06.19.2008 | 12:47 pm | Atheism, Religion
According to this article by Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, the smarter a person is, the less likely they are to believe in a god
Lynn makes quite a few assumptions in his paper, which compares belief among academics to the general population. The idea that academics are smarter than the general population isn’t necessarily valid - not only are some academics completely incompetent, some who are brilliant in their field are complete dunces outside a classroom. A proper study would include a large sample size and carefully adjust for counfounders like as age, income level, and religious upbringing.
Then we have to consider if IQ is a valid way to measure intelligence. I like the theory that there are a lot of different kinds of intelligence. There are the obvious ones, like Math IQ and Language IQ, but there is also Music IQ, Social IQ, Physical IQ, and so on. I think there is even a Freedom IQ, which is marked by a disdain for authority and a lack of the all too common human tendency to bend at the knee.
But with all that in mind, I think the premise is sound, based on my own experience: I have never met a stupid atheist. They may have other undesirable personality traits, but stupid? Never.
It takes something special to become an Atheist in the US. Although we’re all born atheists, from the first moments we become aware of the world our culture bombards us with god stuff. God is in our music, our government, our art, on our money and in our pledge. You can’t even sneeze in public without someone automaticaly mentioning god. Theism infests our culture at every level.
It takes a certain kind of intelligence, and lots of it, to really look skeptically at what most of the country takes for granted. And concluding that the Christian god is no more real than the Greek or Roman or Viking gods takes more than just intelligence - it takes guts to deal with the inevitable fallout. Many people who need a sky-daddy to be good can’t even conceive of someone being moral without the threat of eternal torture. The result is Atheists are despised and distrusted by the ignorant, and there are a lot of ignorant sucking up oxygen. Admitting your atheism can cost you friends, it can cost a promotion (or even your job) and it often costs you your family. In the past twenty years I’ve spoken with my father, in total, for about 45 minutes. I left his cult when I was a young man, and so he is forbidden to speak with me. His god, Jehovah, is a nasty prick.
I’m not saying all religious people are stupid - I know some truly brilliant theists. But the number of mouth breathing atheists is approximately none and a substantial percentage of the very religious are blithering idiots, so when you average out the numbers atheists are going to be on the top of the heap.
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05.14.2008 | 12:13 pm | Atheism
Pretend, for a moment, that you don’t believe in Thor, God of Thunder. A columnist, who believes in Thor with his whole heart and soul, does an interview with a well known whack job. The whack job, who also doesn’t believe in Thor, recommends killing babies by clubbing them on the head, then eating them raw. The columnist then proclaims: “See! See! This is the way aThorists think!”
This approach was taken Dinesh D’Souza in an article published on Townhall.com, where he equates the rather demented Peter Singer with atheism. The article is titled “Atheism and Child Murder.”
“Not Being Liberal” is evidently TownHall’s only qualification for selecting writers. They present a large, strange conglomeration of the brilliant and the brain dead. Insightful writers like John Stossel, Walter Williams and Jacob Sullum share the pages with mouth breathers like Mike Gallagher and Cal Thomas. Thomas Sowell, who could win any argument with a gallon of novocaine injected into his skull, is presented on the same level as scary transsexual Ann Coulter, who had half her cerebellum removed as part of the operation.
There are so many things wrong with D’Souza’s article I’m sure to miss a few. He starts with a false premise: “So perhaps atheism has found an able advocate.” Sorry, Sparky, I have yet to hear a single atheist anywhere embrace Singer as an advocate. Some consider him an interesting whack job, but pretending (or even implying) he represents atheists is like claming that the Texas polygamy cult represents Christianity. It reeks of desperation, and as an added bonus is blatantly dishonest.
He then goes on to equate Darwinism with Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is a perversion of Darwinism that is soundly rejected by nearly all Darwinists. Dinesh knows this, so this can’t be written off as simple ignorance – it is another example of intentional dishonesty.
Dinish continues: “So while Christianity introduced into Western civilization the concept of dignity of human life. . .” So the concept of the dignity of human life didn’t exist before Christianity came along? Perhaps he should read some history.
He concludes with “Given the connection that Singer draws between atheism and child murder, using the former as his premise to recommend the latter, I wonder if our atheist friends are going to rush to embrace this guy as one of their heroes. Is Singer showing us where the road to complete secularism actually leads?”
Given that Dinish has shown himself to be a dishonest douche bag, I wonder if our Christian Friends are going to embrace him as one of their heroes. Is D’Sousa showing us where the road to Christianity leads, to willful ignorance and intentional dishonesty?
As an atheist, I’d never make that claim. But then, atheists are, on the whole, more honest than the likes of D’Souza.
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