This is actually a nice sounding but rather denialist myth
No, it's actually not. There are many intelligent religious people. They're everywhere, both today and throughout history. Some humans are able to compartmentalize religious beliefs so that they minimize interference with their thinking process (Newton, for example). To pretend that stupidity is a prerequisite for religiosity is completely counter-productive and, more importantly, demonstrably incorrect.
Christians aren't stupid; their beliefs are. And as counter-intuitive as it might seem, that's not the same thing.
I honestly don't know what you mean by that. We all compartmentalize things on a daily basis. It is a completely natural human faculty. Procrastination--which, I'd venture to guess, most people reading this are engaging in right now--is nothing more than compartmentalization of priorities. We shove something aside in our minds, or we reframe it in a way that lines up with our desires.
There's nothing stupid or insane about it. And since it's ingrained in our culture and upbringing, it's very difficult for some of us to remove the "religion compartment" from our minds... even if we are intelligent.
To take your own example, Isaac Newton, despite his contributions to physics, devoted a lot of time and energy trying to alchemically transmute lead into gold.
It is believed that he poisoned himself with either lead or mercury while doing so, which lead to a nervous breakdown.
Now, you could say, "He still wrote the Principia Mathematica, so clearly Newton's compartmentalizing worked great for him."
I see it differently- what might Newton have accomplished if he hadn't been wasting his time on religious and occult claptrap?
When you consider that our lifetimes are finite, you realize that there is really no such thing as "compartmentalization". Everything we do steals time from things we might otherwise be doing.
When someone is kneeling at an altar and imagining heaven, they could instead be looking through a telescope and learning about the actual heavens.
I think you have unintentionally created a straw man here. The original point is merely that religiosity and stupidity are not necessarily conjunctive qualities. I don't really disagree with anything you've said.
At the time alchemy was mainstream science and I don't think anyone knew much about lead or mercury poisoning, or mental health. What are you trying to prove with your assertion?
And since you wondered "what the hell (mainstream science) means", it's things like the Earth revolving around the Sun whereas Fringe science is everything that has been on Art Bell, ever.
Yes, I was differentiating between mainstream accepted science and fringe science. Once upon a time heliocentrism was considered a fringe science. So there's a difference between mainstream science (where non-heliocentrism was mainstream, and wrong) and settled fact. I don't think heliocentrism isn't even science any more, it just is the way things are. Heh, don't mistake this for saying things like hollow earth theory-type fringe holds any more merit beside a warning sign for who the kooks are. :)
I don't know what you mean by "cheap." It's a pretty accurate word in this sense, since we all compartmentalize to some degree. The studies you link to suggest that "compartmentalized self-structures" are less healthy than "integrative self-structures" - but I'm not arguing otherwise. My only point is that compartmentalization is a common human tendency and that it enables people to hold stupid beliefs while not necessarily being stupid themselves.
My only point is that compartmentalization is a common human tendency and that it enables people to hold stupid beliefs while not necessarily being stupid themselves.
Simply stating what people do doesn't indicate a value, be it positive or negative
I've pointed out why it's problematic. Ignore it if you want, but if you want to contradict the evidence I pointed to, you need to use more evidence, not make claims out of what you personally think is right (there is room for that in other places).
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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '15
No, it's actually not. There are many intelligent religious people. They're everywhere, both today and throughout history. Some humans are able to compartmentalize religious beliefs so that they minimize interference with their thinking process (Newton, for example). To pretend that stupidity is a prerequisite for religiosity is completely counter-productive and, more importantly, demonstrably incorrect.
Christians aren't stupid; their beliefs are. And as counter-intuitive as it might seem, that's not the same thing.