Religious People are Dumb

sadhatter

Philosopher
sadhatter
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
8,694
Got your attention probably.

But the thread title is somewhat misleading, this isn't to discuss that religious people are dumb, but a request for help , from religious folks or otherwise.

I have a friend, short time ct'er, but he seems to be digging a bit of skepticism lately. I am tickled pink about this, but my problem is i want to help him not be a skeptic stereotype ( even if only the subject in question is something he would agree with the jref on.)

His rightful beef is with televangilists, peter popoff and all. And that is good, but he is of the " all religious people are stupid" train of thought.

Now i want to try and nip this in the but as soon as possible. But i don't really know how to go about it. Through knowing people, i attribute it more to vulnerability and indoctrination, but he is even more of a " Suck it up, be a better person" kind of guy than myself, and doesn't seem to be able to wrap his head around the fact that someone may be smart as hell, but for various other reasons be religious.

My fear, is that if he does start to embrace skepticisim ( even this part of it, but this is where i started when i became a jrefer, so i have hope.) , and does it in this way, he may give it up given enough evidence to the contrary that indeed religious people can be smart. TO put it a touch poetically, i don't want him to build his home on a foundation of spun sugar.

So any suggestions? I want to convince him, but i don't want to convince him the other way, lol. So just pimping out religious geniuses wouldn't cut it.
 
I don't think all religious people are stupid.

I do think that all religious people are infested with some rather insidious memes, however.

Perhaps I'm not the best one to give you advice in this instance.
 
I think it's a good thing for him to recognize that religious people are dumb. It is, in fact, true.

It sounds like you want to make sure he realizes that the rest of the population is dumb as well, which is also true. I don't know, show him some brilliant dumb people? Penrose perhaps?
 
Theres nothing wrong with the IQ'S of religious people as many of them are very well educated. I just disagree with them and I've noticed that some of their arguments for their beliefs are indeed dumb.
 
Darth Rotor said:
I can't speak to all of your post, being dumb and all, but I suggest you direct your fried to Phil Plaits' Don't be a Dick video.

It's a good start.

'http://vimeo.com/13704095
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I would, but i think it is two different issues, really.

Not being a dick would be him not saying " Your a ******* idiot for believing in god." which i don't think he would do, he is a pretty nice guy.

This is moreso preventative measures. There are a great deal of people who practice religion who are smart, smarter than myself, smarter than he is. And if he bases his views around this, that evidence may just push him onto their side.

It would be like if a pastor had a person wanting to convert due to a traumatic life experience. From a moral and from a practical standpoint, said pastor should really educate the person on the right reasons to switch, so that they have a solid foundation, not simply think " Free convert" and hope for the best.
 
I am of the thought that one can be a man of "faith" and not "an idiot" or "stupid". But you first have to be clear on one thing. I feel there is a big difference between "faith in God" and "religion"
Religion is man made. Its mans attempt to make himself right with his god threw "rules" and "laws". It is easily corrupted, and man can use "religion" to do very evil things in the name of that religion.

Faith is the belief in something you can not "prove" to be true. But you still believe in it.

We all have faith in some way or fashion. Take the Big Bang for example. What made it happen? No one can "prove" how it happened. How can matter just suddenly exist out of nothing? I believe, or rather, have faith that God started the ball rolling, and evolution and God lead natural selection is how we got were we are today. Does that make me an idiot? If you believe so, please let me know how?
I believe in science and the scientific method way of finding out how things work. Science is not religion. But I do feel that you can have a faith in God, and still believe the facts that science shows us to be true.
Yes there is no way for me to Prove that there is a God. But there is no way to disprove this either. Its a moot point. What we need to focus on is not letting people use religion and its pseudoscience get in the way of true and good scientific research.
 
yy2bggggs said:
I think it's a good thing for him to recognize that religious people are dumb. It is, in fact, true.

It sounds like you want to make sure he realizes that the rest of the population is dumb as well, which is also true. I don't know, show him some brilliant dumb people? Penrose perhaps?
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I just can't agree with you, sure they may be more naive, they may be more gullible, trusting, prone to following , and a list of other adjectives that are non complimentary. But dumb, from a logical standpoint just doesn't fit.

There are thousands of scientists that practice some kind of religion, all of which are smarter than myself, smarter than you, smarter than James Randi ( though not as clever, which is a key difference.) , etc. So to say that religion means someone is dumb, well it just isn't true. I can guarantee that there are pharmacists right now, that practice religion that have forgotten more about medicine that i currently know ( in school for said job.).

Keep in mind this isn't my trying to sing praises here, religion does terrible crap, and the world would be better off without it. But dumb, not so much. Even if your looking at the big name non scientists, the huge evangelicals, sketchy? Sure. Evil, Most definitely, but dumb? They manage to find ways of circumventing the law that would make capone jealous, and keep giant flocks of believers giving them everything they have, no matter how many times they are caught. That is not dumb, that is a keen predatory intellect.
 
whamji182 said:
I am of the thought that one can be a man of "faith" and not "an idiot" or "stupid". But you first have to be clear on one thing. I feel there is a big difference between "faith in God" and "religion"
Religion is man made. Its mans attempt to make himself right with his god threw "rules" and "laws". It is easily corrupted, and man can use "religion" to do very evil things in the name of that religion.

Faith is the belief in something you can not "prove" to be true. But you still believe in it.

We all have faith in some way or fashion. Take the Big Bang for example. What made it happen? No one can "prove" how it happened. How can matter just suddenly exist out of nothing? I believe, or rather, have faith that God started the ball rolling, and evolution and God lead natural selection is how we got were we are today. Does that make me an idiot? If you believe so, please let me know how?
I believe in science and the scientific method way of finding out how things work. Science is not religion. But I do feel that you can have a faith in God, and still believe the facts that science shows us to be true.
Yes there is no way for me to Prove that there is a God. But there is no way to disprove this either. Its a moot point. What we need to focus on is not letting people use religion and its pseudoscience get in the way of true and good scientific research.
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This is more of a different topic, the whole " God without religion thing" which i find interesting, but is no where in the realm of this debate.

But you do touch on some topics that dovetail into this nicely.

The way i see it, the things that would give someone faith in religion are completely separate from the things that would allow them to be an intelligent person. I still see religious faith as a negative thing, that leads to toil and hardship, but ( to borrow a d and d term) it does not run off the same stat that being smart does.


It is like saying, all color blind people are bad athletes. Sure being color blind sucks, and leads to hardship, but it has little to do with your ability to run, jump, punch, or other sports related things. It may, coincidentally impact athletic abliity ( not being able to tell different jerseys for example. ), but the impact is not because it is effecting your ability to run, jump, etc.
 
sadhatter said:
I just can't agree with you, sure they may be more naive, they may be more gullible, trusting, prone to following , and a list of other adjectives that are non complimentary. But dumb, from a logical standpoint just doesn't fit.
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Reread the entire post. You missed a critical point in my approach--the entire point even.
 
I'm not sure how you're defining dumb. Scoring low on IQ tests? There may be studies that religious people score slightly lower, but not enough to really matter.

But if one is talking about too dumb to see the logical flaws in an argument, or to realize that one's opinions are being formed by cultural pressure, or to recognize one's own cognitive biases, then I think religious people are dumb. And teaching that they're not, will require using some of the same flaws: the logical flaw that belief in god without evidence is different than belief in leprechauns without evidence, or that our society teaches that religious beliefs should be respected so we should go along with that.

If someone sent money to Nigeria in response to some emails, because the correspondent seemed like such a nice guy with a believable story and they were sure they'd get even more money in return, I'd say they were dumb, no matter what their education or IQ level, and I think it's the same kind of mindset that makes people buy into religion (no pun intended).
 
sadhatter said:
I would, but i think it is two different issues, really.

Not being a dick would be him not saying " Your a ******* idiot for believing in god." which i don't think he would do, he is a pretty nice guy.

This is moreso preventative measures. There are a great deal of people who practice religion who are smart, smarter than myself, smarter than he is. And if he bases his views around this, that evidence may just push him onto their side.
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Their side?
I appreciate your pastor analogy, but if you wish to engage and bring him to your way of thinking, Phil Plait's advice is pretty good. The core of what Phil uses in his lead up to the "don't be a dick" punch line at the end is a very good set up for understanding the journey toward becoming a practicing skeptic.

Anyway, best of luck.
 
Brattus said:
Wish I could help you but I'm with your friend.
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Sorry, but a number of people in jref (and elsewhere) are religious and are also very intelligent -Mrs. RSL (aka Susan) just for a start!! I am not a believer, but I do not immediately assume all who are are dimbulbs/not SLAN (for old line SF fans).
 
I would try to get him focused not on religious people being dumb, rather their ideas. That approach has more durability IMHO.
 
I don't think religious people are stupid. The man who mapped the human genome, as an example is a fundamentalist Christian. I think it's more to do with people compartmenting their lives. Religion is in one compartment with special rules about how you think about it. This means it's "off limits" for the critical thinking most people apply to other areas.
 
Craig4 said:
I don't think religious people are stupid. The man who mapped the human genome, as an example is a fundamentalist Christian. I think it's more to do with people compartmenting their lives. Religion is in one compartment with special rules about how you think about it. This means it's "off limits" for the critical thinking most people apply to other areas.
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As I said, I don't regard religious people as stupid (not all of them, anyway).

However, they all are resistant to reason and have no respect for science in a significant aspect of their thinking, and they are often superstitious and ridiculous in other aspects of their thinking, as well.

They are infested with woo.

They may regard their religious beliefs as being "off limits" to critical thinking, but they are wrong, and the quality of their thought and ethics is suspect as a result.
 
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