Hitting that old devil thesaurus again, are you?

Second, let's discuss the topic instead of making it personal, eh?

...for a meld of strained and tenuous - if strenuous weren't already a word, it could qualify for the annual list of "Words That Aren't Words But Should Be."

I could say that about constipation. I just sounds like something no body wants to have.

If it was the author himself...well, not really surprising, either.

I'm sure with your expertise on the matter and your skills at education you can have the author up and on his feet in no time.

No way.

And what do you think about "transhumanism?"

Before the edit: "And spoil his amusememt value?".

I imagine there's a reason you reposted a polemic by a transhumanist.

It doesn't mention Native American pottery or superstitions or anything which you could claim was an attack on women, gay people or any of your confederates, so it seems a little out of your bailiwick.

(And yes, I do mean bailiwick. Your understanding may be limited, mine is fine.)

I've asked Warren a question as a basis for discussion. He hasn't responded.

cherry picks what is "absolute faith"--defining it so that intellectual theism is simply out of the picture.

"...when sophisticated thinkers claim to be religious...." we can just ignore them, since they don't conform to the specious analysis of the writer. We can read their minds, judge their motivations and construe them as something we choose to define as essentially non-religious. How neat! So much easier than attempting actually to understand what these folks are on about.

This may seem odd, but I happen to think that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a pretty smart guy. As was Mahatma Gandhi. I've always thought the Rev. Jessie Jackson was intellectually gifted as well. As I write this I'm looking at my old copy of Reinhold Niebuhr's "Moral Man and Immoral Society." But I guess none of those po' simple folk, nor any of those who have actually examined and put some stock in their theological writings, can hold a candle to the intellectual heft of Mr. Messerly, not to mention some of our resident DU atheists.

Is it my imagination, or do the "all religions suck, and all religious people are dolts" OPs proliferate every Christmas?

It's almost as if there's some genuine animus involved.

that somewhere in the English speaking world, there are some very, very clean hogs.

He said: "they often have something in mind unlike what the general populace believes". Do you disagree with that?

That's precisely what irks me about this essay. It's how the author is able to discount the existence of some very brilliant people who are also religious. He proposes a hypothesis--that religion has a problem with smart people--and then rather crudely defines precisely those people who might prove a problem to his hypothesis out of the picture.

Yes, many contemporary theologians have a more sophisticated or nuanced concept of divinity than does the general public. But I don't see how various religious traditions being flexible enough to accommodate the schools of thought the author cites (not to mention the various shades of feminist, queer, and liberation theologies being discussed at places like Harvard and Episcopal Divinity Schools, or the Metropolitan Community Church) somehow translates into religion having a "problem" with smart people. Quite the contrary, it seems to me.

Looking at some of the responses to this OP, it seems to me more accurate to say that at least some atheists have a problem with smart believers. They simply don't believe them possible--regardless of the reality of their existence. It seems the only way at least some of them can reconcile the notion of intelligent religious believers is to say that these believers are being disingenuous about their faith, either to themselves or to others. It all appears rather condescending to me--is basically what I'm saying.

In your opinion, Warren, was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. not smart? Or was he lying to himself or others about the reality of his faith? And if his faith was not "what the general populace believes"--how does that somehow become "a problem" between him and religion? Or let's take a more contemporary example: President Jimmy Carter. Do you not believe he's smart? Or do you not believe that he's a person of faith? Or is he a smart person of faith who is in fact living a lie--which is what some of the other posters here seem to be saying?

To me what it comes down to is accepting that there is a diversity of opinion on matters religious, and that there are smart, reasonable, well-intentioned and entirely honest people on both sides. It bothers me when religious people assume that atheists or agnostics are somehow morally suspect, and it bothers me just as much when atheists make the same or similar gross generalizations about people of faith.

Tell us what you believe about transhumanism.

Here is how it would work. You could find an article on transhumanism that expresses your view on it, or you could post your original thoughts on the subject. Then other people could read your article and respond. Then we could have a dialog on transhumanism.

Or you could latch on to ops on other subjects and post grammar snark and thread hijacks.

Your choice.

If you can start three threads in 10 minutes, certainly you can make ordinary posts.

So what do you think about transhumanism? This makes the third time you've been asked.

And you could always respond to post 21.

Last edited Tue Dec 23, 2014, 07:03 PM - Edit history (1)

Here ya go: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218172727

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and believe because of that?

Basically, your explanation for all the brilliant believers in the world is that they're deluding themselves, for one reason or another. This would, evidently, include people such as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, President Carter, and others. All these people, seemingly, have religious conviction not through some lived experience, intelligently interpreted, but simply because their minds are hobbled by self-delusion. That's what I take away from this OP, and your various explicating posts.

Nothing too condescending about that, no sir.

Perhaps your attempts to find out "what" and "why" various people believe in something beside or beyond the material world is stymied by your patronizing attitude toward them?

Just a thought.

Have you ever read William James, "The Varieties of Religious Experience?" There is an excellent edition with an introduction by Reinhold Niebuhr. If you're truly interested in the "what" and the "why" of religious belief you might want to start there.

is that "transhumanism" comes with a built-in caste system.

... "What, you're religious? How? You're *educated*!!"

================

On certain matters. When it comes to religion, society gives people a wide berth to not care about the truth, and it's socially acceptable, even praised as a virtue.

You can be smart and believe false things when those beliefs are given so much privilege. The trick is in tearing down that privilege, because believing false things hurts us all.

Many people who are religious could care less whether the beliefs they subscribe to are true or even testable. Having faith on a subject is another way of saying you don't care about the truth. But people selectively "have faith" depending on the subject.

Being smart means being able to find the truth. What good does it do to deny the obvious? This is how I take your obvious contradiction: If a smart person were a cat, and cats climb trees, your ideal cat doesn't.

Truth is essential to everyone's existence. Even church people need enough truth to survive.

For me, part of being smart is the capability to understand and find the truth. That is why many smart people apply one standard of evidence to their every day lives and another to religion. Its socially acceptable as well. It's just compartmentalizations and cognitive dissonance for the most part, and some people eventually overcome that.

All people are good at resolving contradictions within themselves. If they know religion is not logical they accept a certain amount of illogic in their lives, as culture, so to speak, because everyone around them does.

How I usually define smart as, is quick. And this is easy for me because I am not. I define intelligence as insight because I am insightful. Truth is Equally the object for both sorts of people, and all people define themselves by truth. Even Hermon Goering called himself True Hermon. If you want to tick people off; point out the contradictions in their character. But I would not bother.

We have the dialectic in our society because the church fathers in trying to understand Roman law and apply it in their society needed it to resolve contradictions. This dialectic was once used with the sole purpose of finding the truth, and in the hands of the church it assumed a different purpose. Just as laws can conceal many contradictions, and people can live for a time with such law, in the end such societies are weakened by them, and put on the path of destruction.

Modern life demands a high degree of reason from people if they will be successful. People can still be successful in a limited sense if they are rational in most respects and irrational on Sunday. Many in church find these contradictions between reason- science; and religion- belief, are too deep to overcome. They will not be a house divided; but reject reason completely. This would not be a problem except for the privileges of religion which give the religious extreme power over others that is often exercised on local school boards.

When we need our children well educated and reasoning to make them fit to survive in the modern would we find them cluttered up with ideological impedimenta. I see where the religious try constantly to make their issues the issues in classrooms even at a university level. It wrongs every person who pays for their education and needs it for their support. They injure the whole society when they try to force us to accept their beliefs. No one can make them think or act with reason. We are within our rights to demand that they act with reason in all things social and political

I like that it brings up how smart people can rationalize false beliefs for a whole wide array of reasons.

The first question to ask someone who wants to discuss religion is whether they care about what is true or not, because in my experience, most believers don't. Their beliefs are for some other reason.

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I have rebuilt transmissions, engines, carburetors, and can do almost anything on a house. I never think I am really smart until I meet some one really stupid. If I try to count all of the skills I have, I can never include people skills; Still, who has the magical power to know what is in another person's mind?.

Other than music, and perhaps dance, we only have language, and like that television doctor: House says. Everyone lies.

I don't lie because I don't count because I don't care. I have seen the most intelligent man I ever actually knew, an uncle by marriage, a PHD physicist and head of the Nat Sci department at MSU- go to church regularly. He was a good guy. I never asked him what he made of God with all of his intellectual ability. I made little of God with my little ability and maybe God made me little with Her ability.

I feel my intellectual abilities so long neglected out of necessity- that I give my mind all it can handle. My uncle had such a varied collection of spy novels that I wonder if the government wasn't paying him to read them. In my reading when I started reading physics, he pointed out some books I could read, and helped me if I had questions. Much of it was good, yet not necessarily up to date; and still in its way, relevant. Try to imagine how much scientists were doing over a hundred years ago when the rest of the world was in nearly a stone age. Do you think such people grasping the grandness of knowledge and the beauty of science could ever seriously doubt a God?

It is not the intelligent and well who doubt in a God even if they practice no organized religion. It is the hurt, the heartbroken, and the injured who doubt in God, because God has been cruel to them. I will tell you a secret, and any one who gives a shet. I once witnessed a miracle.

One night, my mother lite blessed candles and I joined her in prayer while my little brother slept, and my older brother for whom the miracle was prayed joined in. As we prayed the rosary, my mother stopped and rubbed blessed water on my brother's spindly legs, crippled with Polio. And she always asked for God to do his will and not hers and this was the perfect prayer, because God did just that.

And this prayer of acceptance, my brother heard too, and was granted resignation. But I was cured, and maybe my mother should have been more specific, and maybe I should have been more grateful; but I was cured, and I saw in my youth a ritual of faith and promise and sacrifice and prayer played out as it has been played out for well over a thousand years, and I realized what a miracle is faith when every card in the universe seems stacked against you.

Life at times can seem such futility. Life throws at us heartbreaks uncounted until they kill us. Little man monkeys that we are, we often stand up to it well and with a good heart. If you never ask God for nothing you will never be disappointed. If you get in a desperate situation, Pray. If prayer has no effect; Die. If you survive, testify; because that is what survivors always do. It does not mean they're prayers were more worthy or their faith more dear. It means they survived, and some day they won't, and then, I hope they can meet death with good cheer.

God, or for your benefit; If there is a God; she is no piss ant. Consider the vastness of the universe. As the universe has grown, so has God's distance from us. We used to be able to reach heaven with a bean stalk, or a ladder. Now you can't go there any more short of being free of the flesh. What's the rush. Because from the perspective of this sinner, those who deny their own flesh and their own life deny all life and all flesh. It makes such people miserable and righteous

I have this body not as a testimony to God when I am saved; but when I am cursed. When I can see the wonder of this life even through the haze of my own pain and misery, I am yet well. And I think this is true of intelligent people, that they can be grateful for life even if they do not know who to be grateful to. God is too big for the trivial shet of churches. I am a member of the one true faith and it seems so much nonsense. If a person in poverty asks me for help, I give what I can, not because of who he is but because of who I am.

If some one needs to believe, and they need the comfort and support of community why would I deny them that. It is one thing to deny to Christians the privilege of interference in politics; but who should deny them what they need. I would not deny a rummy rum. I would not deny a druggy drugs; but no one will ever get enough for a fatal dose from me.

If you need to escape this life, the pain, the strife, the loneliness of life who am I to deny. If religion is your strength, I want you strong. If reality is your strength ,I want you strong. We all pay for our lives with our lives. and this is true for rich or poor, those who live a hundred years or only seconds.

Religion does not work for you. Religion does not make sense to you. If it did not answer normal human needs it would be worth little to humanity. I don't buy into religion for a moment, and yet in that word: Firmament the result of power, you have it all. Only acknowledge how large is the cosmos and how small are we. Do not be like the religious and make God small to make yourself large.

Be what you are, and not as you feel you have been forced to be. Live life active, and not reactive. Do not live contra Christianity. Forget all religions and answer the question: Who made this, What made this; and understand that you will never know. Nothing is fore ordained but human ignorance, and for every wisp of knowledge we must be thankful. Will you thank the man that learned some new knowledge when he was thanking God?. What if we made God and God did not make us. Should the fact that we have no address to send a thank you card stop us from feeling grateful. What reason have you to feel otherwise?

and thought for sure it would garner a ton of attaboys, guess not. Not sure what the edits have brought but it looks basically the same. Very nice.

Anyway just did a jury on #52, and now that I'm here I thought I'd add that hat tip to an intriguing post in a thread which, to give Mr. S credit, starts with a very interesting OP.

Beyond knowledge, we all have belief; and it is a shame that God is not more personal and formal to people who put God beyond their knowledge; but I rather like a Cosmic God, and capable of all great wonders. It leaves me responsible for my own behavior, and If I want to change the behavior of others I cannot use Dogma, or force; and must employ the Moral argument.

A really smart guy hooks up with fundies for the girls. Duh! It is the only thing that makes human sense.

"The gay rights movement would deny Christians their constitutional right to religion and free speech"

Will our staunch supporters of religion step up to denounce this poster?

Because in keeping with the stereotype that you have created, the "staunch supporters of religion" are pitiful, mouth breathing idiots who want nothing more than to oppress and persecute the innocently brilliant and intellectual likes of you.

Happy new year.

not what they believe, but what they do. Their privileges come out of our civil rights, and we have often been called to defend their privileges with our lives. And they constantly attack our personal rights and liberties from their position of privilege. The constitution grants nothing if we contest that grant of privilege. That is why they call their privileges: God Given. They do not want to answer to this people for the abuse of our rights.

For instance, groups of Mormons and Catholics threw money at the initial passage of prop 8 because of what they believe.
Catholics threw millions at defeating I-1000 because of what they believe.
All sorts of Abrahamic faiths throw money at curtailing abortion in the US, because of what they believe.

What they do is problematic, but they DO it because of what they believe, not just... to do stuff for no reason.

If and when they turn the privilege given to them to be free of Government in the Constitution against this people they must be stopped. What do they believe, after all? Are they at all Christian in their attitudes and behavior?

Their powers make them more than equal to us; and they act in concert with other groups protecting their privilege, and they act against our rights. Organized religion is the enemy of Democracy and the Enemy of this people. And it always has been.

Religious beliefs held as a personal right will never be a problem. Let them organize as individuals as every individual must now organize for their rights. Let them pay lobbyists, and support candidates. Let them have no protection of privilege in which to organize. Let them pay taxes like the rest of us.

but I will denounce blatant (and not so blatant) homophobia every chance I get, no matter what the faith or lack thereof of the bigot in question.

But I wonder how "staunch supporters" of atheism feel about your characterization of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s deep religious conviction being "in the first category" of "smart" believers who feel some emotional need for their faith--as opposed to having an intelligent belief system arrived at through study, discussion, and contemplation.

When Dr. King asked his supporters to risk their lives, citing his faith in "the moral arc of the universe"--that was just a con? Or self-delusion derived from some "emotional need"?

I think you've already answered the question, but I want to be sure I understood you correctly. Folks such as Dr. King, Mahatma Gandhi... I could list others... they believed as they did because they were somehow emotionally dependent on their faith? An emotional dependence you and, presumably your fellow atheists, have grown out of? And if those folks were alive today (having been murdered for their social justice activism) you would classify them as, in a sense, emotionally stunted?

This seems to be the thrust of your OP, is it not?

Inquiring minds want to know.

There is no "moral arc of the universe", and I doubt Dr. King thought there really was either. It is a great phrase but if one thinks about it for a moment, it is astoundingly obvious that the universe has no morality or purpose and that we are just a flicker of light, a moment of time, and of no consequence. The only moral arc for us is the one we make for ourselves, and I think King, by his deeds, was well aware of that, and was more than willing to use the rhetoric of belief to build that arc.

you get pissed off a lot.

I am not even a shrink and I would offer this fellow therapy. Something is bugging him. The irrationality of religion has met its match in the irrationality of Warren.

So what if he is right that we are of no consequence. If we can hitch our wagon to God we can go to town lickety split. Little people get to feel big standing in the shadow of God. Who do they hurt but themselves for the most part. Certainly nothing here for normal people to get bent about.

Okay, that's clear then.

"I doubt Dr. King thought there was either..."

And here I thought mind-reading was, how would you put it, "woo."

King's writings and sermons on the nature and depth of his faith are voluminous, but you obviously know better. All those sermons were just self-delusional BS. No possibility at all they might have come out of his own experience, or study, or contemplation. Not only that, but Dr. King evidently KNEW it was BS while he was preaching it, because it is, after all, "astoundingly obvious."

Just wanted to be sure I had you pegged correctly.

Also I am not claiming to be inside King's head, you asked for my opinion and I gave you my opinion. To then slam me for giving an opinion seems, oh I don't know, just a bit dishonest.

But if the universe has a moral arc of its own, we can just sit back and let justice happen.

I'm slamming you for the opinion itself. To say I'm "slamming you for giving an opinion" is a rather gross distortion of what just happened here. Really, such a comeback should be beneath you.

And yes, you are claiming to be "inside King's head"--how else can you offer an opinion on his motivations without anything he said or wrote to justify it? Your opinion, in fact, is rather "faith based"--relying as it does on your fervent belief that smart religious people either simply don't exist, or else have some motivation for their belief other than their own intelligence and experience. You know religious belief to be bunk, therefore anyone of obvious intelligence who disagrees MUST either be lying, or have a screw loose somewhere. You haven't said those words precisely, but I think that's a pretty fair characterization of both the OP, and your various posts here. If not, feel free to correct the record.

"But if the universe has a moral arc of its own..."

I suggest you read, or re-read, Dr. King's "Testament of Hope." He deals with the question of why we, as moral human beings, need to act in the face of injustice. Also, check out Reinhold Niebuhr's "Moral Man and Immoral Society." from which Rev. King drew much of his inspiration, and to which I have already alluded. That's if you're truly interested in getting "inside the heads" of some of the people whom you dismiss with such evident scorn. Niebuhr, BTW, evidently was another one of those smart people of faith who was obviously either self-deluded or a charlatan. (I trust there is no need here for the sarcasm smiley).

In another post here you said you were interested in discussing the "why" and "what" of faith. Can you honestly not see how your attitude, which fairly drips with condescension, might preclude such a discussion? How does one discuss a topic, any topic, with someone who dismisses, out of hand, the other person as being either a liar or emotionally deficient?

Best of luck with that. I think I'm pretty much done here, but I'm sure we'll meet again on some thread or another.

Until then, best wishes, and happy new year to you and yours.

It is clear that those charged with teaching the faith, the monks and priests very often showed the least of belief. Year after year and century after century there were good people always trying to rein in the wolves among the sheep. And the fact that the church had ecclesiastical courts for their own did not help on little bit. Clerics would get caught in terrible crimes and ask for a Bible and quote a verse, and were released to the church. It is not different today. There is no standard law for Church people, even priests and ministers, and when it comes down to it they are no better than the rest of us.

The greater universe may not have a purpose that we can determine. It most certainly has a logic to it called cause and effect, and it is no wonder that people saw in the notion of God a cause for all, since from our perspective, nature was so perfect and giving. There are a lot of irrational reasons why people cling to the notion of God even when they understand life scientifically, but people see evidence of God all over, even in the idea of cause and effect, and if there is no absolute proof of God, still there is no absolute proof against.

Is this an intelligence test? I have seen intelligent people believe, and I have seen intelligent people reject belief. What kind of nimrod flogs a dead horse like religion for the joy of it? You can spit on the churches individually or collectively. They are each of them equally bad and good. You can object to the irrational having such charge of our government and affairs. To try to prove or disprove events and causes beyond our reach is entirely foolish. Have you got a loose screw on this subject? What can you prove? What do you know for a fact? You reveal your hostility. If you have cause, then sue. Don't waste your bark on a tree the squirrel left hours ago.

No it wasn't an intelligence test. The OP, not by me, as somebody seemed a bit confused about that, was discussing why intelligent people claim to believe in fairy tales.

and if that bubble of society is inside the bubble of the universe then it makes more sense to talk of them as one and the same. Stars explode. Margaret Mary farts. That fart will likely affect me more a hundred miles away than some distant Super Nova.

Look W S. I see you get all lathered up on this subject. I am not telling you not to share. What I expect, is that you have been injured personally or psychologically by some one over the issue of religion. You have way too much emotional involvement. I have my issues with religion. I think reason and reasonable people have all been injured by people of faith. Still; the unreason of others is not a reason for our own unreason. And if you have been personally injured, for your sake, talk to some one about it.

Here is my problem: We are all irrational in some respects, more or less, but seldom in every respect. Rational people are only more rational. I have something I want to accomplish with my life; and reason is required for it. In fact, some degree of understanding and cooperation with religious people is required for what I desire; and in the end we all need to be friends and cooperate. Unity is essential to any society that wants to last. Our society is coming apart on the basis of great differences of opinion like belief against reason.

I am not saying you and other Atheists do not make some valid points. I am saying that too often, your focus is too narrow, and emotionally driven which makes you seem only opposite rather than objective. From the perspective of America; they don't have a problem, and you don't have a problem; but we have a problem: How to find peace and unity even while we disagree on insignificant details. Do you see what I'm trying to say?

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LOL.

And I would certainly cut religious people out of constitutional privileges. They make us unequal in regard to them. They do not have to follow our law if it conflict with their notion of sin, and yet they can make law that limit our rights according to their view of sin. They can have any personal right, and even have religion as a personal right. The do not have a right of inequality. All of these privileges are an attack on democracy. We need to ask of the religious, if they truly believe their idea of sin is superior to our idea of crime, that they should punish their own sins as if crimes. They certainly want to punish the sins of nonbelievers. They should punish their own.

With that poster a scorch mark, the post can't be viewed, and passers-by can't tell if that's you quoting him, or saying that yourself.