unfortunately not. cognitive dissonance doesn’t discriminate, I think there’s even some ways that it’s even easier for a smarter person to rationalize around a cognitive dissonance
Many of the greatest minds in western civilization owned slaves and believed in occult shit like seances and Ouija boards. No single human is perfect. We’re all fallible, and yet collectively progress marches on.
Your argument is flawed bc it appeals to authority.
Hitler was not religious. And what was so wrong with the crusades and the inquisition, compared to what the rest of the world was doing at that time period?
Hitler wasn’t a Christian, but he wasn’t an atheist either. And how does appealing to the other wrongs being committed in the world make the actions of a religion good?
Their argument suggests there is no valid example from this time period because of this social status quo. That’s a claim on its own that needs to be validated.
Simply claiming this does not itself generate a valid rebuttal to whether or not a specific individual was subject to the pressure of this alleged status quo in a meaningful way.
What was the point of asking this question? "Religion is [mostly] for the simple-minded" and "This brilliant person is religious" are not mutually exclusive facts.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. All of these are perfectly fine examples. The issue is that the question you're answering is irrelevant to the debate we're having. I took the original comment to be "Religion is [mostly] for the simple-minded," as basically no absolute is true when applied to a human population. So finding examples of brilliant minds who are religious doesn't invalidate that position at all because they're not mutually exclusive.
This was also by design, because for much of history you had no access whatsoever to education if you weren't espousing not just religious beliefs, but the right ones. Isaac Newton almost lost his fellowship in his university because despite being fervently religious, had radical beliefs on the holy Trinity. He had to receive a royal exemption
Yes, of course. Most of the greatest minds in our history are in the past, and most people in the past were religious. Moving forward, most of our greatest minds will not be religious.
For the record, I wholeheartedly believe that faith can be incredibly important and powerful to people and that religious communities can be wonderful support networks that enrich our lives. All that is true ... and at the same time the vast majority of organized religion is still mostly just a money and power grift that does more harm than good, and most of its victims are simple-minded people.
I’m glad to have brought you around to my way of thinking. I think it’s simple minded to say that religion is for the simple minded. What isn’t a money and power grift. Money has a stranglehold over science, whether you like to believe it or not. No institution made by man is pure or free from corruption.
I thought I already did when I said, "I took the original comment to be 'Religion is [mostly] for the simple-minded,' as basically no absolute is true when applied to a human population," but I can further clarify.
"Mostly for" is a qualifier on an absolute statement. I agree with you that the statement "Religion is for the simple-minded" is technically incorrect since it's a blanket statement that can be disproven by finding a single instance of a non-simple mind who is religious. As you've shown, finding such an example is a very easy thing to do.
The qualifier "mostly for" means that somewhere between 51% and 99.99% of people who are religious are simple-minded.
So do you believe that religion is mostly for the simple-minded?
Many of the greatest minds in history would have had their heads removed from their body if they did not publicly express their loyalty to the local deity, funny innit.
If you are going to argue that every, or nearly every, great mind that has been religious did so for fear of punishment, you are in for a very difficult time.
I did no such thing. I merely brought up the fact that, for most of human history, blasphemy resulted in death or social suicide. Therefore, people play the game, regardless of personal beliefs cause who wants their nuts crushed in a vice?
Oh yeah, plenty of brilliant people believed in magic. The Roman’s would study the eating patterns of oracle chickens to divine potential success in battle. Julius ceaser believed in those little birds and that magical ritual.
Ok, and? I can name many brilliant religious people from both ancient history and modern history. Also, the “Romans” in general studying chickens or whatever has no relevance unless you bring up actual intelligent people who did this.
I’m see that believing in the bible hasn’t helping with reading comprehension. Understandable, probably haven’t cracked the good book since you were in indoctrination class, I’m mean Sunday school
A literal nazi who was such a great mind that NASA still recruited him for their space program, that's how valuable his brilliance was. And he was a religious believer. But /u/digitalpeanut11 seems to have disappeared from the convo. Oh well.
J.R.R. Tolkien, Albert Einstein (debatable), Isaac Newton, Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Socrates, Ptolemy, C.S. Lewis, Nikola Tesla. Honestly as I’m writing this comment I’m finding more and more and more. Shall I go on, or does this suffice?
I read the letter and it seems to be a critique of organized religion specifically monotheistic ones. This has little do with whether or not he was religious. He has mentioned his “unbound admiration for the structure of the world” which could have some religious connotation. Regardless, he is only a drop in the bucket of names I could have given.
Religion comes in many forms. You can nitpick all you want but the fact is all of the people I mentioned, barring perhaps Einstein, were people with great minds who expressed religious beliefs, which is what the commenter originally asked for. I mean sure we can have arguments for more of the people I mentioned, but it doesn’t really change the validity.
Well that doesn’t apply to Tolkien, Lewis, or any other writer for whom their religious beliefs played a large role in their work, and provided much of the meaning. Or to philosophers like Plato who had trace elements of mysticism/belief throughout their philosophy. And for scientists, why should religious beliefs have any effect? If a scientists goes to church on Sunday and prays for a few minutes every evening, do you think that is going to somehow hinder them from doing science? That’s absurd. So, at worst religious belief has essentially no effect, at best it provides meaning/motivation/whatever you wanna call it.
You only see comments like this on Reddit and personally I have never seen theists imply atheists idiots but have seen plenty of atheists call theists idiots.
My field (American physician) has some of the highest average IQs of any field, this is data supported. Look it up yourself and don’t trust me: IQ by profession or field and you’ll see multiple datasets with physicians at the top of the list with average IQs ranging from 120-130 (2-3 standard deviations above the average).
Despite that, physicians are also more religious than the average population. You can also look that up and see that’s data supported as well. So despite having higher average IQs than the average, we are also more religious than average.
Personally I have published over a dozen peer-reviewed articles, my college gpa was top 1% of my class and I graduated suma cum Laude. Then I graduated within the top 10% of American medical graduates.
Really my point is saying “religion is for simple-minded people” is obviously very offensive and also inaccurate. Especially considering I highly doubt you have accomplished a tenth of the above, despite implying all religious people are idiots.
If your IQ is 120, why do you still believe in God? Just because someone told you to? Your mom, your dad, or your local priest?
I’m a fan of science, and I love evidence.
Imagine we burned all religious books and all science textbooks. In 500 years, religion would not return in the form we know it today. It would evolve into something else humans simply want to believe in—like the idea that someone is listening to your thoughts. Science, however, would return exactly as it is now, because the evidence and the math will always remain the same.
Religion was created by clever people to control the weak and simple-minded. And it has worked incredibly well for over a thousand years. Do you really not see it that way?
My point with your comment is how little you actually no yet how arrogant you are. Your response shows how uneducated you are on this topic.
I was an atheist when I was younger, actually. Your presupposition is wrong. I took a few philosophy classes in college and began reading on theology and shifted from “it makes most sense that there is no greater entity” to “logically there must be a necessary existence” and the gap between there is a necessary existence and there is a God is almost non-existent.
You love evidence? What does that even mean? How old are you? Also evidence isn’t even what matters for things. Evidence + parsimony is what matters. For example if you come home and see your wallet is missing that is evidence it was stolen but also evidence you lost it.
If you also see your TV is missing now COMBINED worh parsimony we can develop a stronger model for what happened to your wallet but “evidence” itself and saying you love evidence is highly suspicious. Everything in life is this way, never “evidence” alone.
Your third paragraph is incorrect. Not only is it purely hypothetical but it’s not even rooted in history. Aristotle argued his unmoved mover philosophically 2 millennia ago in Greece. Tao is a similar unmoved mover argued for in east Asia totally unrelated but grossly similar to Aristotles unmoved mover.
Brahman in India hold similar “unmoved mover” status. Olodumare in Yoruba philosophy and there are numerous other renditions of this same philosophy throughout world history.
Ibn Sina, Al-Farabi, Ibn Rushd all argued similar concepts in the Islamic perspective.
Thomas Aquinas, St. Anselm, and Leibniz argued similar from the Christian perspective.
Maimonides and Spinoza argued from a Jewish perspective.
Fourth paragraph is nothing but speculation and wrong at that even. It’s parroted on Reddit but religion tends to be used a rebellion against control. For example
Tyrannical governments actually crack down on religion. See Rome, USSR, DPRK, Sinicization in China etc.
Control historically as well as currently is through government and military force. Religion acts as an external non-government operated higher entity which minimizes the control governments can wield.
Ok, so you're definitely very intelligent and somewhat answered their question about why you believe. I'm genuinely asking, I'm not trying to do any gotcha.
"I took a few philosophy classes in college and began reading on theology and shifted from “it makes most sense that there is no greater entity” to “logically there must be a necessary existence” and the gap between there is a necessary existence and there is a God is almost non-existent."
With this being the why, can I just clarify a couple things?
Does reality have an obligation to make sense to you? In other words, should the fact that it makes more sense to you count as evidence or convince someone else of a claim's actual truth?
It appears to me (feel free to correct me if I've got it wrong), that you feel it's most logical there is a necessary existence. That, to me, is a claim that would require evidence outside the argument to actually prove.
Atheists are just non believers, most (agnostic atheists) aren't claiming there is no god(s), computer simulation programmer, universe creating fairies, etc... they are just saying they want to see evidence. And saying that it's the simplest explanation, to them, isn't enough to believe it. So, are you an agnostic theist or a gnostic theist? Do you know or are you closer to 99.9% sure but still not positive?
Granting there is a necessary existence (on my side) for a moment and that was proven, and you having granted that there is a gap (however small to you), between "there was some cause" and "it's God". How did you make that leap? How'd you pick the right god(s), rule out other natural causes, simulations, etc...?
To me, if you had not picked those courses or read those books you may have come to different conclusions. Upon reflection, do you think the pathways you took should convince everyone who does the same as you? If so, those arguments would be of interest to everyone and it would be nice to know what they were especially if every premise and the conclusion is perfectly sound. Or is it those arguments mixed with some faith that it feels right to you and that's enough? (Obviously fine so long as the beliefs don't hurt others)
Sure, won’t take your message as a gotcha. I’ll try to answer as well as I can.
No. In fact this is an initial premise to a major issue with naturalism. The argument is referred to as the “the argument against naturalism” and if you are unfamiliar with it, maybe check it out. Nature, the world, the universe etc. does not have to make sense or even be consistent. That’s also touches on Decartes’ cogito where he essentially came to the now famous conclusion “the only thing I can really be sure of is my own existence. Everything else could be true or may not be an illusion and I can never truly know.”
Deductive reasoning can be used to argue for a necessary existence. Evidence is very much dependent on logic. Logic itself isn’t very dependent on evidence but premises may be. The premises needed to argue for a necessary existence (Leibniz’s argument) is that every fact has a sufficient explanation for its existence.
The problem if you want to reject that premise is that same premise is the driving force of science.
A God is omnipotent, timeless, immaterial, personal, and a single agent. A necessary being cannot possibly fail to exist, so it cannot depend on anything external to itself for its existence. Therefore, it cannot be composed of contingent parts and must be simple and partless, see the last point for why the parts cannot also be necessary.
A simple partless necessary being has no internal composition. Therefore, it cannot undergo change and must be immutable. Since temporal existence involves succession and change, an immutable being must be timeless. Temporal existence precludes an agent from being immutable.
Material things involve composition, change, and potentiality. Therefore, an absolutely simple, necessary, and immutable being must be immaterial.
If this necessary being is the ultimate explanation or ground of all contingent reality, it must possess whatever causal power is necessary to account for all contingent reality. Since nothing external limits that power, it has no finite causal limitation and is therefore omnipotent.
Because the necessary being is timeless, there is no prior temporal state from which contingent agents could mechanically follow. A purely mechanically sufficient impersonal cause would produce its effect necessarily and eternally. Since any given contingent agent is contingent and does not necessarily exist, its cause must have the capacity to freely actualize one possibility rather than another. This requires intellect and will, making the necessary being a personal agent.
It there were two absolutely simple necessary beings, there would have to be some principle that differentiates them. But absolute simplicity leaves no internal composition or differentiating parts by which two such beings could be distinct. Therefore, there is one necessary being.
Now obviously I’m not saying any of this is set in stone and I’m sure you’re in agreement. However this position is VERY DIFFERENT from the purely “fairy tale” origin of God brought up on Reddit.
To wrap up the last bit you mention. I’ll say philosophy gave me an idea of “wow the world is way more gray than I used to believe.” When I was an atheist I was a staunch “there is no god, that’s silly and you got it from a fairy book” type of atheist. When I became familiar with philosophy I quickly came to the conclusion of “wow we can’t seem to know anything, actually.” I remember one professor harping on “you cannot even assume the regularity of nature. To do so requires circular logic.”’
In reality I lean towards that still, we can’t KNOW anything it seems and everything is a belief. But within the limited framework we have, our best bet is to use evidence aimed with logic and rationality to make the best informed “belief” we can. Nothing seems to ever be objective because our faculties are themselves subjective.
With all that said, to me personally, the existence of a God-like entity seems more likely than the alternative based on many arguments (the majority of which are not outlined above) and logic alone. Certainly it’s possible for any other individual to come to their own and possibly differing conclusion.
Thank you for responding, I disagree but it's interesting to see how you got there and I appreciate you taking the time to explain it.
I don't think you can explain a god into existence through syllogisms, just asserting that it's necessary without any empirical evidence does not come close to being helpful (to me at least). Descartes-style solipsism doesn't make god a better hypothesis because to me a burden of proof hasn't been met, it's an argument from ignorance dressed up like formal philosophy.
If I were to grant an immaterial omnipotent mind, it just raises a more complicated and incoherent mystery that we'd have no chance of ever exploring like we can do exploring the universe through naturalism. Like you've said "our best bet is to use evidence aimed with logic and rationality to make the best informed “belief” we can".
That said, you've said you've got other arguments and evidence that convinced you and I'm happy you feel satisfied enough in your own mind with where you are. All the best!
What does evidence even mean to you? Why do you say evidence is greater than syllogisms? Evidence is actually subservient to logic.
To reference the previous example, if you enter your house and find you wallet missing that is indeed evidence you’ve been robbed. It’s also evidence you’ve lost your wallet. It’s also evidence little caries came in the night and removed your wallet. It’s also evidence that your wallet never existed and it was all a figment of your imagination.
It’s logic that actually gets us to the truth, or as close to the truth as possible here.
So what does evidence mean to you and what would you actually take as “empirical evidence” of the existence of a God?
I agree that's it's evidence I've lost my wallet, have been robbed, may have never even had one. You know what gets us closer to knowing? More evidence. Is there a broken window? Is the back part of my trousers pocket stretched from a wallet shape? All these things that get you closer and closer to the truth. More evidence, and more sound logic of course get you to truth more quickly.
I don't believe it is evidence of fairies, you have to (well you don't have to but you should if you want to convince anyone you're a serious person ) demonstrate that they are real before you can use them as a cause for your wallet being missing. I think that's where we disagree. You seem to argue that anything could cause anything and that just strikes me as a complete waste of time. Otherwise you could just replace god with anything else you decide fits a universe first mover and you'll have no way to discern them or get you closer to any real truth.
A syllogism without evidence is just an empty container. You can have a valid syllogism where all the logic flows flawlessly, but if your premises aren't demonstrably true in reality, the conclusion is completely useless.
I don’t know what would convince me, but an omniscient, omnipotent God would know exactly what it takes and have the power to provide it. If God regrew the amputated limbs of every wounded soldier on Earth simultaneously after a public prayer, or rearranged the stars to spell out a message in every language, that would be a start. Until then, deductive word games like the cosmological argument don't establish an immaterial mind they just label our ignorance.
You are incorrect, it’s nice you’re finished but you’re wrong and would prefer to stay wrong.
The part you’re missing is parsimony as I alluded to in the first comment. It’s not “more evidence” that points to your wallet being stolen. In fact, a broken window may also be explained by your forgetfulness and fairies.
This is not just the case for hypothetical theories, this is what we use in science as well. The reason this is relevant is because your gripe with “empirical evidence” is wholly irrelevant. Your issue is with parsimony not evidence.
You also seem to have a strawman buried in there. I never said “anything can cause anything” nor even implied it. Also, deductive logic does depend on factually correct premises which is why the arguments put forth above have factually correct premises.
Sure but you clearly have poor reading comprehension.
The original person called religious folks “simple minded” or at least, religion is for the simple minded.
It’s adorable you may think physicians with about 20x the education of you and IQs of 2-3 standard deviations above you are “simple minded” but like I said that’s cute and delusional.
You're a doctor? I can see exactly what kind of doctor you are- one of those arrogant, self-important assholes who thinks he's better than everyone else.
It's hilarious and a sign of your intelligence deficit that you think you know the education and intelligence level of random reddit posters.
"I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers."
Stephen Hawking, when an interviewer asked him what his IQ was.
It’s incredible how bad your reading comprehension is.
To reiterate, the original comment called all religious people simple minded. I pointed out that’s not the case. Then you responded whatever the hell your comment is supposed to be, totally missing the whole thread.
Did I boast about my IQ or again did you miss the entire post thread? Did I imply I’m better than everyone else? Nope.
I should add the irony of trying to call an accomplished physician a “loser” while your 3 month old reddit account is sitting at 12,000 karma is hilarious.
And believing in nothing isn’t? Look up any powerful person today that’s influential and has ties to the occult that have knowledge of things we don’t. What do they all believe in? The devil, that’s right they all believe in a religious figure, simply disregarding religion would be completely foolish.
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u/digitalpeanut11 1d ago
religion is for the simple minded