I'd be willing to bet that being told they're intelligent all their lives does in fact lead one to an egocentric worldview, which in turn would lead to caring about objective evidence a lot more than the average person.
i'd argue the opposite is true. a scientist's higher average intelligence (and presumably also higher than average education) lends itself to more humility in their worldview because it better equips them to be realistic about what they don't or can't know without objective reasons. they care about objective evidence because of rational humility, not emotionally-driven egocentrism. religious people are the ones with the more egocentric worldview, because they've been told all their lives they are special to god, the universe was created for them, and their personal "faith" renders their belief immune from objective evidence.
I wouldn't say "immune from objective evidence". I'll happily talk with just about anyone (and have on here) about objective evidence, and I'm by no means a scientist whose job is to figure this stuff out. I didn't mean "ego-centric" in a demeaning way, because it's not my place to change someone's worldview. But there really is a one-or-the-other choice...you either think that the universe was created by higher being for a purpose, or that it was all an accidental miracle of nature that the universe happened and we went from goo-to-you-by-way-of-the-zoo. In one of them a person is accountable to a higher being than ourselves, just as clay is to the potter. In the other, one's accountable only to himself and the society he adopts. Naturally, if one wants to be accountable only to himself, the idea that there is a higher power that requires things of you is repulsive. The idea that you are held accountable for not following someone else's rules is unthinkable, and the idea that you must believe in a miracle to avoid a horrendous potentially-imaginary eternity is laughable.
Us liberals aren't allowed a sense of humor. *scowl* Unless, of course, it's taken from somebody else and handed to us by the government.
i know you didn't. you were just trying to concoct some sort of excuse for why religious belief such as your own correlaties to lower levels of intelligence and/or education. wow that's quite a collection of creationist mantras there. no secret what influences you. goo-to-you. lol. first, the default worldview everyone is born with is agnostic/weak atheistic (depending on your view of semantics). there is no necessary choice between theism and hard atheism. in fact there is a continuous range from one extreme to the other, and most people fall in between. also there are a lot of other possibilities beyond the universe being caused by a purposeful higher power that's interested in us, and it being purely "accidental". it could be eternal. it could be its own cause. there could be some form of deistic creator that could care less about us etc. pigeonholing everyone into necessarily having to believe in polar extremes is just a creationist excuse to validate believing in something without evidence. second, most people (including scientists) that reject various religious belief do so because they don't see the evidence as supporting it, not because they don't like the idea of being accountable to a higher power or whatever. it is only laughable to them in the same sense as having to worry about lightning bolts from zeus is laughable to you.
Seems to be a bit of a disconnect there with the fact that most scientists are liberals, who by definition prefer a fascistic, socialistic, Obama/Hitler to tell them what to do and to control every phase of their lives. Well, yes. barfo
Ah, the easy-going wit of the conservative. When will me and my fellow commie pinkos learn the secret to your lighthearted but ever-so-insightful banter? I wake up every morning wishing I could crack a friendly joke like Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly. It makes you all so cuddly.
I was a physics major at OSU, and i'd say there were several faculty members that were religious, a lot of jews actually. I think they just don't believe in a god that is constantly intervening, the clock-work god view or something.
I find it hilarious how ego-centric this comes across as. What if there is a god Xenu, in a galaxy far away who created his world, and he accidentally created this earth out in the backwaters. Or what if there was a mormon god that created another world, and there are gods for every single world? You sort of bunched it into "my view" and "their view." As far as the social-contract, I am very accountable to the society. I am a good person, and as far as the jeudeo-christian dogma is concerned, the only difference in god's eyes between me and you, assuming you are a good man, is that I don't believe/worship him. If my good actions and kindness towards others does not outweigh my lack of a hard-on for Yaweh, then "frigg off ricky" I don't want to hang out with that douche-bag in heaven anyways! (narcissist would fit better) You see athiests/agnostics have only this life, and thus we want to keep things good in this one life. That's why we freak out about global warming and oil reserves. We don't have faith that "god said it's all gravy so no worries brah!" By being productive members of society it is our chance to create something that will last longer than our singular self.
I didn't bunch it into "my view" and "their view", I bunched it into "you think there's someone who created you who you're accountable to for what that someone deigns", or "you don't". If you're either one that's fine. I don't know about Xenu. I don't know much about Mormon beliefs. I tend not to understand hypotheticals too well, since many of them are straw men. I've put a decent amount of thought, study and reflection into mine. I'm willing to put it out there and have an answer for why I believe in laughable doctrines supposedly spewed forth by Imaginary Friends. I have doubts about your understanding of Christian "dogma". If you think you're a good man (and I have no doubt that to the American social contract that you may be), then you and I have differing beliefs about the nature of Man. Your good actions and kindness to others (in the Christian worldview now--not saying that you must believe it) don't outweigh your bad or omitted thoughts and actions (more commonly misunderstood with the term "sin"). It's not some cosmic balance: it's either you're perfect or you're not. Personally, I'm not. Personally, I believe it when the Bible say that no one is. The "difference in God's eyes between me and you" doesn't have anything to do with your hard-on for God--it has to do with realizing that you're accountable to Him for His rules. And if you don't stack up, well, that's where the laughable belief in the miracle comes in. I'm sorry that you find it "hilarious how ego-centric" that worldview is. I understand more than you think how repulsive that worldview is.
When you put it like that, no one is perfect. But that doesn't seem like a helpful definition. If no man is good because no man is perfect, then good isn't a useful word for categorizing people. But, surely there are differences between people - Mother Teresa does not have the same moral quality as a serial killer, does she? What word should we use if not good? barfo
Anyone read Carl Sagan's book, "Contact" or seen the movie? What do you make of all the religious symbolism throughout? This was a very well known but dying scientist who wrote the book. Maybe faced with mortality, even the most devout believer in science wants something more... Examples of religious symbolism: Jodie Foster basically goes to heaven and meets her dead father there. There's the whole bunch of religious zealot imagery throughout the film and book. The guy who blew up the multi-$trillion alien device was one of those zealots. The special advisor to the president was a man of the cloth, but also a believer in science. She was initially refused as the one to ride on the alien device because she testified before congress that she was godless. And finally, when she testified at the end of the movie, when everyone saw and the videotapes recorded her trip took a matter of seconds, she burst into tears and begged everyone to believe her; that she had this very real experience and everyone would basically have to take her word (on FAITH) about it. More related to this thread... Why does light travel at 186,000 miles/second and not 187,000 or 185,000? Why is water 2x hydrogen and 1x oxygen? As a not at all religious person, I can see that we accept the Rules to be what they are, but nobody ever really talks about why the Rules are the way they are. Like someone could have written them.
Romans 6:23 says: The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. To opine about your question: I don't believe that God sees Mother Theresa any differently than a serial killer who becomes "born again" the day before his execution in terms of who shall live forever with God vs. who will live eternally separated from God. Mother Theresa wasn't perfect (though she was extremely compassionate and did more for God's children than almost anyone), and falls short of the standard God sets for getting into Heaven on our own. We can't do it. That's where belief in the miracle comes in. It's the only ticket to Heaven. One of the more whacked-out things in the Bible is that Jesus tells us there isn't a difference in God's eyes between stealing, dishonoring your mother, or serial murder. It's all sin, all of which He necessarily must reject (and the sinner), since He is perfectly holy. I don't know why that is, or how He got to be that way. But our view of "moral" as humans doesn't jive with God's view. If you don't believe in God (or don't believe the Bible is His Truth), then it's easy to dismiss it as fodder for unintelligent sops who can't grasp real life and its problems. But if you're professing to a belief in Biblical Christianity, then you can't say that God believes anyone was "good" or "moral". He = We've learned in the recent past in my church to understand that "I am the worst sinner I know"--because even if I knew a serial murderer, all I see are his outward actions. I get to live with my heart and mind and soul everyday, and know how sinful some of my thoughts, words and deeds can be. I'm tired and this is starting to ramble. Hope it helped a bit to explain where I'm coming from.
Sounds like the optimal approach is to rape, pillage, murder, and generally be as big a self-centered ass as possible throughout life, and then repent on the deathbed. That's just as good or better than going to church for 70 years and donating to charity and caring for your fellow man and all that? Your god is one strange duck, for sure. barfo
this. and that is EXACTLY why i said If yaweh won't let me in because i don't have a hard-on for him, then i don't want to hang out with the narcissist. Simply "loving jesus" is enough to get into heaven, if anything that sounds like you are not accountable for any of your misdeeds. All is forgiven, right?
