Answer a common atheism dig/myth?

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I have a friend who has adopted atheism. One common point that he (and other atheists) seem to frequently bring up goes something like this; “90% of the world’s most intelligent people are atheists” or “The top scienists are atheists” or “The majority of mensa members are atheists”. The implications being that somehow the “truly” enlightened intelligent people are smarter about this than the rest of us or that that religion is only for the ignorant masses?

First, not that it matters, but has there really even been a true study on religious beliefs and intelligence and more importantly how would you suggest I respond to such statements?

Thanks
 
Was Jesus an atheist?😛

Einstein said that the more he learned about the universe, the more he knew there must be a God.

Feed your ego as much as you want- saying God doesn’t exist doesn’t make it so.

Y’know what? St. Thomas Aquinas. C.S. Lewis. G.K. Chesterton! They can’t match that. C.S. Lewis used to be an atheist, for cryin’ out loud!
 
k5thbeatle said:
I have a friend who has adopted atheism. One common point that he (and other atheists) seem to frequently bring up goes something like this; “90% of the world’s most intelligent people are atheists” or “The top scienists are atheists” or “The majority of mensa members are atheists”. The implications being that somehow the “truly” enlightened intelligent people are smarter about this than the rest of us or that that religion is only for the ignorant masses?

First, not that it matters, but has there really even been a true study on religious beliefs and intelligence and more importantly how would you suggest I respond to such statements?

Thanks
Click to expand...

It’s a very silly argument.​

It depends for its validity on four things:
  • the accuracy, at least approximately, of the percentages
  • that there be no great change in the percentages
  • that it is valid to apply percentages to metaphysical realities in the first place.
  • that Christianity depends for its validity on mere numbers
    Assuming for argument’s sake that the percentages are accurate throughout the entire world:
  • If the percentages change from ninety to (say) sixty, the proportion of atheists ceases to look so imposing. If the tables are turned & atheists become a tiny minority - what is the value of the present argument ? Millions can become a handful, whatever the belief; how does that tell us about the value of the belief in itself ? Being attracted to a belief, or not, tells us nothing about the belief in itself.
  • Ideas are not joints of meat or measurements of liquid - they can’t be calibrated, weighed, measured. One cannot have 32.8673 % of brilliance at maths, 67.34 % of belief in God, or 37 inches of honesty. Ideas are not that sort of thing. Any more than one can have 87-mile illnesses or make cubic suggestions. That sort of mistake is like the idea that one can weigh holiness or innocence. Intangibles like this are personal qualities - & persons are not reducible to what they are made of. A cost can be put on the human body: I believe it’s been done; but the body is not the person
  • If the entire universe apostatised, Jesus Christ would still be Lord & Saviour & Eternal God. Our unbelief & rejection cannot change Hom, or His status, in the slightest. States on earth may well need to be democratic, as a curb on human egotism & human wickedness: but Heaven is not democratic, for God is an absolute monarch, Whom all creation obeys either freely - or against its will. God has no need of any created thing at all - but not one of them can exist for an instant unless He upholds it & all its fellow-creatures by His Almighty Power
    Faith is not given to the proud & self-sufficient - it cannot be, for they are filled with self; there is not room in us for self and for God. One or other has to go.
As for human cleverness - read St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1. 🙂
  • 1Cr 1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
  • 1Cr 1:18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
  • 1Cr 1:19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart.”
  • 1Cr 1:20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
  • 1Cr 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
  • 1Cr 1:22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
  • 1Cr 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
  • 1Cr 1:24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
  • 1Cr 1:25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
  • 1Cr 1:26 For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth;
  • 1Cr 1:27 but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong,
  • 1Cr 1:28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
  • 1Cr 1:29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
  • blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/tools/printer-friendly.pl?book=1Cr&chapter=1&version=RSV
    From that, it follows our merely human insight is a poor guide to the ways of God; they are often the very reverse of what we might expect.
 
Tim_Kirchoff said:
Einstein said that the more he learned about the universe, the more he knew there must be a God.
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Can you provide a source for this? There are several unsubstantiated claims floating around regarding what Einstein believed (or didn’t).

There is this:
"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.
Click to expand...
- Albert Einstein, The World As I See It​
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Regarding the OP, I think it’s natural to want to associate one’s worldview with the smartest, richest, most popular and/or most successful people around. As a distinct minority, we atheists may suffer from a slight inferiority complex and such statistics, however true they may be (I have no data either way) perhaps serve to bolster fragile psyches. However, as a proof of atheist superiority, it doesn’t really blow my skirt up.

A better tack, in my view, is to argue that the rise of education levels in free societies has led to an increase in secularism, and a corresponding diminution in the role of religion in daily lives. Does this mean that smart people are atheists? I wouldn’t go that far, but I think it’s an undeniable fact that when people have access to information, a decent education, and live in a free society, that some people (including the smart ones) will not agree with the dogmas of religion.

In short, if that darn Steve Gutenburg hadn’t invented the printing press, none of this would have happened.
 
Oh! There is also this quote from Einstein:
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
- Albert Einstein in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas (Einstein’s secretary) and Banesh Hoffman, and published by Princeton University Press.​
Click to expand...
 
In any first-year psychology class, students should have the following burned into their brains: “Correlation does not equal causation.” I wish the message got out to more people. Just because to things are related doesn’t mean that there is a causal link between them.

Did you know that people with tattoos are more likely to get into motorcycle accidents than people without them? Does that mean that your chances of getting into a motorcycle accident if you have a tattoo? No, not even a little. It does suggest that people with tattoos are bigger risk takers than people without them. People in Mensa are more likely to be white than any other race. Does that mean that white people are smarter any other race? Again, it means nothing of the kind. What it means is that Mensa became popular in countries and areas that are predominatnly white.

I don’t believe in God myself, but arguments like that make me see red. Agreeing with a “smart person”, without understanding why, doesn’t make someone smart.
 
k5thbeatle said:
I have a friend who has adopted atheism. One common point that he (and other atheists) seem to frequently bring up goes something like this; “90% of the world’s most intelligent people are atheists” or “The top scienists are atheists” or “The majority of mensa members are atheists”. The implications being that somehow the “truly” enlightened intelligent people are smarter about this than the rest of us or that that religion is only for the ignorant masses?

First, not that it matters, but has there really even been a true study on religious beliefs and intelligence and more importantly how would you suggest I respond to such statements?

Thanks
Click to expand...
The first thing I would ask your friend is: Can you provide the source for this statistic? What research supports such a bold claim? I would have serious doubts that anyone has ever taken a poll or done a study to come up with this statistic. There likely isn’t any basis for it.

You might also point out Tarek Saab a contestant from TVs “The Apprentice.” He’s a member of MENSA and also a devout Catholic.

I would say that, in my experience, all of the most intelligent people I know are devout Catholics. That doesn’t mean I could therefore make the claim that all intelligent people in the world must be Catholic. It just means that I hang out with like-minded people. Similarly, I suspect a many atheists probably run in atheist circles. Thus, it probably seems to them that most intelligent people are atheists as that is their experience.

I like what one poster said about “correlation does not necessarily imply causation.” (Yes, I was a Psych major :)). It’s important to remember that. 👍
 
This isn’t an argument at all, but an appeal to authority, and a vauge authority at that. Something to keep in mind about the intellegensia: the smarter you are, the more arrogant and egotistical you tend to be, and the less you tend to think you need others. Rarely are extremely smart people saintly. Why would you want to trust a vague mass of people who don’t agree on anything on the one thing they do agree on: that they don’t need anyone else?
 
So does your friend believe that John Paul II and Benedict XVI are stupid? (can you be stupid and speak as many languages as JPII did? :hmmm: ) I don’t know what the statistics are, but if someone were to research it, I’d bet that there are just as many “genius” believers, whether they be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or simply Deist, as there are “genius” atheists and agnostics. JMO.

In Christ,

Ellen
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

It’s a very silly argument.​

It depends for its validity on four things:
  • the accuracy, at least approximately, of the percentages
  • that there be no great change in the percentages
  • that it is valid to apply percentages to metaphysical realities in the first place.
  • that Christianity depends for its validity on mere numbers
    Assuming for argument’s sake that the percentages are accurate throughout the entire world:
  • If the percentages change from ninety to (say) sixty, the proportion of atheists ceases to look so imposing. If the tables are turned & atheists become a tiny minority - what is the value of the present argument ? Millions can become a handful, whatever the belief; how does that tell us about the value of the belief in itself ? Being attracted to a belief, or not, tells us nothing about the belief in itself.
  • Ideas are not joints of meat or measurements of liquid - they can’t be calibrated, weighed, measured. One cannot have 32.8673 % of brilliance at maths, 67.34 % of belief in God, or 37 inches of honesty. Ideas are not that sort of thing. Any more than one can have 87-mile illnesses or make cubic suggestions. That sort of mistake is like the idea that one can weigh holiness or innocence. Intangibles like this are personal qualities - & persons are not reducible to what they are made of. A cost can be put on the human body: I believe it’s been done; but the body is not the person
  • If the entire universe apostatised, Jesus Christ would still be Lord & Saviour & Eternal God. Our unbelief & rejection cannot change Hom, or His status, in the slightest. States on earth may well need to be democratic, as a curb on human egotism & human wickedness: but Heaven is not democratic, for God is an absolute monarch, Whom all creation obeys either freely - or against its will. God has no need of any created thing at all - but not one of them can exist for an instant unless He upholds it & all its fellow-creatures by His Almighty Power
    Faith is not given to the proud & self-sufficient - it cannot be, for they are filled with self; there is not room in us for self and for God. One or other has to go.
As for human cleverness - read St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1. 🙂
  • 1Cr 1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
  • 1Cr 1:18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
  • 1Cr 1:19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart.”
  • 1Cr 1:20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
  • 1Cr 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
  • 1Cr 1:22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
  • 1Cr 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
  • 1Cr 1:24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
  • 1Cr 1:25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
  • 1Cr 1:26 For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth;
  • 1Cr 1:27 but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong,
  • 1Cr 1:28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
  • 1Cr 1:29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
  • blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/tools/printer-friendly.pl?book=1Cr&chapter=1&version=RSV
    From that, it follows our merely human insight is a poor guide to the ways of God; they are often the very reverse of what we might expect.
Click to expand...
Michael,

I was hoping to drive the final nail into the lid of the coffin, but there wasn’t even a microscopic gap left for me to do so. Hammer on…!
 
your atheist friends are not correct. Plenty of the smartest people ever were Catholic.

Da Vinci
Shakespeare
Hitchcock
Picasso
Aquinas
Descartes
Mozart
Tolkien
George Washington
 
k5thbeatle said:
I have a friend who has adopted atheism. One common point that he (and other atheists) seem to frequently bring up goes something like this; “90% of the world’s most intelligent people are atheists” or “The top scienists are atheists” or “The majority of mensa members are atheists”

. . . . . . . .more importantly how would you suggest I respond to such statements?
Click to expand...
Ask them if they expect to spend eternity with their loved ones.
 
It was a long tradition among both the Maryland Province Jesuit Fathers and the Negro slaves of the Washington plantation and those of the surrounding area that the first President died a Catholic. These and other facts about George Washington are reported in the Paulist Information magazine by Doran Hurley. The story is that Father Leonard Neale, S.J., was called to Mount Vernon from St. Mary’s Mission across the Piscatawney River four hours before Washington’s death. Washington’s body servant, Juba, is authority for the fact that the General made the Sign of the Cross at meals. He may have learned this from his Catholic lieutenants, Stephen Moylan or John Fitzgerald. At Valley Forge, Washington forbade the burning in effigy of the Pontiff on “Pope’s Day.” Several times as President he is reported to have slipped into a Catholic church to hear Sunday Mass.
blog.ancient-future.net/2008/01/george-washingtons-conversion-to.html

About four hours before Washington’s death, Father Leonard Neale, a Jesuit priest was called to Mount Vernon from St. Mary’s Mission across the Piscataway River. Washington had been an Episcopalian, but was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church that night. After Washington’s death, a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary and one of St. John were found among the effects on an inventory of articles at his home

George Washington had an interest in Roman Catholicism for many years. His servant Juba stated that the General made the Sign of the Cross before meals. He may have learned this practice from his Catholic lieutenants, John Fitzgerald or Stephen Moylan. At Valley Forge, Washington had forbidden during “Pope’s Day,” the burning in effigy of the Roman Pontiff. As President, Washington slipped into a Catholic Church several times to attend Sunday Mass.
 
MerryAtheist said:
Can you provide a source for this? There are several unsubstantiated claims floating around regarding what Einstein believed (or didn’t).

There is this:

Regarding the OP, I think it’s natural to want to associate one’s worldview with the smartest, richest, most popular and/or most successful people around. As a distinct minority, we atheists may suffer from a slight inferiority complex and such statistics, however true they may be (I have no data either way) perhaps serve to bolster fragile psyches. However, as a proof of atheist superiority, it doesn’t really blow my skirt up.

A better tack, in my view, is to argue that the rise of education levels in free societies has led to an increase in secularism, and a corresponding diminution in the role of religion in daily lives. Does this mean that smart people are atheists? I wouldn’t go that far, but I think it’s an undeniable fact that when people have access to information, a decent education, and live in a free society, that some people (including the smart ones) will not agree with the dogmas of religion.

In short, if that darn Steve Gutenburg hadn’t invented the printing press, none of this would have happened.
Click to expand...
If that “decent education” involves being taught by atheists and agnostics and nor being exposed to bright religious persons or their books,then their atheism is probably a matter of convention. Even persons of very high I.Q. are usually conventional in their thinking, as Terman’s longitudinal study of “genius” proved. The popular books by atheism are certainly conventional; they simply rehearse arguments advanced by Thomas Huxley, et all, a hundred and fifty years ago.
 
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