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Darttoyou 1's avatar

He's right if you use facts and science. Studies are so apparent, you must work ten times harder not to see the truth. Atheist, liberals are more intelligent. Atheist are more knowledgeable on religion THAN the religious. Kids brought up religious are more susceptible, gullible to fall for cons, believe the unbelievable. And moral? Not even close, kids and adults NOT religious are more moral. Point being, nonbelievers US population is over 20%, probably 50% if not closeted herd followers as you'll lose FACEBOOK friends? Woo. But PRISON POPULATION OF ATHEIST? zero point zero seven. Not 7 percent, 0.07% . Insight is about connecting the dots, and these are blatant TELLS, but truth hurts...

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ishmael2009's avatar

That's a really good point. I don't deny that religions require implausible beliefs. Indeed, I think it's inherent in the idea of faith. To try and be a little more precise in what I mean, I'm saying that just because you decide to believe (or at least accept) something implausible or irrational does not suddenly preclude you from being intellectually honest. It's not a binary thing, in my estimation, where one misstep means you fall into the abyss of irrationalism and error.

I would argue that all human beings hold at least some implausible beliefs and ideas. But that at least with religion, the belief in the implausible is clearly marked and accepted as such. My 'denial' (if we want to use that language) is that this is intellectually dishonest. It doesn't mean you then go on to make all arguments based on faith.

When Monsignor Georges Lemaître, the Belgian Catholic priest and physicist who proposed the ideas of the big bang and the expanding universe published his theories, he did so as a physicist and as a Catholic priest, but he didn't resort to "because God did it" as a kind of deus ex machina. I really don't see a problem with this. We are complex beings, capable of containing apparent contradictions.

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