Atheists, smarter than religious people

Frank, your comment about Fresco reveals how an intelligent man (yourself) can render himself stupid for who-knows-what psychological reasons.
Frankly, your interpretations of my comments show how your only purpose here is to "win" something--who knows what? .

An atheist isn't a thing. There is no group of people called 'atheists', as there is no organization. Atheist is a completely arbitrary designation.

'Atheism' is nothing more than a catchword for people that have come to the only reasonable conclusion about a specific and quite trivial question. it only stands to reason then, 'atheists'(those that answer that certain question the logical way) are probably more intelligent than people that posit more outlandish and unreasonable answers to that specific, trivial question.

Hey Doc,
While I sympathize with your sentiments, your argument would have considerably more merit if you can get past these two points:

1) The rather large capacity for otherwise intelligent people to fool themselves - I for one have not met anyone whom is not very good at this (excluding yours truly of course).

2) The fact that (illogical) faith and (logical) reason regularly abide within the same intellect.

At the high risk of being shouted down by Frank's turgid "last wordism" I'm going to reiterate the central issue of this thread, that of the correlation between "intelligence " and "atheism". It is clear to me that anyone described as "intelligent" cannot accept a fundamentalist concept of "God" and must adopt ad hoc mental mechanisms to maintain any possibility of a providential anthropomorphic creator interested in the "welfare" of mankind. Where "intelligence" takes us beyond that (and I claim a certain modicum of that) is either towards "materiality" and "utilitarianism" or the possibility for "spirituality" (a bad word I think because it is sometimes confused with "religiosity") which is a transcendent observational mode in which the consequences of "the individual self" as an insignificant cosmic entity are contemplated. Such a contemplation involving awareness of one's own conditioning, requires significant "intelligence" and therefore may not be available to all.

Hey Doc,
While I sympathize with your sentiments, your argument would have considerably more merit if you can get past these two points:

1) The rather large capacity for otherwise intelligent people to fool themselves - I for one have not met anyone whom is not very good at this (excluding yours truly of course).

2) The fact that (illogical) faith and (logical) reason regularly abide within the same intellect.

3a) Would it be a fair assessment of your character, to say that if you are not a man of science per se, you at least respect and appreciate the scientific method, its self-correcting potential, and the pragmatic real world nature on which it is based?

3b) Would it be a fair assessment of your character, to say that if you are not a man of science per se, you at least respect and appreciate the scientific community to the extent that said community follows the scientific method, its self-correcting potential, and the pragmatic real world nature on which it is based?

I'll check in either late tonight or tomorrow, then we can have some fun; I hope your evening treats you well!

I've played bloody hell keeping up with this thread. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the difficulties which prevent people form logging in to read or reply to threads. I usually give up in frustration, as, most often, reading a single thread, or making a single response will get me logged off, or kicked off the site, and i frequently get the message that my ISP "cannot connect to the database."

So, this is many, many pages late. Nevertheless: Another instance in which someone's insistence that there is a deity would not constitute a "guess" would be one in which the person making the assertion states that the cosmos itself is "god." This might be arguable, but it would be, once more, a case of definition, or identification, and not a guess.

It also provides another example of how stating that anyone who asserts that there is a god, or that there is not, is "making a guess." The exercise of equating such assertions with making a guess implicitly assumes a definition of "god" which the "agnostic" is applying in making that charge. It is rather ironic, too, since it implies that the militant agnostic has a definition of "god" with which he or she operates. Without specifying to what nature of deity said agnostic objects--such as supernatural, anthropomorphic, engaged, omniscient and omnipotent being--that agnostic is on no surer ground making assertions about a belief in a deity, or a lack of belief in a diety (as in that the position of the theist or the atheist constitutes a "guess") than those to whom he or she objects.

In fact, in many, if not most, cases, the atheist who simply denies belief in any deity is far more intellectually honest, because his or her position does not assume the nature of said deity. Such a position cannot be equated with a belief in a deity--not simply because believing something and not believing it are not polar but equal opposites--but because those who reject such a belief simply reject the descriptions asserted to them, without assuming the nature of anything. In this situation, the militant agnostic and the militant atheist (a militant atheist being not simply someone who rejects belief, but asserts that there is not and can be no deity) are identical in the implicit assumption of the nature of any putative deity which is asserted either to be unknowable or impossible.

I've played bloody hell keeping up with this thread. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the difficulties which prevent people form logging in to read or reply to threads. I usually give up in frustration, as, most often, reading a single thread, or making a single response will get me logged off, or kicked off the site, and i frequently get the message that my ISP "cannot connect to the database."

So, this is many, many pages late. Nevertheless: Another instance in which someone's insistence that there is a deity would not constitute a "guess" would be one in which the person making the assertion states that the cosmos itself is "god." This might be arguable, but it would be, once more, a case of definition, or identification, and not a guess.

It also provides another example of how stating that anyone who asserts that there is a god, or that there is not, is "making a guess." The exercise of equating such assertions with making a guess implicitly assumes a definition of "god" which the "agnostic" is applying in making that charge. It is rather ironic, too, since it implies that the militant agnostic has a definition of "god" with which he or she operates. Without specifying to what nature of deity said agnostic objects--such as supernatural, anthropomorphic, engaged, omniscient and omnipotent being--that agnostic is on no surer ground making assertions about a belief in a deity, or a lack of belief in a diety (as in that the position of the theist or the atheist constitutes a "guess") than those to whom he or she objects.

In fact, in many, if not most, cases, the atheist who simply denies belief in any deity is far more intellectually honest, because his or her position does not assume the nature of said deity. Such a position cannot be equated with a belief in a deity--not simply because believing something and not believing it are not polar but equal opposites--but because those who reject such a belief simply reject the descriptions asserted to them, without assuming the nature of anything. In this situation, the militant agnostic and the militant atheist (a militant atheist being not simply someone who rejects belief, but asserts that there is not and can be no deity) are identical in the implicit assumption of the nature of any putative deity which is asserted either to be unknowable or impossible.

Setanta, well put:
"Another instance in which someone's insistence that there is a deity would not constitute a "guess" would be one in which the person making the assertion states that the cosmos itself is "god." This might be arguable, but it would be, once more, a case of definition, or identification, and not a guess."

This is close to my position, but my case the quotations marks around god are essential. The "divine" status I assign to the Cosmos represents both a definition and valuation of Reality as I experience it.

Go suck that up your opening, Frank.