something greater. Assignment of personality or sentience to that something greater is not a requirement for that something greater to be defined as God. In many eastern religions, the concept of God is basically 'that which is greater than man.' You refer to God as a concept that has connotations, but it has only the connotations that you assign it. If one is raised in the US, then the only god one is exposed to is the God of Abraham. That is certainly not the only definition of God that man has come up with. You mention that you have looked into a variety of religious writings....have they been restricted to judeo-christian writings? If so, I would suggest that you check out some Eastern writings, as I've found them to contain a lot of wisdom and insight.

When we started this conversation, you presented a very open-minded impression. Your last few posts (basically since OnlyAmbrose popped in) have seemed much more decidedly close-minded. You refer to any believer, it seems, as a 'religionist', seemingly lumping anyone who has faith in a God in with those who zealously follow the teachings of a single religion. If you've made up your mind that anyone who professes a belief in any form of higher sentience (God) is an idiot, then you are basically answering the question posed in the start of the thread with a resounding 'yes'. You say that is not your intention, yet you clearly are arguing that faith in God is the refuge of a weak mind.

If you agree that either viewpoint (God or not God) is a matter of faith, then arguments over what is a larger leap of faith are completely relative and must be left for parties to listen to each other's reasons openly in an effort to perhaps learn or understand more or simply to agree to disagree.

[Neoteny]

Neo, I'm not drawing any conclusions of the validity or invalidity of your conclusion that God as an explanation is a bigger leap of faith than 'nothing' or 'unexplained' as an explanation. All I'm driving at is that quantitation of which belief is a bigger leap of faith is impossible. So, your argument that believing in God is a bigger approximation than your view is should be presented with a recognition that such a view is from your perspective. No one can tell you that your perspective in this case is wrong, just as you cannot reasonably tell anyone else that they're perspective is wrong, because neither perspective (God or not God) is disprovable. That's all I'm saying. This is where the faith comes in, like I said before, and that has to be a personal choice.

Your acknowledgment that there are aspects of nature that are beyond man's grasp is a recognition of something larger than man. An irretrievable complexity that cannot be understood. Whether that is simply Nature or the Universe or the Infinite or whatever, it is still fundamentally a recognition that there is something greater. Assignment of personality or sentience to that something greater is not a requirement for that something greater to be defined as God. In many eastern religions, the concept of God is basically 'that which is greater than man.' You refer to God as a concept that has connotations, but it has only the connotations that you assign it. If one is raised in the US, then the only god one is exposed to is the God of Abraham. That is certainly not the only definition of God that man has come up with. You mention that you have looked into a variety of religious writings....have they been restricted to judeo-christian writings? If so, I would suggest that you check out some Eastern writings, as I've found them to contain a lot of wisdom and insight.

When we started this conversation, you presented a very open-minded impression. Your last few posts (basically since OnlyAmbrose popped in) have seemed much more decidedly close-minded. You refer to any believer, it seems, as a 'religionist', seemingly lumping anyone who has faith in a God in with those who zealously follow the teachings of a single religion. If you've made up your mind that anyone who professes a belief in any form of higher sentience (God) is an idiot, then you are basically answering the question posed in the start of the thread with a resounding 'yes'. You say that is not your intention, yet you clearly are arguing that faith in God is the refuge of a weak mind.

If you agree that either viewpoint (God or not God) is a matter of faith, then arguments over what is a larger leap of faith are completely relative and must be left for parties to listen to each other's reasons openly in an effort to perhaps learn or understand more or simply to agree to disagree.

Well, an agreement to disagree is intellectually unsatisfying to me, but I've done it in the past. For example, I don't see any other choice than to do so as far as quantification of uncertainty. I think it is possible. I'll reveal my appreciation for Dawkins by citing statistics as a valuable tool in this instance. The idea that we can use statistics to measure the probability of everything except for god is nonsensical to me. Given, we can't quantify it exactly, but the underlying aspects of god in an anthrompomorphic sense (discussion of this, see below) make error bars irrelevant. If you've read Dawkins, you should know the gist of my argument. Any contention on the specifics are welcome.

For clarification, I suppose I should define my terms. Religionist was a bad word choice. I apologize. In practice, I have met very few deists, or other form of nonreligious believers. I dislike using the term believer, so I tend to use religionist. I will use believer from here on. By god, I think it's safe to say "higher power." That's how my girlfriend, an agnostic, refers to it anyway, and it seems to be consistent even for your eastern religions. Which brings me to my next point...

I'm not sure why eastern religion needs to be brought up. The religions I've had the most contact with are the Abrahamic ones, and they are the ones I reject outright. Even so, though I have no doubt that there is some form of infinite, to label it as greater than man, as in your example, as a higher power, as my girlfriend puts it, or whatever, is, again, unnecessary (wonderful comma usage, I must say). This connotation, particularly "greatness," is universally associated with "higher powers." In a cosmological sense, there is no purpose by which to judge greater or lesser. What does greater imply? Energy? Ability? Ability to do what? Additionally, just because it is out of our grasp doesn't mean that it is greater than us; larger than us. We don't fully know the mechanisms involved in copper transport in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but that doesn't mean there's a higher power operating on it. There requires much more than a lack of knowledge to posit the existence of something.

As for my narrow-mindedness, you might not be far from the truth. I started out from a very open-minded stance at the end of my adolescence (I was Baptist), and proceed through all the stages leading from there to atheism. I think I have become slightly closed-minded because I haven't heard a single new argument in favor of "believing" in the years since I moved away from my own religious perspective. It's a continuous rehashing. I don't consider believers idiots, not only because I was once a believer, but because I think there are far better mechanisms to reflect intelligence than religion. If anything, I see it more as naivety. That's downright condescending, I'll admit. But it's how I see myself during that period of my life, and it's the perspective I can't help but attribute to others. I apologize for any offense, but that's how I feel.

[Colossus]

Here's a question out of left-field for you, neo. Why are you a scientist?

[Dancing Mustard]

Here's a question out of left-field for you, neo. Why are you a scientist?

Because science is true.

Obv.

[Colossus]

Are you a scientist, DM?

[Dancing Mustard]

Depends how you mean the term:

Do I believe in science and not religion? Yes (sorry).

Do I hold a degree in a science discipline? No.

[Guiscard]

Are you for real? I mean, there's validity in the whole "experience with age" thing, but I happen to think that the younger folks here add just as much to the conversation as anyone else, ESPECIALLY gt. Are you seriously going to discredit him as a quality guy to talk to about serious stuff like this just because he's 21?

yeah, there are older folks here, but they maybe number about half of the "debating population", as it were... and I think the got tonkaed, myself, muy thaiguy, and many other younger, high school and college aged folks have added just as much relevant and quality material to philosophy and physics discussions as anyone else. Oftentimes more.

Just sayin'... I'm sure the old guys will back me up on this for the most part, if for no other reason than to defend everyone's favorite poster, gt

Here here.

Startling arrogance from this newly-arrived 'webmaster of 50 sites' character. To be honest, boasting about experience managing websites in an argument about GT's apparent lack of real-world experience isn't the way to go. One of the glories of the internet is both its agelessness and anonymity.

[Colossus]

^ as usual, Guis speaks wisely.

[Colossus]

DM, you just said you 'believe in science.' And you argue that 'science is truth.' Would you please define what you mean by 'truth.'

[Snorri1234]

Are you for real? I mean, there's validity in the whole "experience with age" thing, but I happen to think that the younger folks here add just as much to the conversation as anyone else, ESPECIALLY gt. Are you seriously going to discredit him as a quality guy to talk to about serious stuff like this just because he's 21?

yeah, there are older folks here, but they maybe number about half of the "debating population", as it were... and I think the got tonkaed, myself, muy thaiguy, and many other younger, high school and college aged folks have added just as much relevant and quality material to philosophy and physics discussions as anyone else. Oftentimes more.

Just sayin'... I'm sure the old guys will back me up on this for the most part, if for no other reason than to defend everyone's favorite poster, gt

Here here.

[Dancing Mustard]

Colossus, perhaps first you could try defining the words 'Serious', 'Joke', and 'Business'.

I think that would help us more.

[Guiscard]

Are you for real? I mean, there's validity in the whole "experience with age" thing, but I happen to think that the younger folks here add just as much to the conversation as anyone else, ESPECIALLY gt. Are you seriously going to discredit him as a quality guy to talk to about serious stuff like this just because he's 21?

yeah, there are older folks here, but they maybe number about half of the "debating population", as it were... and I think the got tonkaed, myself, muy thaiguy, and many other younger, high school and college aged folks have added just as much relevant and quality material to philosophy and physics discussions as anyone else. Oftentimes more.

Just sayin'... I'm sure the old guys will back me up on this for the most part, if for no other reason than to defend everyone's favorite poster, gt

Here here.

Wrong hear... What a cocker I am.

[Colossus]

Dancing Mustard, I really enjoy intellectual exchange, so I'm more than willing to discuss these points with you, but sarcastic one-liners aren't going to advance the conversation.

You say that you 'believe' in science, and I'm wondering if you appreciate that a belief in science is little different than belief in God unless you've really done your homework. Science is a big topic, so saying you believe in it is a big statement. If by saying that you believe in science, you mean that there is a deterministic explanation for each and every aspect of physical reality, then you are wrong. That's what much of the discussion of quantum mechanics has been about in this thread. I've made the argument that science has proven that it can never disprove God, and science can only speak about what it can disprove. So, the reason I asked those questions is because you professed a belief in science because it is true, implying that you do not believe in God because He is not true. Following that reasoning, it seems you are suggesting that scientific explanations are evidence for the non-existence of God. That viewpoint is incorrect. If you meant something else, I'd like to understand what you meant.

[Guiscard]

Dancing Mustard, I really enjoy intellectual exchange, so I'm more than willing to discuss these points with you, but sarcastic one-liners aren't going to advance the conversation.

You say that you 'believe' in science, and I'm wondering if you appreciate that a belief in science is little different than belief in God unless you've really done your homework. Science is a big topic, so saying you believe in it is a big statement. If by saying that you believe in science, you mean that there is a deterministic explanation for each and every aspect of physical reality, then you are wrong. That's what much of the discussion of quantum mechanics has been about in this thread. I've made the argument that science has proven that it can never disprove God, and science can only speak about what it can disprove. So, the reason I asked those questions is because you professed a belief in science because it is true, implying that you do not believe in God because He is not true. Following that reasoning, it seems you are suggesting that scientific explanations are evidence for the non-existence of God. That viewpoint is incorrect. If you meant something else, I'd like to understand what you meant.

The problem I have with the notion that science cannot either prove or disprove God (and, indeed, I believe to to be a fairly credible idea) is that it creates such an undefined image of God. My partner's brother does astrophysics, and has a wonderful way of explaining what to my mind are ridiculously intricate and sometimes even pointless notions, and he very much believes in some form of God - as a scientific necessity in fact. But that could be Yahweh, Vishnu, 'The Force' or Harry Potter. It ascribes to the 'God' figure no qualities, no characteristics, and to say we could never comprehend those factors is neither here nor there. Then, when we consider arguments such as the one from entropy in the other thread and things like the problem of evil, I come to the conclusion realised by Dostoevsky's Ivan in the Brothers Karamazov - If there is a God he is unworthy of my recognition. To me, such an arbitrary nature puts God within science, a force or a theory or a state or something. It is not a God whatsoever.

That probably makes very little sense.

[Colossus]

I think I follow you to some extent, but problem I have with trying to establish some language for describing God is that doing so necessarily systematizes God (which, indeed all religious teachings do to some extent). This is a limitation of human analysis, not necessarily a limitation on God. Have you ever read Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Thread? It's all about the fact that no system can be understood except with reference from outside the system. So, we run into a fundamental problem when we try to formalize anything infinite. Because of this, I think that science has little to say on God with the exception of what aspects of the natural world are explainable by non-supernatural mechanisms. Until the advent of quantum physics, it seemed that mankind would potentially discover natural processes behind every cause and effect that could be described and understood by us. Quantum mechanics makes such understanding impossible. Unless it is replaced by something that explains the data better, from a scientific viewpoint, the perspective the science cannot disprove God seems to be required in order to accept the best understanding of the universe the man has yet devised. As for the undefined nature of this God...well, I think that's about as right as we're going to get. We are little specks, very finite in a vast universe, and if there is an infinite being, it is unreasonable to expect that we could really understand that being's actions, motivations, or true nature.

[Guiscard]

We are little specks, very finite in a vast universe, and if there is an infinite being, it is unreasonable to expect that we could really understand that being's actions, motivations, or true nature.

This is sort of my point. To me, such a being simply is not God. I agree with the rest of your post (I think), and I agree with this too. I think that this 'being' would fall within the bracket of Science for me. Quantum Physics is so drastically different from, say, molecular biology yet they are still one and the same in terms of being 'science'.

[Colossus]

What do you mean by 'fall within the bracket of science for me'? You say that like what is and what is not within the realm of scientific investigation is somehow subjective. It isn't.

[Guiscard]

What do you mean by 'fall within the bracket of science for me'? You say that like what is and what is not within the realm of scientific investigation is somehow subjective. It isn't.

Who defines that boundary?

[Colossus]

The boundary is defined logically. Within the realm of science is anything that can be disproven. Disprovable hypothesis about God may be disproven. For example, the hypothesis that babies are made because God has precreated little humans in every sperm (and therefore masturbation is mass murder) is demonstrably untrue. That has been disproven. Thus aspects of the nature of God may be within the realm of science, but the existence or non-existence of God is not since science cannot, apparently, disprove God's existence nor his non-existence. So, that parts up to you philosopher types, I guess.

[Guiscard]

The boundary is defined logically. Within the realm of science is anything that can be disproven. Disprovable hypothesis about God may be disproven. For example, the hypothesis that babies are made because God has precreated little humans in every sperm (and therefore masturbation is mass murder) is demonstrably untrue. That has been disproven. Thus aspects of the nature of God may be within the realm of science, but the existence or non-existence of God is not since science cannot, apparently, disprove God's existence nor his non-existence. So, that parts up to you philosopher types, I guess.

So then where does Quantum Mechanics fall? I'll admit very little knowledge of the subject, but from discussions with those who have a little more content to their ramblings it seems recent scientific ideas blur your line a hell of a lot.

[Colossus]

Well, you're right, to a large extent. Quantum mechanics is a scientific theory that deals with probability of any given unit of existence being in a particular quantized state. So, basically everything is probability-based at the smallest levels. This means that the universe is not deterministic. It does not mean that it's reasonable to think that any crazy thing could happen at any time. The predictions that quantum mechanics provides have been upheld with every test they've been put to thus far, but the trouble is that we cannot yet evaluate quantum effects on macroscopic systems because the math is just too big. Solving the Schrodinger equation for large systems is computationally incredibly demanding. To put this in context, I've recently performed some QM calculations to reasonable accuracy (the calculations always require approximation) on molecular systems of around twenty atoms or so and such calculations have taken between two and five days of processor time on a 3 GHz processor with 4Mb of RAM. Now that's not a very large computer, but the math scales exponentially. The largest systems for which I have seen calculations performed have been at most around a thousand or so atoms. So, I don't think that the implications of QM on macroscopic systems are well understood yet. Clearly, the behavior of most macroscopic systems are well-described by Newtonian physics, but the interface between the two still remains largely unknown as well.