Due to constant misunderstanding with my name I feel the need to change my intro. I am hateful, hateful of religion. I hate what religion does to people and that people use it as an excuse to not think. I have spent many years of my life as an Atheist and have learned to handle my emotions, but no other word quite describes how I feel towards religion short of hate. I am outspoken, open minded, and will share my opinion. If you're looking for someone who will always agree with you, that won't be me.
The Out Campaign: Scarlet Letter of Atheism
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2nd July 2012

Question with 11 notes

Anonymous asked: The smartest family I knew were brilliant people. Two doctors and their twin children; they were intelligent, quick-witted, very heavy into science. The kids were absolute shoe-ins for MIT and other ivory league schools. But somehow they were also Christian. Very, very Christian. Very into God and Jesus. Only now, years later and having not spoken to them in a while, am I completely baffled by how such smart people... could believe in something as ridiculous as religion?

With some religious people there is a complete disconnect between reality and faith. They will use tests and rigid standards in helping to develop their view of reality but will not use the same level of scrutiny in establishing their faith. Most of the more intelligent religious people will realize there is a disconnect and many of them even acknowledge it but they will say that is the difference between matters of faith and matters of reality. Faith doesn’t require proof, faith doesn’t require testing, and as a result to non-believers faith is essentially a worthless trait.

It would be interesting to know how they are able to reconcile their faith with science, personal experience seems to be most common answer. The story of Francis Collins is one I always find interesting and baffling. He came upon a waterfall frozen midstream in to three streams. He accepted it as a sign of the trinity. If there had been 4 waterfalls would he have kept walking as if nothing changed? It seems so illogical, but he has a brilliant mind and somehow to him it makes sense. It’s hard to find logical reasons for people to arrive at illogical beliefs.

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  1. serveonlythyself said: Some people keep the illogical parts of their life off-limits / compartmentalized. It’s very easy to do.
  2. thelachster said: Or perhaps the explanation is just that very, very intelligent people will sometimes.. DISAGREE with you! Isn’t it incredible? Sometimes people of the utmost intelligence will carefully consider all the evidence, and come to a different conclusion.
  3. hatefulatheist posted this