[ExI] Religious Idiocy Triumphs Over Science Yet Again

[William Flynn Wallace]

>
> ​> ​
> You are certainly right that most educated people do not have a high
> religious sense.  All I am saying is that it is not incompatible.
>

​The only way the two can coexist in the​

​same ​
​ mind is if they are kept in strict airtight compartments so that the
religious ideas and the intelligent ideas never have any contact with each
other. Thus for 6 days a week the intelligent geologist deduces that the
area above the layer of 359 million year old microfossils and below the
layer of 299
million year old microfossils
​ would be a good place to drill for oil, and then on Sunday sings the
praises of God and a 6 thousand year old Earth.


Or another way than compartmentalizing:

In my case, I was soso on religion (said of all Episcopalians) until I went
to college, and became rather evangelical - even thought about the ministry
or even foreign missions (the ultimate sacrifice at the Baptist college and
the one getting you the most campus prestige).  But I went into grad
school, etc.  Taught Sunday school to older adults, was choir leader in the
evenings, substitute organist, member of the administrative board, tithed
our GROSS income, and so on.

When I got to about 30 I realized that I just did not believe much of it,
esp. the magical parts.  I split from the church, got divorced from a
serious Baptist, and my attitudes have increasingly moved away from
religion of any sort.  I do retain much of what Jesus said re forgiveness
and other moral philosophies, not that much, like the Golden Rule, had not
been said by earlier people.

Maybe what happened was that my brain finally matured.  It is known that it
can take up to age 25 or even longer in higher IQ people for the neocortex
to finally mature.  Thus once I had full control of my reasoning powers and
applied them to what I was teaching in Sunday school, it just all fell
apart.  I do not hate or despise religion or the people who practice it.  I
do view them as deluded or, as you say, compartmentalized.

I do admit to being at least slightly puzzled at the hostility that many
religious people have towards atheists.  Perhaps they are ignorant of or
deny the studies showing atheists at approximately the same level of moral
development.  We now have people in the news saying they won't deal with
anyone, like the Asian convenience store owners, who aren't Christian.  Of
course this is far from a Christian attitude, supporting the charge of
hypocrisy they are often tagged with and richly deserve.

bill w


On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 1:23 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Dec 11, 2015 3:12 AM, "BillK" <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Some people have had 'near-death' religious experiences that had such
> > a huge emotional impact that it changed their life for ever after.
>
> Which is relevant to psychedelics how?  Near-death experiences can give a
> new perspective, sure, but no illusion of enhanced sensory capability nor
> inexplicable but supposedly profound insights.
>
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