From: 910773f@ace.acadiau.ca (HEATHER LEE FYFFE)
Subject: Re: Just how much smarter are atheists?
Organization: Acadia University
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 18:59:30 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.061611.24526@netcom.com> bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig) writes:
>>
>>Just how stupid must one be to believe in a God? (This is the general
>>feeling that I get from reading 90% of the messages in this group: that
>>atheists must either be super-intelligent or God-fearing, religious
>>people must be interminably stupid.)
>

Sorry if this sounds like I'm bragging, but it is all true...

All my life, I have been the smartest one in my classes.  My grades have 
always been high 90's, A+'s, whatever.  I am here at school with a more-
thatn-full scholarship.  I have a published play.  My friends call me 
brain.  I can hold up my end of an intellectual discussion with just about 
anybody.  I am also a talented musician.  I find learning, thinking, etc, 
rather easy.  My point?  I am, *gasp*, a Christian.  It's not purely an 
emotional, spiritual, geez-this-feels-good thing either.  Being the 
intellectually questioning sort that I am, I have read and discussed a lot 
about Christianity.

Many of my nest friends are intellectual Christians too.  We have some 
incredible philosophical discussions about religion!  We don't sit around 
just bashing those who don't believe the same things we do, either.  Neither 
do we think that they should all be locked up, forcibly converted, or just 
plain ridiculed.

I admit that there are some `fundies' out there, TV evangelists and many 
preachers included, who do seem to think that kind of thing.  Well, when the 
end comes, they will get their reward.  They need help just as much as 
anybody does, they do more harm that good, and I sincerely apologize for any 
harm thay might have done to anybody, anytime, and I invite complaints 
about them, too.

As for truth, somebody mentioned that there are many truths, until they get 
disproved, or something like that.  Might I point out that that implies a 
very liberal definition of truth - that truth is relative, that each person 
can have their own truth, that truth is transient and changeable.  Well, I'm 
sorry, but the big-T Truth, as in the way things actually are, the way the 
universe actually was created, the real purpose in our being here (if you 
believe there is one), can only be one thing.  The universe DID come into 
existence a certain way, it can not possibly have happenned differently for 
different people.  And whether we were created by a benevolent God, or an 
evil one, or evolved by chance, or were created by the god Nature, whatever, 
we came into existence one way and one way only.  Different religions and 
beliefs cannot all be right, and I cannot understand how some people can 
say `well, whatever works for that person'.

Religion is not just a way of dealing with life.  Sure, that does come into 
play.  But it is also a belief in a certain truth, and if you believe in 
that truth, then what others believe to be true must be wrong, because there 
can only be one Truth.  So EVERYBODY goes through life trying to convince 
everybody else that they're wrong.  Christians by evangelizing, atheists by 
arguing with Christians, even apathetics who say `whatever works'.  Some try 
more forcibly, some don't really _try_, but just stating your own opinion 
forces others to consider it.  But if you don't believe in your truth 
strongly enough to consider it the big-T Truth, then why do you believe in 
it at all?  

Before you flame me on this point, I know that most of you atheists on this 
group DO consider your truth to be the big-T Truth and you're not afraid to 
say so.  These last paragraphs were aimed at those who say `you believe what 
you believe and I'll believe what I believe and let's not get in other's 
way, OK?'.  



>Mm, you might have something there...  Sure, I know a lot of nice
>Christians, but the vast majority of the ones who have tried to impose
>it on me have seemed to be rather dim-witted and superstitious.  For

Like I said, I'm not dimwitted, nor am I superstitious.  I think a great 
many `Christian' rituals are outdated, superstitious, unbiblical, and 
pointless.  But I do not believe because of rituals.

And yes, there are many Christians who believe because they were told to and 
didn't bother to think about it.  But there are people like that in any 
religion (or non-religion).  I myself grew up being told that Christianity 
was wrong, and so I believed it, until I started to learn about it.  Then I 
clued in.


>example, I don't see how anyone could say "There is a God-shaped hope
>in everyone" with a straight face unless that person had put
>absolutely no thought into religious differences at all.


First of all, it is a hole, not a hope.  Though perhaps that was a Freudian 
slip....?  Everyone, whether they will admit it or not, knows that they have 
a soul.  Noone can possibly believe that `I', what makes me `me', my 
thoughts, my feelings, my personality, is merely a product of atoms jumping 
around in the brain.  You all know that there is something intangible that 
is `you'.  This is spirituality - not believing in ghosts, but believing in 
people.  All people also wonder, at least a little bit, `why'.  This is the 
God-shaped hole.  The longing for a purpose, the human condition.  The 
reason that men go into space.  The reason people crave money, power, 
attention.  The reason some become drug addicts, alcoholics, sexaholics.  
They are searching for fulfillment, a reason for being.  Some just give up 
and become apathetics.  That does not mean, though, that if a truth was 
proven to them, they wouldn't be happy about it.  They'd still like to know, 
they just gave up trying to find out.

How else can you explain the intense happiness and joy that new Christians 
experience?  We finally feel fulfilled, yes, this is what I've been waiting 
for.  Now I have something to strive for.  How many ex-Christians can say 
they felt that when they left the faith?  Most often they left because of 
disillusionment, disappointment, and disgust with the Church and its 
operations.  And I must say, in most cases I can't blame them.  The Church 
as an organization is materialistic, egotistical, and uncaring about its 
members.  But can those who left truly say that they have found happiness 
since?  Sure, you may say it easily, and you probably will.  But I challenge 
you to question whether you really, truly mean it, or is it just another 
mask?

I have to wonder about those who can do nothing but flame, flame, flame we 
Christians.  Any attempt at serious discussion is countered with sarcasm and 
vicious attacks.  Sure, there are some Christians who attack too.  I must 
wonder what their motivations are, and how they can possibly think they're 
doing any good, and if they've considered whether Jesus would approve of 
their actions...  But to the atheist who merely flames, I must ask why?  Are 
you afraid of actual discussion?  Are you so insecure in your own beliefs 
that you must brush off any contradictory statements without even 
considering them?  And even though you may lightly flame off these comments, 
do you really consider them so incredibly stupid as to not even be worth 
considering?  That seems to me almost as bad as those types of `fundie' 
Christians that you guys are always complaining about...

Just some food for thought.  Responses, compaints, comments welcome, but 
please, be mature enough not to flame.


Love,
The Buzzard