free12thinker

This isn't a question that's intended to start a fight, but I have to ask anyway. What gives us the ability to think outside the box? Why don't we buy religion the way the majority does. I ask this because I see a pattern. I ask because the smartest people in the history of man have been atheists. I ask because the best authors of our times have been atheists. I ask because the most respected performers of our times have been atheists ro non-theists of some sort. There has to be a pattern.

Atheists follow science. Scientists are always considered the smarties. Atheism follows logic. Addition and subtraction. Cause and effect. Things that we use in everyday tasks, yet, not when delving through religion. What makes people stay within the box, even as all reason and logic should get them out of it. Of course, the answer is faith. But why do some people have it, and some people don't? Is it something in our brains? Maybe one side works better for us, than for the rest of earth?

Any thoughts?

[ April 26, 2002: Message edited by: free12thinker ]</p>

Atticus_Finch

It must be comforting to believe that the "smartest people in the history of man have been atheists". Nothing could be further from the truth. For example, wouldn't you consider Sir Issac Newton to be one of the smartest people in the history of man? He believed in God.

I am a Christian. I do not, however, feel the need to suggest that atheists are idiots in order to reinforce my belief. Why do atheists, or at least the majority of those who post on this site, feel the need to believe that all believers must be idiots.

Regards,

Finch

[ April 26, 2002: Message edited by: Atticus_Finch ]</p>

Godless Dave

Your assertion goes a little too far, free12. Tolkien is one of my favorite authors and he was a theist.

free12thinker

We don't believe that believers are idiots. Try this on for size.

Sir Isaac Newton is very intelligent, very smart. Smarter than me. But I am not an idiot. Do you see how this works? Just because I say that people like Edison, Freud, Einstein are smarter, doesn't mean that everyone else is a pack of idiots. But if we took a poll of the Best of the Best (Philosophers, authors, smartest), just by public opinion, the majority of the toppers would be atheists. It's just fact.

I am simply asking, is there a pattern. Try and look at it this way. What makes people think a certain way? For instance, we know that left handed people are more artistic, but why? We know that men talk in report mode and women talk in rapport mode (Bell Curve Theory of course). But why? There are psychological reasons that deal with blood flow to certain parts of the brain and all that jazz. Does the same type of thing explain why some people end of following god, whereas other end up questioning his existence. And why is it that those who question his existence, or deny it altogether, end up being mentioned as the Best of the Best in their fields? It's just a Q.

free12thinker

I'm just asking for people's thoughts on the subject. Is there a pattern? What makes people think a certain way, especially on a topic such as religion, that has been followed by an overwhelming majority of people that walk or have walked the earth.

Why are we different. Why was Einstein, Edison, Hughes, Freud, Wright, Twain and Co.. different?

Why do people with many siblings take a road different from their siblings when it comes to religion? And why is the average IQ of an Atheist so much higher than that of a theist?
It's a fact.

Just a question, nothing more.

[ April 26, 2002: Message edited by: free12thinker ]</p>

Samhain

A quick question for those trivia majors out there: I hold Dostoyevsky to be the greatest author of all time (IMO, people ), reading his works, I find it hard to tell whether or not he is a theist or an atheist, his works and a lot of what he says seems to be left ambiguous. Does anyone know for sure?

Anyway, free12thinker:

Of course it would not pain me at all to know that I was somehow genetically or mentally superior to others, just as I don't think it would pain anyone to know this about themselves. I, however, do not feel this way. Also, I do not feel that my atheism can be attributed to some kind of genetic composition of my body. Atheism is a choice, one of free-will. I'd be opposed to a view which holds my atheism as some kind of genetic superiority over the masses rather than a choice of which I made through my own logic. I do not wish for this decision to be determined in any way, and I hold that it does not. That's just my view, though, and I know it may be rather biased considering the stock I place in Sartrean existentialism. There seems to be something more empowering about being placed equally in the world with all others, but, choosing to take a quite different path than most and living with that decision with responsibility from free will as opposed to the knowledge that I am in some way superior to others. The latter seems a very lonely view.

Tristan Scott

There may be a pattern, but you actually seem to be drawing conclusions when you say the best in different areas are atheists. As has already been pointed out, one of the best minds of all time-Newton was a theist.

Again with the generalizations. We don't know that at all. We know only that generally speaking, there appears to be certain tendencies. We shouldn't be surprised if we found that the most artistic person of all time were right-handed.

Ahhh, that expains it all. You subscribe to the Bell Curve theory. One has to be very careful with this type of statistical data. Racists have jumped all over Bell Curve numbers and have been using them to justify their views since it was published. Trends and generalizations have absolutely nothing to do with individual traits. Just by the way you are stating your case, I would say that you are mis-using this statistical data as well.

Tristan Scott

By the way according to Sigma xi 46% of all phD scientists are religious, compared to 47% of the general population.

free12thinker

I thank you for the subdued approach to disagreeing with me. At least you didn't read it as an insult, instead of the question that it really just was.

That said, I'm not even convinced that it's a genetic superiority either. But that's why I'm asking. It's one of those things that seem to have a pattern, but perhaps, I am thinking too hard about it.

Maybe holding a different view, simply opens us up to more doors, and with more open doors comes a better understanding of things. That could easily explain why folks like Edison, Freud, Einstein, Lincoln and company were such innovators. Not because of a genetic superiority, but because their ability to think outside the box simply opened more doors. As opposed to those who stay within the box simply don't see the handles to such doors. It's like the saying goes "You can't see something, if you're not looking for it". Maybe that holds true here.

Of course, I'm going to get opposition from theists for those last few sentences, but....

Darwin's Finch

Samhain, AFAIK Dostoyevsky was a theist; in fact, he became more orthodox and reactionary the older he got. Raskolvikov's "rebirth" in the epilogue of Crime and Punishment seems to me a fair representation of D's views concerning the need for Russians to turn aside from (what he perceived to be) the harmful, atheist philosophies, imported mostly from France, that had become fashionable in Russia in his day. The seeming ambivalence of his novels comes from the fact that D., in his younger years, had been a socialist of sorts and had largely advocated the views he later loathed. The revolution and its aftermath wouldn't have come as any surprise to him.