Faith as a Measure of Intellect

[Defiant47]

In general I agree with this, however I do believe there is a point where it's perfectly fair to assume that a faith requires one to be so divorced from rational thought, that they are clearly intellectually compromised.

One can be divorced from rational thought on certain issues, and be the most rational person on others. All it takes is a little flawed foundational logic, and you've got some potential "iffy" spots.

This is my opinion of only Mormonism, Scientology and various cults. I believe that it is *possible* to have a belief in the other major religions, without being divorced from rational thought.

That is only because they are more mainstream, so you seem that as perhaps more acceptable. All religions requiring faith commit the same intellectual sin. It doesn't matter if it's the most ridiculous cult in the world, or if it's Christianity. Once you chuck your intelligence at the door and embrace faith, it doesn't really matter what the religion is saying (since you don't need it to make any sense anymore).

So, is it ever fair to draw a conclusion about someone's intellect based on their faith? Which faiths do you consider intellectually compromised?

Yes (just like I can call a famous and smart scientist an idiot if he/she says the sky is always pink). All of them (by definition of faith).

*EDIT* AAHHH!!!! I'm so sorry, I totally forgot to include Atheism/Agnosticism. I knew there were supposed to be 11 Options! Sorry to all the Atheist/Agnostic Haters. =O

Atheists (which includes agnostics) are the least trusted persons in the United States. An atheist won't have a shot at the white house for many decades...

I probably wouldn't vote for a religious person outside of mainstream Christianity.

The reason being is probably hard to express, but i'll give it a shot.

In the US most people will default to some type of Christianity. I believe that most "christians" in the US are merely christian because their parents said they were and never really bothered to question it. I mean I know plenty of "christians" who have never read the bible or attended a sunday service.

However to be any other religion in the US means you're going against the grain. You're surrounded by "cultural christianity" yet you make a conscious decision to stay with your religious beliefs.

For instance a Jehovah's Witness should be surrounded by enough conflicting opinion that he would question his belief so he has made an explicit decision to continue following his crazy beliefs. Whereas a mainstream christian will rarely see conflicting opinion(unless he goes out in search of it) therefore he might not make an explicit decision to be a christian.

Hopefully some of that made some sense.

Slight. You believe that not adopting the mainstream opinion on how to save your eternal soul, regardless of your own personal discoveries, is to be condemned and not elected. Mind elaborating on how this makes sense?

Your faith makes you less intelligent once your faith causes you to do something/believe something which is obviously not intelligent.

I disagree.

Do something not intelligent: That's just the realization of the faith through action. Before this action, the person would still have the irrational belief that led to all this. The action itself is actually logical, given that their faith is correct. The crux of the problem lies with the actual foundation: their faith.

Believe something not intelligent: Again, this is the realization of the faith. If I believe mathematical addition is what I want a random number to be: 2+2=5, 5+7=10, 3+4=7, I would still be grossly wrong despite the fact that I got 3+4=7 correct randomly.

And discriminating your leaders based on faith makes a bit of sense, because you don't want someone with power to not understand the way the world works.

Agreed. I can't blame the Christian for finding it unthinkable to elect a non-Christian that doesn't serve the will of his god. I can blame the Christian for being a Christian.

Refusing to consider someone for president simply on the basis of their religion is purely foolish prejudice. There are amazingly good people of every belief system, and there are bad people of every belief system as well. You have to assess a person on their own merits, rather than just stereotype them or shove them in an umbrella category and move on.

Unfortunately, for any person to have even a remote chance at the white house, they need to claim and preach Christianity.

Where is the "anyone who doesn't at least realize the existence of some sort of higher being has a serious flaw as far as their grasp on reality goes" option? The poll seems a bit one-sided.

This belief can definitely challenge their grasp on reality: if you believe there's an invisible person in the sky that's affecting things on Earth, I shudder to think about the decisions you'd make with America. Maybe you'll send soldiers to death missions, because you have faith that this invisible friend of yours will actually miraculously save them, to give a simple example.

That comment might have some validity if there was actually any evidence against the existence of God. Since there isn't any...

It is illogical to assert one's beliefs with the lack of evidence against these beliefs. Suppose I say that the universe came to be by a unicorn stabbing itself in the eye. There isn't any evidence against this, since none of us were there at that time (and other reasons).

Now we have two perfectly reasonable (in your opinion) conclusions: your god and my unicorn. Yet, by your method of belief (evidence against is required), they are equally plausible. Soon, we can add to those 2 conclusions an infinite number of equally plausible conclusions.

The logical result is that when dealing with an unknown subject (such as creation), anyone can believe whatever the hell they want (regardless of existent theories and evidence leading to these theories), and it is equally valid. If that makes sense to you, then there's not much more I can discuss with you.

He walks on water, and he has the witnesses to prove it [12 apostles]!
You don't.

How do we know that Jesus was the Son of God? The Bible says so, showing us all the miracles and giving us all the evidence we need. But the Bible is directly tied in with Jesus. If one is correct, the other is correct, and vice-versa. So the question remains: How do we know that the Bible is correct?

Evidence -against- Christ being the Son of God? Nope. In fact, the eyewitness accounts (evidence!) in the Gospels clearly indicates otherwise.

These eyewitness accounts are directly from a book that asserts his being the Son of God! A book's claim "Jesus is the Son of God" cannot be backed up by the same book's content. Then I could create a book that says that I am the son of God, and back it up with the book's content in a similar way. So the question remains: How do we know that the Bible is correct?

You, though? Maybe no evidence against, but have you any evidence to support such a claim?

You are committing the logical fallacy before your own eyes! You demand anti-evidence for Christ, but evidence for the other poster.

Logically, using the scientific method, you make no assumptions. In this case, the two subject are on equal footing, and Christ only seems a more reasonable conclusion because you had already assumed it. In fact, we can even do the opposite:

Assume the poster is correct. Do we have any evidence against the poster being the son of God? No (since it's usually impossible to prove a negative). Do we have evidence for Christ? Yes, but is it enough (evidence exists of everything everywhere, and it's up to us to evaluate it)? Probably not.

With the same kind of data, we can obtain contradicting conclusions. That must mean that the method is incorrect. I believe that the best method (as an alternative method for you) that we have right now is the Scientific Method.

 

[bhsup]

I wouldn't call "witness accounts" from two thousands years back (especially from fanatics or followers of Jesus) as hard evidence in any shape or form.

IMHO I think it requires extra leap of faith to accept that as evidence even if you happen to believe into God.

the gospels are not eyewitness accounts

Well then wouldn't that point of view invalidate all ancient accounts from all sources?

 

[Elrohir]

the gospels are not eyewitness accounts

Says you.

 

[downtown]

You're just biased.

Sure, I'm a little biased...but for the life of me, I really cannot understand this line of thinking.

Honestly, what is the difference between a "fraud" religion and a "socially acceptable" one? Sure, the Joesph Smith story can sound a little fantastic, but lets put that in the context of the rest of Christianity, who worships a water-walking zombie. Can you imagine how silly this sounds?

"Okay, believing that a man, 2000 years ago, walked on water, turned water to wine, healed the sick, died for the sins of mankind, and came back from the dead 3 days later is completely logically reasonable. But the idea that after all that, he came to the Americas? THATS JUST CRAZY CULT TALK"

I think somebody's religion should only come into play if you can prove that its really had a negative impact on one's decision making ability on behalf of the public. We have a pretty large group of LDS politicians...the Governors of several states, the Senate Majority Leader, several influential Senators, and in the last few decades, cabinet-level posts, high level posts in the military and in the civil service. I do not think you can find anybody who's decision-making ability was compromised by his religion (like I think you can with say, Tom Cruise).

I can't stand Mitt Romney....I really can't...but looking at his record of professional and academic accomplishments, I think you would be hard pressed to make the argument that he's some crazy cultist that couldn't be trusted with any real decision making ability. I would question the intellectual capacity, or at least the wisdom, of anybody who made that leap, with Romney, or Me, or anybody else.

 

[Evie]

Well then wouldn't that point of view invalidate all ancient accounts from all sources?

When they claim divine intervention and miracles? Definitely.

As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Miracles are extraordinary; millenia-old non-eyewitness religious text casting a divine, miraculous light on events are, well...pretty much ordinary. (This is not meant as a slight on the content of the gospels, but as a statement of their historical value)

Says you.

(and the majority of relevant scholars)

 

[El_Machinae]

Downtown: I'm really sure 'Ro was being silly.

Well then wouldn't that point of view invalidate all ancient accounts from all sources?

Says you.

Don't mistake me. I'm just saying that the authors of the gospels never actually witnessed the events. It's not as if the disciples themselves wrote those gospels.

You can't say there were 'a dozen witnesses to the event', because at best there's one person quoted as being a witness, and he was claiming that other people were there too.

So, again, walking on water's not really all that impressive. Hundreds of people have seen me rip the head off of a tiger.

 

[C~G]

When they claim divine intervention and miracles? Definitely.

As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Miracles are extraordinary; millenia-old non-eyewitness religious text casting a divine, miraculous light on events are, well...pretty much ordinary. (This is not meant as a slight on the content of the gospels, but as a statement of their historical value)

You stole my line.

 

[downtown]

Downtown: I'm really sure 'Ro was being silly.

I'm not, and even if he was, there are thousands of people (some on this board), who still believe this.

 

[Elrohir]

Sure, I'm a little biased...but for the life of me, I really cannot understand this line of thinking.

Honestly, what is the difference between a "fraud" religion and a "socially acceptable" one? Sure, the Joesph Smith story can sound a little fantastic, but lets put that in the context of the rest of Christianity, who worships a water-walking zombie. Can you imagine how silly this sounds?

"Okay, believing that a man, 2000 years ago, walked on water, turned water to wine, healed the sick, died for the sins of mankind, and came back from the dead 3 days later is completely logically reasonable. But the idea that after all that, he came to the Americas? THATS JUST CRAZY CULT TALK"

I think somebody's religion should only come into play if you can prove that its really had a negative impact on one's decision making ability on behalf of the public. We have a pretty large group of LDS politicians...the Governors of several states, the Senate Majority Leader, several influential Senators, and in the last few decades, cabinet-level posts, high level posts in the military and in the civil service. I do not think you can find anybody who's decision-making ability was compromised by his religion (like I think you can with say, Tom Cruise).

I can't stand Mitt Romney....I really can't...but looking at his record of professional and academic accomplishments, I think you would be hard pressed to make the argument that he's some crazy cultist that couldn't be trusted with any real decision making ability. I would question the intellectual capacity, or at least the wisdom, of anybody who made that leap, with Romney, or Me, or anybody else.

Downtown: I'm really sure 'Ro was being silly.

Yep, I was joking. I'd vote for Downtown for president, crazy Mormon or not.

(and the majority of relevant scholars)

True. But that's also a matter of opinion, not demonstrable fact. These aren't mathematicians checking a colleague's proof, or physicists double checking an experiment - these are historians making educated guesses. Often they're right, and quite often they're wrong, and unfortunately it's often more difficult to show either way in a 'soft' science like history or archaeology than it is in other, 'harder,' sciences.

Don't mistake me. I'm just saying that the authors of the gospels never actually witnessed the events. It's not as if the disciples themselves wrote those gospels.

You can't say there were 'a dozen witnesses to the event', because at best there's one person quoted as being a witness, and he was claiming that other people were there too.

So, again, walking on water's not really all that impressive. Hundreds of people have seen me rip the head off of a tiger.

But you don't know that. You don't think that the disciples wrote the Gospels, but you can't prove that that they didn't. And since you're the one trying to convince me, not vice versa, that's your problem, not mine.

 

[downtown]

Yep, I was joking. I'd vote for Downtown for president, crazy Mormon or not.

Oh, sorry, this was for the OP, not you. I knew you were joking.

 

[CheScott]

You know, there's a lot of talk about if Biblical accounts can be considered evidence or not.

My feeling is that Jesus was the best of the lot, and he never wrote a damn thing about any of it. If their best guy doesn't feel there was anything worth writing about, I have a hard time putting a lot of stock in a distant second has to say about the subject.

 

[CheScott]

Downtown: I'm really sure 'Ro was being silly.




Don't mistake me. I'm just saying that the authors of the gospels never actually witnessed the events. It's not as if the disciples themselves wrote those gospels.

You can't say there were 'a dozen witnesses to the event', because at best there's one person quoted as being a witness, and he was claiming that other people were there too.

So, again, walking on water's not really all that impressive. Hundreds of people have seen me rip the head off of a tiger.

Yes, he's right. I was there. There were hundreds of people watching.

God inspired me to write this, therefore it must be true.

 

[Gogf]

This is just poorly-disguised bigotry.

 

[Brighteye]

I think of religion as an hereditary condition of sorts. I can't explain how otherwise intelligent beings are completely convinced about something without proof and get even more convinced when evidence point against it(and they see this as a virtue!).

Those who turn to religion later when they're adults can't possibly have believed much in their first religion in the first place.

I can understand having an emotional attachment to a religion because you were brought up with it, but finding a religion, or a new religion, when an adult really does seem odd to me. All these middle-aged converts need to see a psychiatrist, not a preacher.

I was told once (I was raised Catholic) that I worship Mary.

I tell Catholics that. It's a good way to start a conversation with them (I meet a lot of theologians and mediaeval scholars).

any person practicing a faith, while not necessarily illogical and unintelligent (just like a person who lies once is not a liar), is actively forgoing the use of their intelligence, to put it bluntly. However, most of the time it can be forgiven and written off as an emotional endeavor: the emotions involved and their resolution with the introduction of a religion, is far greater a benefit than the use of intelligence.

I like this. Religion is often just a crutch for the weak and needy.

The threadstarter claims Mormonism is stoopid, yet the two Mormons on this forum that I know of (eran and downtown) are really smart!

I'd agree with this too, although the Mormons I know on this forum are the only two I know at all. Given the sample of Mormonism I've seen, I'd say that they're fine citizens of whom the US should be proud.

"Okay, believing that a man, 2000 years ago, walked on water, turned water to wine, healed the sick, died for the sins of mankind, and came back from the dead 3 days later is completely logically reasonable. But the idea that after all that, he came to the Americas? THATS JUST CRAZY CULT TALK"

And he visited England before he did all that, travelling as a child with Joseph of Arimathea. He really got around!

 

[CheScott]

This is just poorly-disguised bigotry.

No, I'm not disguising it.

I'm saying I don't think it's entirely unjustified.

 

[CheScott]

I'd agree with this too, although the Mormons I know on this forum are the only two I know at all. Given the sample of Mormonism I've seen, I'd say that they're fine citizens of whom the US should be proud.

I've known quite a few been friends with a couple. I've still yet to meet one I'd call intelligent, however.

But, I would like to point out that there seems to be a double standard going on here. People seem to have little trouble designating members of a religion with positive traits, while we say to call them unintelligent is bigoted.

But they are both the same act, with different spin. It is just as bigoted to say Mormons are fine citizens as it is to say they are stupid.

 

[History_Buff]

Where is the "anyone who doesn't at least realize the existence of some sort of higher being has a serious flaw as far as their grasp on reality goes" option? The poll seems a bit one-sided.

I can't see why this is such a big deal. So I don't believe there is some all powerful being in the sky interfering in people's lives. This does not mean I am incapable of acknowledging higher secular powers.

 

[bhsup]

I just thought the option should be included for fairness.

 

[Brighteye]

But they are both the same act, with different spin. It is just as bigoted to say Mormons are fine citizens as it is to say they are stupid.

Only if both are untrue.
A sample of two is insufficiently large for reliable conclusions: I'd need at least six, and preferably eight. So my qualifier is actually rather important.

 

[CheScott]

I just thought the option should be included for fairness.

Well, I had intended to include Atheists/Agnostics in the list as an eleventh option. I filled out the number of options first, wrote the post then on the second page, where I was to fill out the poll, gapped on that part.

But, anyone who thinks Scientology has greater logical weight than Atheism needs to be checked into a mental institution.