Are atheists stupid too?

Question

It’s obvious that fervently religious people are intellectually lazy (at best) or stupid for not bothering to question the dogma they’ve been fed since birth, but are fervent atheists foolish as well? By using as evidence the fact that *some* things attributed to God can be disproven by science, they conclude that God must not exist. Isn’t that just as irresponsible?

Answer 1

Stupid people can come from any system of belief.

Answer 2

Speedy,

I do not think its obvious that all fervently religious people are intellectually lazy or stupid. Now, I will agree that there is a lot of stupidity related to any kind of fanaticism. However, there are a lot of very intelligent people who fervently believe in God and a lot of fervent atheists who are smart as well. My question to you is, have you talked to either group of people or are you just making an unsubstantiated assumption. Talk to them and find out

Namaste

Answer 3

It is a bit stereotypical to say all fervently religious people are intellectually lazy, don't you think? That aside, if atheists do not believe in God because there supposedly is no evidence (e.g., God comes down from heaven and announces it, appearing to everyone everywhere), why should they believe in evolution? No one saw the Big Bang. No one saw things evolve into larger, more complex life forms from a few particles. Sure, you can say it's logical, but my own belief in God is derived from the very same logic, before which I was not a Christian.

Answer 4

That's just simply not true! You overgeneralize, and you tear down straw men.

There are MANY highly intellegent Christians who have studied and questioned, and have come to the conclusion that God is real.

Science is the one thing evolutionists better NOT try to use!

Study such things as entropy, along with the laws that govern the distribution of energy (the laws of thermodynamics).

Go on to study such things as the living cell and what makes it "tick", such as the mitochondria and the method by which raw materials are converted into usable energy within the cell; study about proteins and protein synthesis; study the DNA and all its complexities and the way the DNA unravels itself, splits into 2 separate strands, replicates a mirror image of itself (RNA), recombines, and then coils itself back up into a helix. Go on to learn how the RNA continues with the task that the DNA got started, and the instruction set encoded in the DNA, and then study information retrieval systems, and how information is generated.

The list goes on, but that's enough for now.

Then go back to such "facts" that the evolutionists use to "prove" their case, such as the piltdown man, which was proven to be fraudulent - built from the tooth of a boar, no less!!!! (Now THAT alone should make ANY evolutionist turn red in the face and turn tail and run!)

Then go back to the original theory that Darwin created. Look at the pretend science that he was using. He actually thought that the cell was the smallest divisible part of a living body! He used weak logic starting from a faulty premise, and his conclusions are all wet!

Now, in the words of Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

Let's apply this to the question of the intellectually lazy (at best) or stupid for not bothering to study science in any detail, atheists:

"When you have eliminated the impossible (ie evolution), whatever is left (God and Creation), no matter how improbable , must be the truth."

But understand one thing - this is not about intellegence. This is about moral culpability and responsibility to a higher authority, and the fact is, when you confront an atheist with the scientific evidence that discredits evolution, they refuse to acknowledge the facts, thus demonstrating that they don't believe in God because they don't WANT to believe in God, and nothing more. They just don't want to have to be morally accountable to a higher authority, period.

Jesus said it like this, "People refuse to come to me because their deeds are evil and they don't want to be exposed by the light."

So, please don't call atheists "stupid". Even very intelligent atheists have rejected Truth, which is not the same as being stupid.

Answer 5

The big difference, is that many Atheists were once religious, and went through a long, difficult period of honest searching before establishing Atheist beliefs.

That period tends to make them find reason for their belief system.

I conclude that God doesn't exist because he has the exact same traits as all the things you and I point to as Mythological.

God, like Ra, Thor, Zeus, Neptune, Unicorns and Leprechauns, has no tangible evidence for existence and requires continually maintained faith for belief. The only difference between God an the others is popularity, there are religious books written for each of them.

I hope we can agree that popularity isn't connected to reality at all, because Britney Spears would then have real talent.

Those common traits are enough for me to label God as myth along with all the others.

Answer 6

My, my speedy we do assume a lot don't we??
Intellectually lazy? That's why universities are full of people of faith? Are professors, surgeons, doctors, lawyers, lecturers, Teacher's, Judges etc Come on now get serious. I have been feed nothing since birth but to be my own person and think for myself and at the grand old age of 33 "CHOSE" after a very long time of study and "questioning" Islam. Could you give an example of these "facts" that can disprove God. Bring it on I'm waiting...............
So are athiest stupid? No more or less than any other group of people. How you like them apples?

Answer 7

I think there's plenty of stupid atheists out there, too. Most people don't think about things very much, or at least about abstract things.

How many stories of former "atheists" turned Christian have you read? C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobel are just two famous cases I can think of off hand. At first, their claims of atheist turned Christian might sound impressive, but less so when you really think about it.

People tend to form a certain opinion about somebody who calls himself or herself an atheist. The generic idea of the atheist is often some kind of cold being operating on pure logic thoroughly and relentlessly gathering and weighing all the evidence. But how many people out there just kind of fall into the atheist category by default? I think there are a good number of atheists who don't believe in God, but haven't thought about it very much or done a ton of research or debate.

So, in reference to those former "atheists" turned Christian, I think that a lot of these guys were atheists in that they just had a kind of default, unquestioned disbelief in God that they didn't make a big deal about. After their conversion they made a bigger deal about their atheism than they ever did back when they supposedly were atheists.

I don't think the fervent atheists are as lazy or stupid as the non-fervent type.

Answer 8

The one difference that i can see is that most atheists came to that decision after a lot of study and deep thought. Most theists just take what mommy and daddy told them to be fact and leave it at that. I am willing to admit that it is within the realm of possibility that there is a God or Gods. I just have not found anything that leads me to believe that this is so. I have however found many many things wrong with every religion that i have studied.

Answer 9

It WOULD be just as irresponsible if it were accurate. However, as it turns out, atheists simply state that without evidence of a thing (god) existing, there is no reason to believe in it. They therefore do NOT believe in it. This is NOT the same as 'concluding that God must not exist'. Testing YOUR intelligence for a moment, can you understand the difference?

Answer 10

it is possible that one does then, yes.

the difference is in going through the analysis and motions, if you present me with some new miraculous bit of evidence and I discount it without even opening the envelope (unless of course you are a raving lunatic dressed in a betty boop costume then I can just take it as a given that you are nuts and not be faulted for it, or the equivalent IE: watching a leonardo dicaprio movie), then I would be guilty of holding my position based on faith not analysis and logic. (actually denying the betty boop person is a form of analysis, you are analyzing the source).

saying that god doesn't exist doesn't rise to that level.

ruling out the possibility without examining those facts are not a good reason to rule it out.

a good reason to rule out the possibility is that no one can present any evidence of god's existance that doesn't pass the laugh test.

science does not need to disprove god, followers need to prove god. your theory, your burden of proof, until then then absence of anything is the constant.

Answer 11

Yeah, that's probably just as intellectually irresponsible.

It is reasonable to conclude that either the god defined in the bible does not exist or if it does exist it is not who the bible claims... due to the overwhelming false information.

It is going to far to claim that because one specific god does not exist that no god exists. There may be a god, more than 1 god, or there may have been past gods, or there may be future gods. But until we know for sure, we cannot claim any absolutes about any gods.