The Joy of Atheism
Friday, July 11th, 2003Turns out there’s a new word which combines the concept of atheism with a healthy disregard for the supernatural. If this describes you then you may consider yourself a "Bright"
__________
"A Bright’s worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements"
Here is an interesting bunch of info, correlating higher intelligence with the absence of religious beliefs. I’m pretty confident that the former leads to the latter, but I do find it troubling that atheists are pushed into this position where in order justify our position we necessarily have to imply stupidity on the part of the believer, making it very difficult to open a meaningful dialogue.
Actually I’m happy to accept that such studies might show no correlation at all. Clearly there are many brilliant people in the world who are also believers. From my own experience I can say that the people I’ve met who are not religious also tend to be less likely to believe in ESP, Astrology and perpetual motion. For this I have no choice but to rank them as generally smarter [a completely subjective judgement I am happy to admit]
Here is a site refuting the conclusions drawn by the previous one , written in a slightly smarmy defensive tone, with more exclamation marks.
On Believers vs Skeptics in General
Creationists will often pursue a perverse logic which says that because you can’t completely describe [and experimentally verify] all of the processes which led to the current state of the universe [and how divinely beautiful it clearly is], therefore you must except that the nature of the universe is beyond human understanding and therefore you must accept that there is a divine creator, because as we all know God is beyond human understanding. Mmmm. Apart from the circular, another approach commonly employed [in a Believer’s counter-argument to the Skeptic] is to constantly go "aha!" and claim that the Un-Believer has been hoist by his own petard. Fortunately, simply saying this does not make it true.
* unfortunately I cannot find the original source for this comment, but it was originally reported in an interview. I wish I could track it down.
Such arguments are on about the same level as when famous dickhead John Edward dismissed criticism from famous skeptic James Randi by calling into question the credibility of anyone who would ever go under the moniker: "The Amazing Randi"* James Randi is a professional magician who spends his time fighting ignorance and encouraging people to use their uniquely human capacity for critical thought - magic tricks are very useful for demonstrating how easily people can be fooled. [Interesting to note are the stylistic differences between John Edward’s site and James Randi’s - Which site is the more insulting to one’s intelligence?]
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