Poll: Who believes in God?
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But somebody's intelligence may have no causal bearing on their religious views. They may disbelieve in God due to their schooling (which led both to their intelligence and to their lack of belief in God). They do not disbelieve in God because they are intelligent.
Even if they do disbelieve in God due to their greater intelligence, I am not entirely sure that it is important to this debate. The Ancient Greeks were renowned for having some of the greatest thinkers in history, yet many of them were religious; even the majority of these thinkers were. Just because in current climates there is a correlation between intelligence and lack of belief, it does not mean that there always has been, nor that it actually means anything. All of the current intelligent people could simply be wrong!
Finally, what is it to be intelligent? Is it to be succesful at an academic level? If so this ignores all the people who are clever but lazy. Is it to have a high IQ? Again, this is not a great test of intelligence. It seems to me that many would say that most of the worlds great thinkers and scientists are atheists, and that this is what is meant by intelligence. However, surely these people are atheistic not due to their intelligence but due, at least in part, to their line of work.
Evidence for what?
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What?
So given that there are thousands of bits of scientific data that correlate with each other and back each other up to form a hypothesis.
Then there is the "This is what he said" "this is how it is" god data..
Rational thought to me, puts me firmly in the Here's what we say, this is why we say it, how it works out, all the other info brought to further back up the theory, so here's the "very likely" answer..
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I notice you avoid the second question but just so you don't lose it on the previous page "What makes your position right and their position wrong?".
For the Christian religion - evidence could be the Bible, preachers, religious artifacts, testimony of those 'cured' by prayer, a gut feeling, having God talk to them etc etc etc. You may scoff at any or all of the above, frankly it matters not one single solitary iota to the principle that it is evidence and that people could have evaluated it in much the same way as you only to reach a different conclusion. Regardless of the above it doesn't actually matter since religion is a faith based position and as such require no evidence.
Most religions also largely correlate to each other. I know you will say that there are inconsistencies, but there are no greater inconsistencies within single religions than there are in science.
right, so it's the assumptions of science you have faith in. You wish to take a method created for accurate prediction and giving the simplest method that achieves the prediction, and use it instead as your answer to how things actually work. You do realise that's entirely a faith based position that is not rational when compared to the reasoning and application of the scientific method and it's associated assumptions?
There in lies the problem for me...
Why should I "just believe, without question" ??
Very odd way of thinking.
No idea mate, but you manage it with science!
As Dolph just pointed out, science merely explains things as simply as possible and imposes these upon the world. You use science to tell you how the world actually works. There is a massive difference here, yet you "just believe". Religious believers "just believe" that religion can do this job. There is no difference.
No I mean LOST. Some of it may well have been in the great library at Alexandria, but a lot of it was destroyed or lost by other means.
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There is evidence as I've tried to point out, you don't have to accept it without question, whether that evidence satisfies you is a different matter entirely.
But really just refer to Dolph's posts about this since he is explaining it coherantly and succinctly.
Ocams razor or what ever it's called is implied.
So yes, maybe scientific answers are indeed assumptions, but when another idea comes along that backs up the first and so on and so on, one has to take the answer to be "true until proven otherwise"
That's the whole idea of science, EVERYTHING it stands for is open to argument of the conclusion.
Religion is a closed case, as said. "This is how it was, this is how it is.."
Those who are religious would say yes; the Bible, religious experience (occurs in man but isn't formed by man), even the world itself. Non-religious believers say that to attribute this to God is idiotic. Therefore this question gets us nowhere, except to discern between those who believe in God and those who do not.
Funny, because Darwinism is often used by any athiest to "disprove" the bible, when Darwin himself was religious, and a Christian.
He actually was agnostic, eventually.
along with quite a few VERY scientific minds of the past.
Faraday went virtually nuts because of it.
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As manic111 says the point is arguable.
Occams (or Occums) Razor is a tool to decide between two competing theories and suggests that the simplest one that covers all bases is the one to be used as it has the least to go wrong - it does not say that the theory is correct, it doesn't even say that both theories could not be correct, it merely chooses the simplest theory as it has least to go wrong which is what you want from a predictive tool. That is essentially what science is, a predictively accurate tool.
That doesn't make him or his beliefs right and it wouldn't be the first time that someone has proved or postulated something that goes against their beliefs.
Well rumour has it that he converted on his deathbed, altough I don't suppos we'll ever know. He was certainly a Christian as a young man.