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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