116 replies to this topic

[Balloon guy]

vbnautilus, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 1:12 PM, said:

But the data show that more christians are than non-christians. Why is that?

The data shows that the memory of facts of Christians isn't equal to non-Christians.I believe it is because we have enough to think about knowing that we are so right all the time

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That's stupid.

Your stupid

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I would tell you, but you'll just forget right away.

Forget what?

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Wait since when does being a christian make you a ladies man? If it did, what a waste that would be: you are now the most attractive man on the planet to women, but you can't have any of them. ( OK, maybe just one. )

I've gotten used to it.

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Was I supposed to kill myself for not being christian? Goddammit I have to stop skimming over the minutes at the weekly atheist meetings.

Probably got lost in all the clutter of your memory made easy program.

[BaseJester]

Balloon guy, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 3:57 PM, said:

Which critical thinking skill gives you better memory for recalling dry facts?Because that's all this poll was.

Do you think it's possible to make a test that measures critical thinking skill? If so, what do you think would be a good question?

[Balloon guy]

BaseJester, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 3:34 PM, said:

Do you think it's possible to make a test that measures critical thinking skill? If so, what do you think would be a good question?

Q. Why is vb always wrong?A. Because he don't think straight!I am not making any declarative statement about tests ( other than IQ tests as a whole being the best poor method we have to test intelligence ) I am mostly saying that this test isn't saying what you guys want to pretend it says.It isn't saying that Christians are stupid, and if you're not stupid then you won't be a Christian.All I need is one intelligent person who is a Christian and that entire argument is destroyed, and I have me.Which is like twice the needed level of smart to meet any requirements to disprove the dumbness of this studyAnd the fact that so many people are trying their hardest to make this poll come out this way, on the basis of a limited number of questions, many of which are arguably irrelevant, just shows you this fact.They asked non-mormons, mormon questions...who does that?

[Balloon guy]

Do we really want these 'facts' to be the basis for an argument that atheist aren't ignorant?I for one say no.Jonathan Edwards participated in the great awakening?Is that the one in England with Spurgeon? Or the one in America with Dwight Moody?Because it was largely Spurgeon who influenced Moody, although many argue that they influenced each other.Oh sorry, you atheist didn't know this? Well then I guess we can conclude that atheist are lacking in critical reasoning skills.I guess your methodology isn't quite so clear cut.But thank you for reminding me why Spurgeon is the man. Not only did he write some of the best things in the last century, he also gave me justification to smoke cigars.

[BaseJester]

Balloon guy, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 6:45 PM, said:

Well then I guess we can conclude that atheist are lacking in critical reasoning skills.

Did anybody claim these questions tested critical reasoning skills? I think you're attacking a strawman.

[Balloon guy]

vbnautilus, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 8:53 AM, said:

Let me get this straight.... You are saying that smart actually means: having less knowledge and critical thinking skills than others but being more convinced of religious doctrines?

vbnautilus, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 10:23 AM, said:

Yes. The alternative is that my critical thinking skills work really well in all arenas except when it comes to this one issue. That was my whole point really: from the perspective of god being real, those who are right about this one issue are more likely to be wrong on others, and to have lower IQs. Does that make any sense?

vbnautilus, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 12:24 PM, said:

I know my answer: lacking critical thinking skills is a prerequisite for accepting absurd religious doctrines. What's yours?

BaseJester, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 5:00 PM, said:

Did anybody claim these questions tested critical reasoning skills? I think you're attacking a strawman.

Well we agree that bringing in critical reasoning skills is a strawman

[BaseJester]

Balloon guy, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 8:55 PM, said:

Well we agree that bringing in critical reasoning skills is a strawman

I stand corrected.

[vbnautilus]

BaseJester, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 6:52 PM, said:

I stand corrected.

Not really. I wasn't referring to this test specifically, but rather the body of evidence which shows that IQ correlates negatively with religiosity. What's new about these data is that religious people do not have comparable levels of knowledge about their own religion. I would have thought that even though they are dumber on average, they would at least have this domain covered.

[vbnautilus]

Balloon guy, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 3:43 PM, said:

And the fact that so many people are trying their hardest to make this poll come out this way, on the basis of a limited number of questions, many of which are arguably irrelevant, just shows you this fact.

The Pew Foundation, who did this research, was started by christian republicans.

[BaseJester]

vbnautilus, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 10:43 PM, said:

Not really. I wasn't referring to this test specifically, but rather the body of evidence which shows that IQ correlates negatively with religiosity. What's new about these data is that religious people do not have comparable levels of knowledge about their own religion. I would have thought that even though they are dumber on average, they would at least have this domain covered.

I was ready to explain to BG that that's what you were doing, but I re-read the thread and I had to admit that it looked like you were arguing that the poll demonstrated a lack of critical thinking skills in religious people in this post.

vbnautilus, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 3:24 PM, said:

They didn't ask obscure stuff about what Elisha or Eliza said. This was basic knowledge-type stuff that the christians didn't know. They don't know who the vice-president is. The christians all act like they are in a segment of Jay-walking. Why do you think they are so stupid? I know my answer: lacking critical thinking skills is a prerequisite for accepting absurd religious doctrines. What's yours?

On the other hand, while the distinction between knowledge and critical thinking is real, they aren't totally unrelated, either. People who are unaware of a particular claim from a religion haven't thought critically about that claim.

[Balloon guy]

vbnautilus, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 7:47 PM, said:

The Pew Foundation, who did this research, was started by christian republicans.

So are most of the things you parasites steal use.

[Balloon guy]

BaseJester, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 8:26 PM, said:

I was ready to explain to BG that that's what you were doing, but I re-read the thread and I had to admit that it looked like you were arguing that the poll demonstrated a lack of critical thinking skills in religious people in this post.

Which is how I read it as well.It was a large leap to go from memory skills of static facts to the ability to reason.

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On the other hand, while the distinction between knowledge and critical thinking is real, they aren't totally unrelated, either. People who are unaware of a particular claim from a religion haven't thought critically about that claim.

Or haven't read it.Did you know that Mormons teach that Joseph Smith used a 'seer' stone that he placed on his head that allowed him to translate the book of mormon from Egyptian to English?What about you not knowing that in any way relates to your ability to use critical reasoning skills.

[BaseJester]

Balloon guy, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 11:49 PM, said:

Did you know that Mormons teach that Joseph Smith used a 'seer' stone that he placed on his head that allowed him to translate the book of mormon from Egyptian to English?

I didn't remember that is was supposed to be Egyptian. I do know that Joseph Smith claimed to translate the Book of Mormon but didn't provide the plates in their original form outside of his inner circle.

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What about you not knowing that in any way relates to your ability to use critical reasoning skills.

It's an input to critical reasoning. We can now use our critical reasoning and determine that this sounds like bullshit.I'm not saying anything profound here; I suspect you're just disagreeing with me by reflex.

[Balloon guy]

BaseJester, on Thursday, October 7th, 2010, 4:34 AM, said:

I didn't remember that is was supposed to be Egyptian. I do know that Joseph Smith claimed to translate the Book of Mormon but didn't provide the plates in their original form outside of his inner circle.

The small little glimpse at the golden tablets revealed an Egyptian book of the dead, so they shut the golden tablets up in their vaults and now only the prophets gets to look.

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It's an input to critical reasoning. We can now use our critical reasoning and determine that this sounds like bullshit.I'm not saying anything profound here; I suspect you're just disagreeing with me by reflex.

We were agreeing that vb was wrong a couple posts ago, but you then said:

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On the other hand, while the distinction between knowledge and critical thinking is real, they aren't totally unrelated, either. People who are unaware of a particular claim from a religion haven't thought critically about that claim.

Which I was confused about, because it doesn't really say anything, but since you used the phrase 'on the other hand' it appears that this was your attempt at mitigating the damage to logic that vb had committed.I was just trying to keep vb's failure pure and now allow you to dilute it.

[vbnautilus]

Memory recall is related to what cognitive psychologists call "depth of processing". The more deeply information is processed, the more likely it is to be remembered. It's unlikely that christians who got the questions wrong were never exposed to the answers. They probably didn't process the information on a level sufficient for recall.

[SweetDee]

vbnautilus, on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010, 8:53 AM, said:

Let me get this straight.... You are saying that smart actually means: having less knowledge and critical thinking skills than others but being more convinced of religious doctrines? While we're redefining things, why not just agree that "atheists" should refer to those people who believe in god?

Sure, coming at it from Gods perspective. All the "knowledge" in the universe gets you a big fail if you don't get this one part correct. You could be literally the smartest dead man ever and God would judge you to be a complete dolt.The fastest, most expensive, sleek, cherry car in the world doesn't go anywhere if you don't believe the ignition will start it. Even for the genius that built it, he must complete this critical step to enjoy the bounties of what he created. Now, we could argue said genius is still a genius even though he does not believe in the almighty power of the ignition, I mean look at everything he has accomplished? We can't take that away, can we? No. However, I think we can also make the statement that he is pretty dumb for having this one blind spot. Honestly the fact that many "religious" folks aren't well read in other religions doesn't surprise me at all. I imagine I could probably hold my own about a good many "christian" sects, but I'm not really normal when it comes to this stuff, don't really follow anything in particular, just like to read about things, so when I get bored sometimes you might find me on the Barton Stone wikepedia page or Alexander Campbell and I can spend a few hours just reading the different things that you can connect to just from them. So, I end up knowing obscure things that others may not, but, that's not what faith is about, faith in my mind is about what speaks to you and helps you change your life to be more Christ-like. Knowledge of other religions has nothing to do with that, if Lacrosse spoke to you and you were a kick ass Lacrosse player would you expect people to look down on you because you could not answer a a few questions about Baseballl? Or, would you find it a bit offensive that others would not just recognize the mastery of Lacrosse?As far as the lack of knowledge of say, who the Vice President is this also does not surprise me all that much, most of the truly religious people I have ever known didn't really care about that kind of thing, they just lived each day for God, whatever that means to them, and truthfully does knowing who the Vice President is make your day any better or smoother? Does it get you a job? I think at best it makes you more aware or in tune to current events, to say that it makes you any more intelligent I think is stretching it. For people who sing songs like "This World is not my Home" that kind of intelligent is largely useless, they use the mind for other things. Or, they pretend to, but that's a whole other conversation.

[SweetDee]

vbnautilus, on Thursday, October 7th, 2010, 9:03 AM, said:

Memory recall is related to what cognitive psychologists call "depth of processing". The more deeply information is processed, the more likely it is to be remembered. It's unlikely that christians who got the questions wrong were never exposed to the answers. They probably didn't process the information on a level sufficient for recall.

Another way of saying that is they just don't give a shit.

[vbnautilus]

SweetDee, on Thursday, October 7th, 2010, 9:15 AM, said:

Sure, coming at it from Gods perspective. All the "knowledge" in the universe gets you a big fail if you don't get this one part correct. You could be literally the smartest dead man ever and God would judge you to be a complete dolt.

Yeah so you are agreeing with me that the christian god wants people to be stupid.

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The fastest, most expensive, sleek, cherry car in the world doesn't go anywhere if you don't believe the ignition will start it.

No, the function of the ignition is unrelated to your belief in its function.

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Even for the genius that built it, he must complete this critical step to enjoy the bounties of what he created. Now, we could argue said genius is still a genius even though he does not believe in the almighty power of the ignition, I mean look at everything he has accomplished? We can't take that away, can we? No. However, I think we can also make the statement that he is pretty dumb for having this one blind spot.

That would be different than what you are saying, which is that the people who know nothing about the world are smart because they know one particular thing. That's not what smart means.

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Honestly the fact that many "religious" folks aren't well read in other religions doesn't surprise me at all.

They don't know about their own religion. Atheists answered more questions correct about christianity than the christians did. They didn't know that the first book of the bible was Genesis, for instance. We are not talking about specific, sect-related details.

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As far as the lack of knowledge of say, who the Vice President is this also does not surprise me all that much, most of the truly religious people I have ever known didn't really care about that kind of thing, they just lived each day for God, whatever that means to them, and truthfully does knowing who the Vice President is make your day any better or smoother? Does it get you a job? I think at best it makes you more aware or in tune to current events, to say that it makes you any more intelligent I think is stretching it. For people who sing songs like "This World is not my Home" that kind of intelligent is largely useless, they use the mind for other things. Or, they pretend to, but that's a whole other conversation.

Why do they have lower IQs? This isn't just about being non-political. You are saying that the only kind of intelligence they possess is the one that causes them to believe in god. That's a severe twisting of what intelligence is in order to avoid the conclusion that religious people are stupider. Let's say I found that Nazis were lower IQ and had less general knowledge than other people. Couldn't they say: oh, we are smart all right, because we understand the most important thing about the universe, that white people are the best. We don't need to waste our mental power on anything else. It's the rest of you who are stupid, wasting your time with things like memory, logic, math, and knowledge.

[Skeleton Jelly]

vbnautilus, on Thursday, October 7th, 2010, 9:27 AM, said:

No, the function of the ignition is unrelated to your belief in its function.

Ignitions have feelings too!

[Balloon guy]

vbnautilus, on Thursday, October 7th, 2010, 9:03 AM, said:

Memory recall is related to what cognitive psychologists call "depth of processing". The more deeply information is processed, the more likely it is to be remembered. It's unlikely that christians who got the questions wrong were never exposed to the answers. They probably didn't process the information on a level sufficient for recall.

I'm reminded of a story of an old lady who was confronted by a major douche atheist.He began berating her with questions of semantics and the history of the Nicene Council.She was flustered and unable to answer his questions.He commented: "You don't know what you believe do you?"She answered: "I may not know what I believe in, but I do know Who I believe in"But this still all returns to the reality that most major colleges today teach an evolution / no God perspective ( because let's face it, atheist can't do anything but teach ) so the more 'educated' the more likely you are to be indoctrinated in a secular world view.So the fact that these two things go together is not because they go hand in hand intellectually. It's because they go hand in hand relationally.I'm sure that when you atheist build a college that you will be equally allowing for a different worldview to usurp the college with minority ideas...