Science/psychology related religious question about atheists?

Question

OK, I'm just having a thought (it doesn't happen often) and I would like some feedback from those who care to contemplate:

It's fairly obvious that most people are afraid of death. Many find consolation in the idea of an after-life. But the atheist usually has no such consolation.

Many people also find consolation that they will be remembered by posterity by having their names remembered. They write books, and donate buildings at colleges to memorialize themselves.

Now, usually, it's the better educated that tend to write books and have enough money to donate buildings.

Could ONE OF the reasons that atheists tend to be better educated than believers, be that they are more likely to find consolation by being remembered after their deaths by others because of their life's works?


(Sorry, I know that's a bit confusing... it's a thought in progress).

Thanks in advance.

Fireball - the question is the part with this "?" mark after it.


Also, I never said that their were no educated Christians. But the fact is that atheists tend to be better educated.

I think some people are getting a bit of the wrong idea...
I'm saying that the educated person may be more likely to become atheist BECAUSE, they can feel secure about being remembered.

The correlation is no secrete:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Demographics

Oooo, I think that's the most stars I've ever recieved for a question. People must like armchair psychology.

Answer 1

this should answer your question... it's very philosophical...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZUNLV7e3vU&eurl=http://www.videosift.com/search?q=data

Answer 2

Quite the can of worms there. 2 things. 1st Christians see this world as temporal. IT will end. It will burn, It has fallen, it is corrupted. What people do or do not remember about us, matters not. Sure some would consider being a best seeing author to be an honor. But in a Christian’s view, having children who follow in our footsteps to serve our God is as high as it can get. That is, in our view, eternal. Everything else will pass away.

Remember a few years ago, the Murphy Brown, Dan Quell issues? Where he made a commit about her show were she was a unwed mother. A friend at the time, said, he only wished he was as popular as she. I told her right there, that the day would come that she would be forgotten, but being VP Quell would be remember far into the future. This is similar.

No the second issue of education would fit this, Paul 2000 years ago made this clear

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?


BTW, Our pastor retired from the Houston Space Center, he is a Mathematician, and was a rocket scientist.

Answer 3

False premise. Only the ego maniac has a NEED to be remembered after he dies. But IF he were as educated as you suppose him to be, he would know that "all glory is fleeting" and his buildings will be reduced to rubble and his name erased from the memory of mankind. As for his books, a slim premise indeed, all it takes is for one great catastrophry or another egomaniacal idiot to come along and burn all record of his writings. (Until the dawn of modern technoclogy, no one could be certain of the survival of ones written word)

So, WHY would the athiest write? It is not for posterity. Could it be that he has a concept, an idea, a revelation (NOT from God) an insight that MIGHT contribute to his fellow man? Could altruism be at the base of this mans motivaton? OR, must all "good things" emminate from God's chosen people.

Well, the observations over some 5 thousand years shows that the only tripe we get from the religious crowd is MORE tripe, while all of the breakthrough ideas are not only coming from the educated, but from those who's ideas of a God are often in direct conflict with the church.

How can an individual take a church doctrine seriously when his own observations tell him that the earth is but a PART of the solar system, NOT the center of it? And WHY shouldl I listen to the 2000 year old slosch that poses as the Word of God, when NOT a single useful and verifiable idea has come forth to this day. Indeed, the church has a very unenviable record all through out its history of attempting to destroy those who would question the doctrine of the church on any physical matter.

Soo, education is NOT the magical bullet that you are looking for sir. The magical bullet is to be found in the individual's inability to believe in his own self, his own sense of the world, and his inability to explain the world to his own satifaction, or to himself or others. In his failures he looks to a higher power, failing along the way to understand that the VERY power that led him to the frustration in the first place (his curiousity) is the same power that will eventually answer his questions.

The joy of being an athiest is found in the anticipation of the journey of mankind on his quest for understanding, not the spectre of the ultimate fate of all living organisms.

To make THAT statement you have to have a lot more faith in the "universe" then in some ancient god of vengence. Religious people are void of such a depth of that faith.

Answer 4

When I die then I'm gone. Consciousness ends so I have nothing to be afraid of because I will simply not be. To devote your life to try and get in a exclusive club seems insane given the fact that it does not exist. I do strongly agree with you about the uneducated embracing religion more than one who is educated. How many times have you tried to argue with a Christian and they throw out, "Because the Bible says so" or some other baseless claim.

Answer 5

most atheists won't have their name on the front of a building.. and they know this. Atheisms comes from all different walks of life and can't be funneled down into a single path. But SOME may become Atheists due in part to the reasons you have stated.. though I would say most do not. Now the underlying theme of peace with death.. I would say that is a big part of it.

Answer 6

You might be on to something. But I can't really say that is true for me. I don't fear the end and I don't care about obscurity. But you are right, so many people do. I must be a mental defective or something. I am an existentialist, so maybe that philosophical mindset has corrupted me into believing that being obsessive about leaving a legacy is a pointless waste of time.

Answer 7

Skeptic, you're reching: how can you possibly know 'atheists ... [are] better educated than believers'? Perhaps you mean they swallowed whole what they were spoonfed at school & on TV from nursery school on, and are then happy to continue swallowing the lies from Prof Dawkins et al. Don't misunderstand me, I don't me Prof Dawkins is deliberately lying to people, but he deliberately ignores evidence that NO evolutionist has been able to answer satisfactorily (e.g. why do they refer to speciation as 'evolution in action' when it is actually always caused by either A) a re-combination of EXSITING 'data' in the DNA, or B) an actual LOSS of information)?

Further to the bracketed Q, it was interesting watching Professor Dawkins at a loss for words when asked 'Can you give one example of a beneficial mutation where the organism was improved by spontaneous [i.e. without re-combination from pre-existing information] addition of genetic material?' He failed to give an answer -- as have ALL evolutionist scientists. Prof Dawkins and his ilk now refuse to debate with creationist scientists. Why?

May God bless all who truly seek Him.

Answer 8

As an atheist, I find no particular need to be remembered by a large group of admiring strangers. If I strove to be remembered at all it would be for a short duration by a select few who had some warmth of feeling toward me based on mutually beneficial or pleasant interaction.

Answer 9

"Could ONE OF the reasons that atheists tend to be better educated than believers, be that they are more likely to find consolation by being remembered after their deaths by others because of their life's works?"


Where did you get that lame idea???...what makes you think atheists are better educated than those who follow a faith???

From the moment you made the erroneous conclusion that better educated people tend to write books you put your foot in your mouth...history is full of renowned people both educated and not...with and without religious faith of some sort...many have not written books but found fame or infamy in other ways...

You might want to rethink your line of reasoning...

Answer 10

if i am in their shoes i will do all i can write books donates with all the expend i can for as many as I can to imortalize myself
because I am a christian I have God who would give me immortality in his present and a position in his Kingdom I will have no need of such a wasted effort

how long will all these last on earth
try time capsal haha

Answer 11

People with a good education realise that most things can be explained without resorting to the god hypothesis - and this lack of belief in god makes them atheistic by definition. I doubt that many of them decide in advance that they will educate themselves because they fear death and are worried that nobody will remember them.