Why do the seemingly educated people among us believe religious claims? It seems they are defending ideas for non-smart reasons. Believing things for emotional reasons does not seem rational to me and i'm not one of the smartest or most educated persons around. No smart person would say there is more evidence for creationism as opposed to evolutionary science. Why do the smart Senators or other intelligent folk reject the theories of scientists and biologists and climatologists or others that rely on data. How does emotions contradict observable data....i just don't get it. I know a well known clinic director who totally rejects the use of fossils to prove evolution, stating simply that it's all a hoax propagated by paleontologists. Up until that statement, i regarded him as a rational and highly intelligent executive, but i was dumbfounded. He was a church goer and very religious. The more i began thinking about the gap between believers and non-believers, the more i began to realize what danger the planet is because of religion. It won't be the zealots or extremists from the middle east with their terror weapons, it'll be our home-grown religious believers who will stand by and deny scientific observations while the few corporate owners reap their benefits from causing increased greenhouse emissions to the death of our earth. Or the religious politicians will depend on the 'prayer and the hand of God" from deflecting that wayward asteroid rather than fund the NASA astro-physicists who can design the mechanism to ward off extermination level events.
When highly "educated" or "sophisticated" thinkers claim to be religious, my cynical mind immediately thinks they are only saying what the general population wants to hear. As time goes on and religious beliefs become yesterdays myths and legends, especially among those with higher IQs, the planet will have a better chance for survival. But alas, i fear the tipping point has come and gone, or at least we're on the brink. I'll be the first to rejoice if creationism is true or that there's some unseen deity or afterlife that exists. Until there's evidence, I'll side with Hawking, Dawkins, Bill Gates, Carl Sagan, Bill Mahr, George Carlin, Seth MacFarlane and a host of others.
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