selfology

Unfortunately, most atheists (from what I know) didn't arrive at their position because of emotional reasons. Most, such as myself, actually had to fight the emotional hold that religion had over them in order to make the rational decision that atheism was a "better" worldview. This may also explain why most atheists are men. What are your thoughts.

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

You don't have to say "unfortunately". If an intellectual response has bought you to a better and more personally satisfying position, then more power to it. Your explanation seems plausible.

My perspective is somewhat different to a lot of people who post on these boards. I was born and raised an atheist, and I live in a part of the world where the Christian churches are no longer as powerful or as influential as they once were. To me, it seems that a lot of ex-theists have been burnt by the emotional manipulation to which they have been subjected. So they tend to be a bit wary of emotion -- a bit defensive. And if there are still people around them trying to pull their emotional strings, I don't really blame them.

This is, of course, a gross generalization. There are, no doubt, exceptions to the rule (and I am definitely not trying to say that all atheists are emotional retards).

I'm a guy, so I won't claim to know what makes women tick. But I do notice that a lot of women not otherwise compelled to be religious (that is, women who have grown up without religious indoctrination), are still attracted by the spiritualism of religion. If the grosser forms of Christianity put them off -- which is quite often the case -- they still tend to favor some form of paganism over atheism.

It seems to me that if we really want future generations to live without religion, then we have to develop a viable way of life for the non-religious. And that would include developing an emotional and social sophistication at least as effective as all that "earth mother" stuff.

Kip

Thanks for correcting those typos. Although I wish people would have addressed my argument and not my grammar. To answer the question, I do consider myself above average intelligent. But that is not saying much!

Does anyone recognize any truth to my logic?

If women and blacks tend to be more religious, and religious people tend to be less intelligent (as studies prove), must we not conclude that women and blacks tend to be less intelligent (and perhaps this is the cause of their religious belief)?

I am not a troll although I do not post here as much as other forums. I do lurk quite a bit.

[ April 30, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]</p>

Samhain

Kip:

While those findings seem to prove your point, in this day and age it's hard, especially for those of us who have racial/religious/etc. tolerance to find your post to be, well, PC, I guess. It seems that there is an injustice done through these findings, and many of us will question the validity of any statistics. Such a generalization based off of the information you gave to us is understood, but I don't think it does any justice to the majority. I, myself, reject a whole lot of psychological/sociological "proofs" because they do not seem to give enough credit to the other. They seem to tell us, this is your lot in life, it's proven by statistics, when we know that that's not always entirely true. There is a certain amount of nature/nurture which will cause a certain group of people to come to such conclusions, but I hardly think it does any justice if we have free-will, and I being a major advocate of free-will will reject socialogical findings such as these as fact of any type of conclusion, until it can be scientifically proven that regardless of free-will we will be determined to turn out a certain way.

Bill Snedden

In short, no.

First, given that some A are B, and some B are C, it does not follow that some A are C.

Second, correlation is not causation.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Kip

I appreciate the (short) reply. Although I must admit that I feel you are exposing the weaknesses of my rhetoric and not the idea itself. You also did not consider the other (controversial) evidence that women and blacks are less intelligence than others (female brain size, test scores, etc). I agree that causation != correlation and that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. However, I must admit a curiosity as to your own opionion. Given all of these studies are you prepared to deny that there is ANY relationship between sex, race, intelligence and religious belief? Or have I only posited the wrong such relationship?

[ April 30, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]</p>

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

Kip,

I won't argue that the correlation isn't real. I haven't seen the statistics, so I don't know one way or the other. But it wouldn't surprise me if there is a correlation. You couldn't conclude, however, that black women are inherently less intelligent than other people.

The difference, if there is one, is probably a difference in the level and quality of education. IQ tests are notoriously biased in terms of education.

idoubt2

I think that women tend to be more religious then men is because it is pounded into our heads from early childhood on that mankind's fall from grace is due to the moral corruption of women. The writers of the bible knew that women tended to be more emotional then men and used this lie to control and manipulate women. Just take a look at churches today and you will see it still being used as a weapon. Women then try to over compensate to prove that they are just as morally good as the men are. This was one of the very first of the great lies that I began to question that ultimitely led to my total disbelief. Let's just face it, religion is a total guilt trip and God is the travel agent.

Gurdur

My thanks to Kim O' The Concrete Jungle, who managed in one pithy line to sum up some of my feelings about the unadulterated crap in this thread; and to Bill Snedden, again getting to the nub of the matter.

Kip - I'm in the middle of writing a very long series of responses to this entire thread, but I'll leave this small promissory note.

First off, your "findings" are full of gaping holes, both evidential and argumentative.
BTW, just which Gould, as in Gould: 1981, did you mean ?

You ignore completely alternative explanations (social history) for group effects you have noted; you take only findings for one particular culture (the USA) at one particular point in history, and then use those to extrapolate quite wrongly to the rest of the human race; you conflate quite a few very different things (the religious and the social religious and the mystical experience, for a start) and you make one howling blunder with the absolute/relative brain size comment.

But I'll be writing lots here soon on so much in this thread.

They don't; a fair bit more rigorous analysis and empiricism is well in order.

I'm going to invent a new term - Tribal-Ideologically-Correct, TIC, to describe trends that I see as happening in the USA and just possibly elsewhere.

You confuse morals with physical evidence; were those findings and their accompanying argument to be true, they could not be an injustice.

Not me; statistics are essential.

You know, it's a hell of a lot easier - and also far more true to scientific inquiry, freethought and humanism - to actually look these things in the face. They fall apart then (luckily, eh ? )

Oh, BTW, I find an ideological avoidance of statistics to be as abhorrent as misusing statistics.
However, the point about free-will is a good one, but could well be taken to constitute an evasion of Kip.

Samhain

Gurdur:

I have to say, I understand where you're coming from, my post was not meant to portray that these findings were in any way correct, only that I understood why someone could mistake a correlation between these two things, not that the findings and the correlation were true.

Based upon the evidence given and the hypothesis applied, I think it seems to demonstrate his point. I do also feel, though, that it is largely incomplete. This is why I have problems with statistical information. Once again, there is a problem with the exceptions, etc. There are, I'm sure, many problems with such statistical data as this one, and I, myself, never trust statistics wholly. Part of the reason may be because I have never been polled myself Another reason is that it seems to explore correlations between strict macro-sociological factors, and the questions seem very "to the point" which is why I feel there is an injustice done here. It doesn't correlate the reasons why it only correlates from quite a black and white perspective (no pun intended). This type of perspective doesn't give justice to micro-psychological or micro-sociological purposes for a person choosing their position. It says "this is the evidence, and as truth, should not be attempted to be refuted" when most intellectuals know such assumptions are usually false, or that they leave large gaps of unexplained or unexplored factors.

Heh, I like that term much better, I fear using the term PC since it sounds unscientific and generally makes me sound like a liberal prude. If only I could remember this term, though...Tribal-Ideologically-Correct...doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well, does it?

I still feel justice has not been done to the exceptions. Were such sociological evidence considered true, it would create more biases, prejudices, and stereotypes than what we already have in the world today, and as we can see, the "norm" does not indicate true in all cases. But I believe that as a majority, people would view people with prejudices which would indicate this as such, regardless of exceptions. We don't need any more prejudices or stereotypes.

All I said was that I would question their validity Are you not questioning the validity of these statistics? They may have their place, but statistics, normally, aren't what can be entirely percieved as accurate. More evidence is always necessary.

Not saying not to look at them in the face. The only point I am trying to relay is that one statistic is not valid evidence for anything

Heh, I know what you mean. I just have personal biases against statistics, as I said before. I will admit, they do have their place, and they do provide some evidence, but I don't think they provide anywhere near the amount of evidence needed to make such a correlation truthfully