Are atheists smarter than Christians?

Question

If 99.99% of atheists base their beliefs on a complicated theory, such as the sponaneous formation of life, for example, but cannot fully explain how this theory works or how it disproves God, are they really more intelligent than the Christians they have a fixation with? Aren't they just putting their faith in articles about other peoples work and trusting that these past experiments were conducted in an honest and reputable way? Sounds very similar to what they claim Christians do. Are they just misguided or hypocritical people that defend pseudo-scientific experiments?

Answer 1

I think you'll find smarties and dummies in both camps.

Answer 2

As a whole, atheists have been shown to score more highly on SAT tests, have more college educated people among their ranks, and to perform better in school.

This does not say that individual Christians will not also out perform the majority of atheists, or that individual atheists may have really poor academic skills.

However, let me point out flaws in you logic:

"99.99% of atheists base their beliefs on a complicated theory, such as the spontaneous (corrected spelling) formation of life": Where did you get this statistic? This sounds like a set up for a straw man. (If you want to read my arguments against the relevancy or existence of God, which depends on nothing from any scientific papers, you can go to my blog.)

"cannot fully explain how this theory works or how it disproves God": You haven't shown any evidence of this. Perhaps there is logical sense in their argument, but you simply argue from incredulity.

"Aren't they just putting their faith in articles about other peoples work and trusting that these past experiments were conducted in an honest and reputable way? Sounds very similar to what they claim Christians do. Are they just misguided or hypocritical people that defend pseudo-scientific experiments?": While the evidence for any single experiment could be argued this way, when the self-correction mechanisms of science are put into effect, errors are discovered and true findings are corroborated. Science is about making predictions that can be repeated. Placing faith in something that predicts the return of Jesus, when no such event has happened in almost 2000 years seems more foolhardy than trusting that my flu shot will help prevent this year's predominant strains of influenza.

.

Answer 3

Well, first, you say belief, it isn't a belief, it is observation, and we take that observation and try to make sense of it. Now I could go through all of the scientific method, but that would stray from the point.

After we go through one cycle of this method, we know that we made mistakes, eventually we redefine things. Sure these articles come by, and we cannot take any one article and hold it up as fact, but as a whole, when many studies are shown to point in one direction we can begin to come by another fact.

Things that we openly admit and speculate on would be such things as our origin, but because we cannot observe the universe in any way yet that will truly lead to fact we cannot make any assumptions.


On the other hand, Theists look upon this world and what they know as fact and then they take the holes and patch them up with god, some patches are clearly more important, like origin, but they are all just patches, things to fix up later. Then you, take "Articles" such as the Bible, Quran, and Vedas, and you accept them as a guideline for making these patches.

I'm sorry, but time and time again I fail to realize these striking similarities between faith and the scientific method.

Answer 4

It is not a matter of intelligence.. it is willingness to LIE to prove your point. The real problem comes in when some data for an experiment is falsified because the scientist got frustrated.. she was later found out and was kicked out of school just days before she was to receive her PhD (the data was for her thesis)...

OH.. and.. the data gets published over and over and over... from the 70's all the way up until 2006 (last time I saw the data about micro-evolution) and people keep believing it unless they dig back into the history of the data and find the articles published where the author admits the falsification (part of her punishment to keep from being sent to jail)...

As a Christian I do not NEED to do experiments, I have FAITH. I have the Holy Spirit to guide me and to help me in my everyday life by letting me know the true things (not the false though)...

Science HAS to provide absolute truth through experiments but then some people are bound to misinterpret the findings.. but we will find out the truth of all things after the Resurrection.

Answer 5

1) Smarter? Not necessarily. But less willing to accept a lie, certainly.

2) "Spontaneous formation of life" - never heard of it.

3) "Disprove god" - not my job. You're the one who says god exists, so go ahead and prove it.

4) Evidence that atheists have a "fixation" with Christians?

5) Nope. I have the reasonable expectation that what is known has been thoughtfully observed, carefully measured, diligently tested and honestly recorded (with a few exceptions, naturally). That's very different from believing in anything without evidence, which is what faith is. And it's also different from pseudo-science -- a thing that no reasonable person should defend, regardless of religious belief.

6) "Misguided"? Your opinion. "Hypocritical"? Yeah, name-calling is a surefire way to impress people with your astuteness.

Next question.

Answer 6

Yup, but we are saved by the fact that cold fusion was discovered by Christians working in a physics lab at a religious university and the fact that Kent Hovind proved that the Earth is exactly 6 days 7 hours 35 minutes and 6 and 1/2 seconds old.(this of course was before he went to jail for fraud)
I guess there are dummies everywhere, even in the genius classes.

Edit to "Theworldofgodisjesus's" Actually Einstein was an atheist. You should look up his quotes and statements. They are freely available.
Wouldn't it be better to be able to speak the truth instead of repeating lies.

Answer 7

It is pointless to compare both groups intellectuality solely on their faith or lack thereof. I have known some seriously stupid Christians. I have also known some seriously stupid Atheists. But the opposite is also true. Both groups are like any other sample of humanity, A majority follow after a few and operate on the most simple principles they get from the "higher authority" and filling in the rest with what society as a whole says. in the end both are quite similar.

Answer 8

I wouldn't say that. No atheist wrote e=mc^2. Nor did they write Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus Numbers, Deuteronomy... or Revelation. Neither did an atheist write,"Surprized by Joy." (Although THIS writer WAS FORMERLY an atheist! he wsn't when he wrote Surprized by Joy!) And Who was it that discoverred the Western Hemisphere? HE wasn't an atheist! If you look hard into the lives of some of the greatest minds, I think that you'll find that THEY, the CHRISTIANS, were the ones responsible for MOST DISCOVERIES, and FREEDOM FOR EVERYONE!! Watch the movie "AMAZING GRACE." You might get a better understanding.

Answer 9

Some of 'em. Not all of 'em.

One thing I wish more "intelligent" people would think about is that if salvation were an intellectual endeavor, God would be totally unfair. It would leave less intelligent people out. It's a spiritual enlightenment, not a scientific discovery.

For those who disagree, you put your trust in logic and reason and I'll put mine in the One Who died that I might have eternal life.

Answer 10

you good sir, are an idiot. i do not try to disprove god as i find it an impossible thing to do. you cant prove or disprove the existence of something you have no understanding of and if it doesn't want to be found wont. there's no logic in trying to prove or disprove the existence of such a powerful being. just like Christians and other people believe on faith, we don't believe based on FAITH. not on scientific experiments you claim may be false. these experiments have been proven and again and again so you tell me that they are false. do them yourself if you can get the resources and you may learn something. science isn't a substitute for religion and i hate it when people get it into their head that atheists view science as religion. science is merely another way of looking at the world.

Answer 11

You bring up a good point. There is a certain amount of faith that goes into believing scientists are doing their job right. But with all the checks and balances within the scientific community, it is a safer bet to go with that process than to just point to The Bible and say all the answers are in that book.