'Higher IQ=less religous' apparently...
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@unknownuser said:
There's plenty of people in Europe who are religious without believing Satan is real. They consider him a mere concept, a ficticious personification of all things evil. (And I think Rome does too, at least officially.)
Really? That's interesting. How long before Rome reclassifies God as a 'ficticious personification of all things good' I wonder.
I do find it utterly baffling that people who, in every other aspect of their lives appear to be normal, intelligent, well-adjusted rational individuals (often, frighteningly, in positions of influence and responsibilty) can still subscribe to all this nonsense.
Ho hum.
A.
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@andyc said:
Really? That's interesting. How long before Rome reclassifies God as a 'ficticious personification of all things good' I wonder.
What can I say? Them boys in the Vatican are a creative bunch.
@andyc said:
I do find it utterly baffling that people who, in every other aspect of their lives appear to be normal, intelligent, well-adjusted rational individuals (often, frighteningly, in positions of influence and responsibilty) can still subscribe to all this nonsense.
Well ... so do I. I see parallels between firmly believing some omnipotent being is watching you all the time and, errr, paranoid schizophrenia.
Mind you, I am, on the other hand, all for freedom of religion. If Rome can persist in two diametrically opposed views, so can I!
Now, I may be an atheist myself, but I'm fairly certain atheism will not 'win'. The promise of an afterlife is, I believe, quite the unique selling proposition.
To sum up my own thoughts on religion: weird, but ultimately I have no problem with it. You think God looks after you? Good for you! What I do have a problem with, however, is the entanglement of religion and politics. It's a growing trend, I think, in various parts of the world. In the US especially, the religous right seems to be gaining a lot of momentum.
That, quite frankly, scares the cr*p out of me. (For once, I am NOT being ironic.)
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@unknownuser said:
To sum up my own thoughts on religion: weird, but ultimately I have no problem with it. You think God looks after you? Good for you! What I do have a problem with, however, is the entanglement of religion and politics. It's a growing trend, I think, in various parts of the world. In the US especially, the religous right seems to be gaining a lot of momentum.
That, quite frankly, scares the cr*p out of me. (For once, I am NOT being ironic.)
Amen, brother
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I think I should elaborate a bit on how scared exactly: imagine being locked into a room. There's two chairs, in opposite corners. You're sitting on one of them.
In the other corner, sitting on the second chair, there's good ol' Mike Tyson. You know someone told him you ran over his cat. Mike's been angrily eying you for some time now, while getting all juiced up on Jack Daniel's and crystal meth.
Apart from all of this, you have to tell your parents you flunked maths - yet again.
That kind of scared.
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i dunno stinkie, a drunken older Mike isn't that scary. i say take the bottle of jack and knock him out. Then when it comes time for telling the parents about the math grades make note of the fact that hey, you may not be able to calculate an integral but you were able to knock out Mike Tyson.
you know end it on a positive.Big ass bombs, mishandled food supply & fanatical ideologs are much more scary.
Now if it were Mike circa 1988 then yes that is more scary.
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joins stinkie in the fight against mike
I also find it very annoying when people try and use religion to make them sound victimised.
Case in point: those cartoons of Mohamed. Theyre cartoons for gods (
) sake! Theyre designed to take the piss out of stuff. why cant people find it in themselves to not threaten to kill each other whenever something that offends them occurs.
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@cheffey said:
i dunno stinkie, a drunken older Mike isn't that scary. i say take the bottle of jack and knock him out. Then when it comes time for telling the parents about the math grades make note of the fact that hey, you may not be able to calculate an integral but you were able to knock out Mike Tyson.
you know end it on a positive.Good point.
I should add, I feel, that I'm not, for once
, trying my best to insult the American members of this forum. Far from it. I'm trying to convey that, outside of the US, fear is slowly rising. At least to me and my peers it seems that christian fundamentalists are slowly but quite steadily growing in power. This may very well widen the divide between the US and the rest of the world even more. Not a good thing. Could cause serious trouble.
We need common ground. And religion ain't gonna be it.
@remus said:
Case in point: those cartoons of Mohamed. Theyre cartoons for gods (
) sake! Theyre designed to take the piss out of stuff. why cant people find it in themselves to not threaten to kill each other whenever something that offends them occurs.
Ideologies, be it political or religious ones, make people go bonkers.
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When reading this thread, the profet, whose appearance is not to be represented in a cartoon, is starting to look more and more like Mike tyson as a mental image.
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@unknownuser said:
At least to me and my peers it seems that christian fundamentalists are slowly but quite steadily growing in power. This may very well widen the divide between the US and the rest of the world even more. Not a good thing. Could cause serious trouble.
We need common ground. And religion ain't gonna be it.
Ideologies, be it political or religious ones, make people go bonkers.
I should preface this by saying that I lost people closest to me when I was very young and since that time I've had a "falling out" so to speak with religion.
It is interesting that you say that because here in the US I think that the Christians take a lot of abuse (mostly comedic shots) and it does seem like their rights to freedom of religion are not being upheld as some others are. Not really a two way street anymore and could be an aid to their potential rise as you describe. The traditions of this country are changing and it seems if you are of another faith your exhibition of your religious celebration are welcome while the christians exhibition is prohibited. I'm sure they are having a hard time with that.But maybe the things i describe are not politically related.
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Hm. From where I'm standing, they seem to be exceeding their rights. Of course, I'm sure they wouldn't be thrilled by something like this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/dec/21/evolution.schoolsworldwide
I see your point, though (I think).
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In the end, on a global scale, their is only one religion overruling all the others: the 'money-entology' church.
The big guys that rule the world and do the 'divida et empera', use religion to motivate (mislead) people to fight for the 'good cause', while they are all about gaining more of that silly green paper and to empower the powerful.As Marx once stated: Religion is opium to the people. It keeps them calm or just the opposite, it depends how the leaders want them to be.
I think religion is the most powerful weapon on earth nowadays.I learned as a child, to keep away from weapons and other dangerous stuff.
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well,i read all ur comments and from my point of view i can say that all of u haven t seen a real christian yet.
Cheers!
Elisei
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I actually know a fair few religious people who arent completely crazy, its just the crazy ones seem to stick out a bit more and so are a bit more liable to our rampant criticism and speculation.
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this is the major problem lot of people tell themself and to other that they are christinas
but what christian word meens? answer BEEING LIKE CHRIST
now some of u will laugh,smile other will be indifferent,and few will agree;this is liberty,everyone have the right to do what he wants
I made my choice,if i don t have right,i won t loose anything,but if i have right u ll loose all!
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@ely862me said:
I made my choice,if i don t have right,i won t loose anything,but if i have right u ll loose all!;)
lol. Yeah.
@remus said:I actually know a fair few religious people who arent completely crazy, its just the crazy ones seem to stick out a bit more and so are a bit more liable to our rampant criticism and speculation.
Aye. Some of my friends are religious. In a modern kinda way. I doubt they believe Lucifer exists. They're catholics, but their catholocism has little to do with the kind of "repent or perish!" ideology that had this part of the world (the fair Belgium) firmly in it's claws til the late fifties.
I went to a catholic school when I was young, btw. I liked it. Didn't believe any of what they told me about the world being created in seven days, but they were nice people. Relaxed. They knew I didn't believe in God, and they were fine with that.
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@unknownuser said:
... as it would've mine when I was your age.
This is from one of the comments following the article: "It seems 62% of Americans still believe in 'The devil'.
That ain't true, is it?
Can't be!
I believe in him. I've seen him. he was on TV. He gave a state of the union speech.
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interesting.
'Higher IQ=less religous' apparently...
now the devil is another thing.
but what cares is God, is not it ? -
An interesting subject and one that I often think about.
It's 2.00am as I write and this post and it should send me
off to sleep in the hope that I can switch my time zone from
Mid Atlantic (currently) to GMTHere is an interesting article by Professor J. Philippe Rushton,
Winters Are Good For Your Genes: Lynn Book Finds World Average
IQ 90, Declining From North To South
http://www.vdare.com/rushton/060322_iq_pic.htmI note he talks about 'Indigenous Peoples' here. According to
his argument, Indigenous Peoples in warm regions have lower
IQ's than people in colder regions. This makes a certain
amount of sense as the people residing in colder regions
have to figure out ways of keeping warm (in our case how to
get cheap oil). But again we are all supposed to have
originated from Africa so I wonder about this. Maybe we
strengthened a particular type of intelligence?On the other hand there are many types of intelligence, I am
aware of at least nine. Have a look at this link by By Howard Gardner
http://skyview.vansd.org/lschmidt/Projects/The%20Nine%20Types%20of%20Intelligence.htmThe Nine Types of Intelligence[/b]
- Naturalist Intelligence
- Musical Intelligence
- Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
- Existential Intelligence
- Interpersonal Intelligence
- Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
- Linguistic Intelligence
- Intra-personal Intelligence
- Spatial Intelligence
I know a little about the spiritual believes of the Australian
Aborigines and from what I see they are very complex and make
a lot of sense. I don't think they regard it as 'religion',
more a way of life and I imagine the same goes for African
and South American tribes.Food for thought I hope!
Mike
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Noooooooooo, no syllogisms! Those take me back to, err, 'logic class'. I beg you!
Your comparison's a bit off, btw, Kwist.
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It's an interesting question, though: does the climate influence the way our thinking has evolved? I'd say yes. As the climate influences the way our body evolves, it's only logical to assume that it has a vast influence on our mind as well. Mind you, I'm not using the word 'intelligence'.
But my guess is we'd need alien scientists to be able to get an unprejudiced view on these matters.
Let's not forget either that intelligence isn't a matter of genes (nature) alone. Your upbringing plays an important role (nurture) too. At least, that's what I like to think when I try to do maths.
And as Mike points out, there are different kinds of intelligence. I could read when I was three, but it took me another decade (!) to be able to tell what time it is. And I still have to look twice. Sad? You've said it!
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