Posts by inkling

57

Are Most Scientists Atheists?

by passwordprotected in

jw
friends

james leuba conducted a survey of scientists in 1916. they were asked a whether they believed in a god who actively communicates with humanity, to whom humans can pray and expect an answer.. to believe in this sort of god would mean you were a theist.

if you're a deist, or agnostic, you believe there's a god but he's not necessarily interested in humans and we wouldn't pray to this god.. the results of this survey revealed that roughly 40% of scientists believe in this sort of god, making them theists.

40% didn't, making them either deists/agnostics or atheists.

inkling

I agree. Sort of illustrates my reference to Dawkins putting forward his views on religion and the existence of God and his followers preaching the same gospel.

While the idea of above-nature god can not be directly addressed by science, the vast majority
of claims about god (made by religions) CAN be, becuase religion makes claims about how god
interacts with the word, the real world, and so when people start talking about flying horses
and crackers turning into godmeat, those are claims that are fair game for scientists and
critical thinkers worldwide, even he they have no "theological training"

Did Einstein buck the trend of all intelligent people, in particular scientists, being atheists?

Apparently not.

Einstein was an atheist by any reasonable definition.

(The definition he himself apparently used for his famous "I am not an atheist" quote,
though perhaps reasonable at the time, does not seem reasonable today.)

More importantly, he was an atheist by the definition of the polls we have been talking about.
So no, he did not buck the trend we are discussing.

Atheist: not a theist. Einstein was not a Theist of the sort addressed by these polls.

How can you read what he wrote about god and the universe
and still claim that what he talked about as "god" is in any way
related to theism?

[inkling]

57

Are Most Scientists Atheists?

by passwordprotected in

jw
friends

james leuba conducted a survey of scientists in 1916. they were asked a whether they believed in a god who actively communicates with humanity, to whom humans can pray and expect an answer.. to believe in this sort of god would mean you were a theist.

if you're a deist, or agnostic, you believe there's a god but he's not necessarily interested in humans and we wouldn't pray to this god.. the results of this survey revealed that roughly 40% of scientists believe in this sort of god, making them theists.

40% didn't, making them either deists/agnostics or atheists.

inkling

Did Einstein buck the trend?

The polls we have been talking about refer to belief in a personal god.

The kind of impersonal (and possibly metaphorical) "god" that many scientists
(including Einstein) talk[ed] about is so far removed from any religious idea of
god that at some point it becomes indistinguishable from atheism.

So, no.

I can decide for myself whether there is a magick man in the sky who made everything then went quiet on us.

And that is probably related to my IQ.

Oh snap.

[inkling]

45

"He was really smart. Smart people leave all the time" <- Unwitting Witness Tells The Truth

by gubberningbody in

jw
friends

how many of you have heard this one, or words to that effect?.

inkling

In a previous congregation, an elder told me (in reference to a friend of mine
who was slowly becoming inactive and expressing doubts)

"It is sometimes difficult for very intellegent people to be Witnesses"

This was in a major college town, So I am sure they were used to seeing
smart young people move into the area and then "fall away", and used to
encountering smart people at the door and getting nowhere.

You see, intellegent, educated people are not "humble" enough to recognize
The Truth.

[inkling]

57

Are Most Scientists Atheists?

by passwordprotected in

jw
friends

james leuba conducted a survey of scientists in 1916. they were asked a whether they believed in a god who actively communicates with humanity, to whom humans can pray and expect an answer.. to believe in this sort of god would mean you were a theist.

if you're a deist, or agnostic, you believe there's a god but he's not necessarily interested in humans and we wouldn't pray to this god.. the results of this survey revealed that roughly 40% of scientists believe in this sort of god, making them theists.

40% didn't, making them either deists/agnostics or atheists.

inkling

rebel8: My hypothesis is not only are most scientists atheists, most educated people are.

passwordprotected: The research shows you're wrong.

rebel8: Do you have a body of research that you're able to share? I read the one study you mentioned, which was replicated once.

----------------

Hmm, this might be relevant:

The Harris Poll ® #59, October 15, 2003

DEMOGRAPHIC VARIATION IN BELIEF IN GOD

Base: All Adults

Belief in God:		Somewhat Certain)	Absolutely Certain
All Adults	%	79	66
Region
East	%	75	59
Midwest	%	82	71
South	%	82	72
West	%	75	61
Age
18 – 24	%	73	57
25 – 29	%	71	55
30 – 39	%	76	62
40 – 49	%	81	69
50 – 64	%	82	74
65 +	%	83	72
Sex
Male	%	73	60
Female	%	84	72
Race/Ethnicity
White	%	78	64
African American	%	91	82
Hispanic	%	81	66
Party I.D.
Republican	%	87	76
Democrat	%	78	65
Independent	%	75	63
Education
High school or less	%	82	72
Some college	%	77	64
College graduate	%	78	63
Post graduate	%	73	53

=====

So, it would seem as education increases, belief in god decreases.

Or at least, the professing of belief in god to a pollster decreases,
although still the majority of even very educated people profess
belief in God.

However, your hypothesis seems to be:

"that social pressures continue to lead people to claim to belong to a church/religion even though they really don't believe in God at all..."

Which, although I suspect (and rather hope) that this may be true, how would this be testable?
How are you supposed to find out if people ACTUALLY believe in god?

Until you figure that out, arguing about it seems a cul-de-sac

[inkling]

57

Are Most Scientists Atheists?

by passwordprotected in

jw
friends

james leuba conducted a survey of scientists in 1916. they were asked a whether they believed in a god who actively communicates with humanity, to whom humans can pray and expect an answer.. to believe in this sort of god would mean you were a theist.

if you're a deist, or agnostic, you believe there's a god but he's not necessarily interested in humans and we wouldn't pray to this god.. the results of this survey revealed that roughly 40% of scientists believe in this sort of god, making them theists.

40% didn't, making them either deists/agnostics or atheists.

inkling

57

Are Most Scientists Atheists?

by passwordprotected in

jw
friends

james leuba conducted a survey of scientists in 1916. they were asked a whether they believed in a god who actively communicates with humanity, to whom humans can pray and expect an answer.. to believe in this sort of god would mean you were a theist.

if you're a deist, or agnostic, you believe there's a god but he's not necessarily interested in humans and we wouldn't pray to this god.. the results of this survey revealed that roughly 40% of scientists believe in this sort of god, making them theists.

40% didn't, making them either deists/agnostics or atheists.

inkling

One problem with this question that that although we have a
cliched mental picture of the job description "scientist", the
actual real world spectrum is rather wide. Many people can
fairly be called "scientists" who work in very narrow fields,
and are never come across any issues in their field that are
really relevant at all to the question of god, or religious
belief.

Now, in theory, all scientists should know how to think
critically, and in fact must do so at very least on the subjects
they work with, otherwise they wouldn't be very good at their
job. However, just because someone is capable of thinking
critically about one subject does not translate into thinking
critically about other things, especially when those things
are insulated by tradition and emotion and family, AND don't
have a relevant negitive effect on thier actual work.

Also, something interesting happens when you break up
the polling to look at "eminent" or "leading" scientist.

(i.e., scientists that are most productive and prolific and
published)

from: Leading scientists still reject God

the question of religious belief among US scientists has been debated since early in the century. Our latest survey finds that, among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever — almost total.

In 1996, we repeated Leuba's 1914 survey and reported our results in Nature [3] . We found little change from 1914 for American scientists generally, with 60.7% expressing disbelief or doubt. This year, we closely imitated the second phase of Leuba's 1914 survey to gauge belief among "greater" scientists, and find the rate of belief lower than ever — a mere 7% of respondents.

Leuba attributed the higher level of disbelief and doubt among "greater" scientists to their "superior knowledge, understanding, and experience" [3] . Similarly, Oxford University scientist Peter Atkins commented on our 1996 survey, "You clearly can be a scientist and have religious beliefs. But I don't think you can be a real scientist in the deepest sense of the word because they are such alien categories of knowledge." [4] Such comments led us to repeat the second phase of Leuba's study for an up-to-date comparison of the religious beliefs of "greater" and "lesser" scientists.

Our chosen group of "greater" scientists were members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers.

Feel free to take issue with their definition of "greater" scientists, and I suppose all this shows
is that the more "successful" and prominent you are in the science world, the less likely you are
to believe in god, and I suppose you could argue that this is because the leading scientific
establishment has a bias toward atheism, thus giving preferential treatment to such scientists,
but that is a moot point considering that the opinion of the scientific community is exactly what
we are talking about here, for whatever that it worth.

The point is, the deeper and higher you get into the sciences, the less likely you are to believe
in god and the supernatural.

[inkling]

21

"The Wonders of Creation Reveal God's Glory" DVD -- watch on YouTube!

by inkling in

ok, so out of boredom and curiosity, i have unleashed the new.

dvd "the wonders of creation reveal god's glory" on the.

unsuspecting public!.

inkling

Thanks for the effort inkling, but there's no way I could watch more than a few minutes of that drival right now.

Well fuck all. I don't know if I could even start!

I keep trying to do a commentary on it, but I can't get through that drivel. Seriously it's killing me trying to watch it.

Hey, I hear ya.

I have had the DVD almost a week now, and can't bring myself to watch more than
a few minutes of it. If I ever do watch through it, and find some interesting bits,
I will post about them specifically. Until then, I just want it to to be available to
anyone who might be interested.

I'm going to go out on a limb and take a guess that not all of the work done
on this video was by watchtower artists. They probably purchased a lot of
stock footage from production companies.

This seems likely, especially the wildlife stuff. It is very high quality photography, of some fairly
rare stuff, taken with some pretty expensive equipment.

My friend does editing for a living, he went to collage, but didn't learn any of his editing skills there. It's not a trivial skill (when you get into pixel ratios and compression formats), but it's not something you need collage to learn - just time and experience in the field.

This is a fair point. Perhaps it is the work of a bright self-taught Bethelite with time and access to the
right resources. The WT art department has gotten significantly more polished recently. There's
some real talent there somewhere.

Now, talent in the thespian department? Not so much... ouch that dialog is painful. Like splintery wood.

I can. It’s 80 billion less than the AIG bailout.

Part 1 shows two galaxies unusually close to each other. There are galaxies that have collided with each other making a huge mess. I wonder how that befits a god who is supposedly a god of order and not chaos.

Maybe becuase god is like a 6 year old boy with badass toys? Come on, you are telling me that
if you had control of entire galaxies, you wouldn't be totally tempted to smash them into each other?

I wonder if god makes crashy explody sound effects with his mouth....

[inkling]

21

"The Wonders of Creation Reveal God's Glory" DVD -- watch on YouTube!

by inkling in

ok, so out of boredom and curiosity, i have unleashed the new.

dvd "the wonders of creation reveal god's glory" on the.

unsuspecting public!.

inkling

*bump*

21

"The Wonders of Creation Reveal God's Glory" DVD -- watch on YouTube!

by inkling in

ok, so out of boredom and curiosity, i have unleashed the new.

dvd "the wonders of creation reveal god's glory" on the.

unsuspecting public!.

inkling

Ok, so out of boredom and curiosity, I have unleashed the new
DVD "The Wonders of Creation Reveal God's Glory" on the
unsuspecting public!

Watch it now, before the WT lawyer henchmen track me down
and bring forth the fury of legal Armageddon on my copyright
infringing apostate arse.

I am also madly curious to hear your comments on the DVD,
both here and on youtube, (if you have an account there).

I have yet to watch the whole thing myself, but from first
impressions.... wow. If only their logic and acting approached
even a fraction of their production values!!! At least now you
know where all your contribution money has been going...

Oh, and hey- how many of these filmmakers/CGI artists do
you think went to college to learn how to do this stuff?

So, without furthur ado:

------------------------

[inkling]

37

What are the best books you've ever read about evolution?

by JimmyPage in

jw
friends

inkling

I have a wall of books there are many books that say cows turned into whales.
If you want to be technical, I doubt it was actually a cow.
And I doubt it was actually a whale.

Here is the "cow":

And here is the "whale":

That may not be your favorite theory but its out there.

Actually, it is one of my favorites. It is one of the best supported lineages
in evolutionary theory, with numerous transitional fossils. The strength of
the fossil series, along with strong evidence from slowly migrating features
(ear organs) and vestigial features (i.e., whales with small useless legs)
is one the early parts of my studies that started to convince me of the
validity of the theory.

I have read it more than once.

I believe you, but so long as you continue to claim that modern scientists
claim that a cow-like something turned into a whale-like something, I have
to question either the quality (or recentness) of the work you have read on
the subject, or your understanding of it, or your recollection of it.

I highly recommend this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cn0kf8mhS4

(Keep in mind that every time the animal in this video "changes", it represents
an actual fossil animal that has been found, all in the same geographic area, in the correct chronological order in the strata.)

If you can watch that animation, which is reasonably accurate depiction of the current
scientific model of land-mammal-to-whale evolution, and still tell me that it is a video
showing "cows turning into whales", then this conversation has hit a murky dead end,
because we seem to be talking in different languages.

For a slightly more indepth video on the subject, I recomend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9a-lFn4hqY

Cheers, and thanks for having the patience to keep this discussion going as long as
it has. I feel I have a somewhat better understanding of where you are coming from,
and I appreciate you sharing it with us.

:)

[inkling]