Mr November

I'm coming in at a random time here, but this is basically the whole "prove that you exist" challenge that your philosophy professor will assign to you.

It's impossible to prove certainly that anything other than possibly your own existence is true. This is because there are so many crazy things which are technically possible.

But we dismiss these things and we live in the world that we observe by the laws and assumptions that have function. When we try to ask questions that are quite possibly impossible to answer, like where does existence/reality/the universe come from, it only makes sense to approach it on the basis of the practical laws a assumptions that we make in ever other thing we do in every day life and to use that as a foundation.

Either that or you can choose to be immobile and wait to starve to death.

Sparky

I have a wiki link too :P
Religiosity and intelligence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kinda interesting. Apparently countries with a lower % of religious people have a higher overall intelligence level.

Mr November

Low blow.

Scarlett O'Hara

That doesn't necessarily mean that countries with high religious proportions are unintelligent. And what relevance does that have to this?

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Sparky

Actually, in it they determined that in general religious people have lower IQ's. Not that this makes your point any less valid really

And i figured since this is a religious thread in the lounge it would be okay to post anything related to religion but maybe i'm wrong?

Scarlett O'Hara

I wonder how vastly sampled and credible the study is. Again, not that it has relevance to what I'm saying or my intelligence levels.

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Scarlett O'Hara

Ah, here we go, the main point from the study is:

"I'm not saying that believing in God makes you dumber. My hypothesis is that people with a low intelligence are more easily drawn toward religions, which give answers that are certain, while people with a high intelligence are more skeptical."

Which makes more sense than what you were saying.

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Sparky

It was 137 countries, I'm trying to find # of people. For USA it was 6,825 adolescents, which ain't too shabby.

Mr November

Well I suspect it would be effected by some heavy historical factors. Many areas of the world where religion is strongest are also third world countries, or very totalitarian.

The areas that would be giving good results to the non-religious demographic would be Scandinavia, England, Japan for example. These are places where, while religion exists, it is not given as much weight and it is much more accepted to have no religion or to be an atheist.


But it doesn't really have to do with anything, and as with most studies that examine a certain demographic, it doesn't mean that everyone in that demographic is accurately represented by the statistics. 100% rule.

Sparky

What? Thats not the main point, the data was the main point, not a quote. The study is pretty complex and lengthy actually.