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- Path: sparky!uunet!iadpsa!iowegia!quest
- From: quest@iowegia.uucp (Steve J. Quest)
- Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa
- Subject: Re: Atheism and Intelligence
- Message-ID: <o7H2VB2w165w@iowegia.uucp>
- Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 11:23:59 CST
- References: <1992Dec09.200845.26187@bnr.ca>
- Distribution: world
- Organization: Iowegia Public Access Usenet/UUCP, Clive IA USA.
- Lines: 53
-
- radams@BNR.CA (Rodney Adams) writes:
-
- > I do, by the way, believe that there is a positive correlation between
- > intelligence and atheism, but to me it's always seemed akin to the way
- > some people, particularly young people, try to be "different" by adopting
- > the same patterns as the group of people with which they want to associate.
- > In other words, atheism seems to be the "in" thing among the intellectual
- > elites, so those who wish to seem intelligent frequently adopt atheism
- > so that they may scorn those "stupid" enough to believe in God. For
- > other intelligent individuals, atheism may have been in reaction to a
- > perceived abandonment by God stemming from social rejection, familial
- > difficulties, or other such problems. An intelligent person will tend to
- > think more about why things are the way they are, and if no reconciliation
- > can be made between God and evil, the easiest thing for a person to do might
- > be to abandon belief.
-
- Rodney,
-
- God was created by man in order to fill a basic need in
- man. We are primates, who are reared by parents. We are not born
- into this world "ready for action", we rely upon our parents for
- the first many years of our lives- SO DEPENDENTLY, that the
- outcropping of religion and god are to be expected. When we are a
- child, and we need support, we run to Mom and Dad. When we grow
- up, who do we run to? Usually, people who are not able to stand
- on their own because the preditary nature of humans in general
- cause them to live an unrewarding life, turn to god for relief and
- support. Since god does not exist, god can NOT let you down.
- Since god is what you make him/her/it to be, it is exactly what
- you expect/want/need.
-
- I stand on my own in this world, but do require the
- support of other fellow humans- not deities. I am an atheist, and
- I am in a great minority.
-
- I want to point out at this point that just because one
- has a high IQ does not mean that they are logical in thought.
- True logic discounts the existence of god, but not everyone
- ascribes to pure and true logic. It is difficult to remove the
- "human nature" from oneself. I myself have needs that could be
- fulfilled with religion, but I use science to replace this. I am
- a VERY religious man, and I rely heavily upon science to fulfill
- my needs. Science pushes me ever farther away from the need of
- religion, and therefore I believe one day science `may' replace
- god as the foundation for human existence- we will all live NOT
- for god, but for science.................sq
-
- (common thread amongst believers- they are often poor and
- uneducated. The greater their poverty and lack of education the
- more likely they will become devoutly religious. All people fall
- between these rails, of devout believers and atheists- and a scale
- `could' be drawn to show relation......)
-
-