Extreme Religious Fundamentalists Are The Least Intelligent Humans

Pro: “As I have put this into the category of Science and not philosophy. There needs to be a consideration of how the brain functions during the process of rationalization” How the brain functions during the process of rationalization is of questionable relevance when considering rational thinking itself, which must be intrinsically and eternally understood in philosophical terms as its foundation is based in reason and logic, which exist in structure almost entirely externally from the physical world, that is, they are conceptual. Pro: “Philosophically, all thoughts and considerations can be considered rational”This is entirely false, philosophy is essentially the practise of distinguishing and fortifying the rational from the irrational. Pro: “Advancements in science don't always come from rational thought” Again, an entirely false statement. Any advancement that has not been a direct result of rational thought comes instead accidentally. It is illogical to credit a rational conclusion to an irrational pursuit in any way other than of it occurring accidentally or anecdotaly. Pro: “The problem with considering age old or ancient superstitions like the established religions, they have been so thoroughly studied and investigated, from all aspects and now even neurologically that any chance of making new discoveries about human nature and especially science from their Irrationality have been long surpassed” Religion has never made any scientific discoveries. Ever. Science makes scientific discoveries. Religious people can make scientific discoveries, but they do so based on scientific literature, not religious texts.Take Georges Lemaître for example, the catholic priest and physicist who first proposed the theory of the expanding universe and herein lies the most fundamental problem with your argument. http://www.catholiceducation.org...http://www.amnh.org... You are condemning the extremely religious to the category of the extremely unintelligent, however, this has been proved unequivocally false, many times. Matt Dillahunty, anyone?http://www.atheist-experience.com...http://old.richarddawkins.net...William Lane Craig?http://popphilosophers.blogspot.co.uk...Pro: “Fundamentalists are people so deeply indoctrinated in these practices of quashing critical thinking and so adapt at not thinking critically, that they lose the connections within the brain to perform such thinking.” This is, again, certainly not the case. You will go on to argue that through indoctrination, a human brain develops a physical inability to function as it once did. This is a misunderstanding of how the brain works. Rather than weaken and strengthen neurological pathways as you stated, the brain actually creates new pathways and can abandon others. This isn’t simply semantics, you have in your statement assumed that the pathways are already in existence to be weakened or strengthened, as if the ability to reason of those that don’t reason just...falls out of their ears. The brain is an adaptable organ. You only need to youtube ‘the atheist experience’ and watch the host (a group of mostly ex-fundies) exercise their aptitude for reason, rationale and logic to falsify your claim. Take a fundy and put him in a lecture room for a while and watch those neural pathways light up. Fundamentalism does not lead to lobotomy, however much it may seem that way from arguing in the comments sections. There is a critical flaw in your logic. As I discussed earlier, a rational conclusion can not occur as the intended result of irrational thought. However, flip that around and there is are less problems. A perfectly rational thought process can lead to all sorts or ridiculous conclusions. In fact, it took the perfectly rational minds of our ancestors to come to the conclusion that the earth was the centre of the universe and that a man in the sky put it their. The development of superstitions is not irrational, even holding on to those superstitions despite contrary evidence is not in itself irrational. Take the great apologetics, say what you like about them but, as Hitchens explained in the video included in my last post, they are not to be underestimated intellectually. Instead, it may be more appropriate to look toward willful ignorance. As your previous links pointed out, some churches push very vigorously against critical thinking. I suppose this is mainly because this strategy is much simpler than trying to bestow their flocks with the extreme intellectual acrobatic skills of the the apologetics. This is a fine example of an individual or group who choose not to look at the alternative to their way of thinking. This does not help your argument, for, if one intentionally ignores the alternative to their position, it will generally be because they have to some degree already acknowledged it’s strength, thus indicating intellect. If, on the other hand, a person is quite innocently ignorant of the alternatives then you can not accuse them of irrationality - you can only think rationally based on the information you have access to. I think Pro has again failed to adequately define the group he accuses and has again failed to adequately define the terms he accuses the group with. He must resolve the contradiction in his equating fundamentalist religion to lack of intelligence and my examples of extremely intelligent religious fundamentalists. I reject Pro’s claim and instead argue, as his source suggests, that those who come to conclusions of questionable rational quality, in doing so do not necessarily negate their intelligence or their intellectual capacity. Huffington Post: “Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and Nobel laureate at Princeton University who has done pioneering work on the contributions of intuitive and analytical thinking to human decision making. "All they have shown, and all that can be shown, is that when you're thinking more critically you reject statements that otherwise you would endorse," Kahneman says. "It tells you that there are some religious beliefs people hold that if they were thinking more critically, they themselves would not endorse.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com...