A case for religion, and against AA.

[Dr. Zaus]

I have done research that shows the theoretical constructs (such as hope) as defined in the bible hold together better psychometrically than as defined by modern social psychology. My co-author is an atheist. We both agree that the quality of philosophy regarding the human condition presented in the new testament, and as was prevalent in 50AD Greece, far out-paces the quality of philosophy utilized by modern psychology; And without good philosophy you've got nothing.

 

[justoh]

As it relates to the philosophy by which we base our psychological understanding today; my empirical data shows that the bible trumps modern psychology on a regular basis.

That's, like, incoherent.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

That's, like, incoherent.

Edited for coherence.

 

[justoh]

Edited for coherence.

Maybe also include how hope etc. is defined or understood by both and support for the proposition that the biblical understanding is superior? To help the lay person.

 

[witeken]

Exactly. It's easy for us to look back at people 2,000 years ago and say things like "they didn't know about bacteria? IDIOTS." But no one reading this discovered bacteria, or Newtonian laws of motion, or how to weaponize gunpowder, or any other of thousands of brilliant ideas that have come since. We have the benefit of thousands of years of great thinkers coming before us to build human knowledge to the point we are today, and we can learn about all their accomplishments without having to actually discover everything again on our own. You aren't "smarter" than someone just because you were taught about Bernoulli's Principle and they weren't. You may have learned more than the people who lived 2,000 years ago, but that doesn't mean that the people who wrote the Bible were "uneducated," it means that the depth of human knowledge was comparatively shallow back then.

Look at how much the world advanced in knowledge and technology thousands of years ago. It's laughable. They were dumb and educated. But there are of course exceptions. Not many, though. And those people were Newton, Kepler, etc.

 

[soulcougher73]

Exactly. It's easy for us to look back at people 2,000 years ago and say things like "they didn't know about bacteria? IDIOTS." But no one reading this discovered bacteria, or Newtonian laws of motion, or how to weaponize gunpowder, or any other of thousands of brilliant ideas that have come since. We have the benefit of thousands of years of great thinkers coming before us to build human knowledge to the point we are today, and we can learn about all their accomplishments without having to actually discover everything again on our own. You aren't "smarter" than someone just because you were taught about Bernoulli's Principle and they weren't. You may have learned more than the people who lived 2,000 years ago, but that doesn't mean that the people who wrote the Bible were "uneducated," it means that the depth of human knowledge was comparatively shallow back then.

Right, but these shallow knowledged people you speak of are the ones who claim to know how the world was created. I mean your talking about people who didn't even know the earth was round, yet they have all the answers. Not buying it.

 

[dphantom]

Exactly. It's easy for us to look back at people 2,000 years ago and say things like "they didn't know about bacteria? IDIOTS." But no one reading this discovered bacteria, or Newtonian laws of motion, or how to weaponize gunpowder, or any other of thousands of brilliant ideas that have come since. We have the benefit of thousands of years of great thinkers coming before us to build human knowledge to the point we are today, and we can learn about all their accomplishments without having to actually discover everything again on our own. You aren't "smarter" than someone just because you were taught about Bernoulli's Principle and they weren't. You may have learned more than the people who lived 2,000 years ago, but that doesn't mean that the people who wrote the Bible were "uneducated," it means that the depth of human knowledge was comparatively shallow back then.

+1

 

[dphantom]

Right, but these shallow knowledged people you speak of are the ones who claim to know how the world was created. I mean your talking about people who didn't even know the earth was round, yet they have all the answers. Not buying it.

The greeks, Mayans, Egyptians et al all knew the world was round. their work in astronomy, geometry and other areas show they were very smart.

A fifth grader may "know" more about geometry than the ancients, but there is almost certainly no 5th grader today who could develop Euclidian geometry. That takes genius.

I, too, know much, much more than any ancient could ever dream of. But I do not consider myself smarter than most of the ancients.

 

[Exophase]

The greeks, Mayans, Egyptians et al all knew the world was round. their work in astronomy, geometry and other areas show they were very smart.

The Mayans made a lot of astronomical observations but they still believed the earth was flat with four corners.

A fifth grader may "know" more about geometry than the ancients, but there is almost certainly no 5th grader today who could develop Euclidian geometry. That takes genius.

I, too, know much, much more than any ancient could ever dream of. But I do not consider myself smarter than most of the ancients.

When you say most of the ancients, you mean most of the intellectual elite among the ancients, right? The average intelligence (not just knowledge) of the world was probably lower. But yeah, the people who wrote anything at all were probably by and large near the top of thinkers back then..

 

[PingviN]

You can be as smart as you want, but if your foundation of knowledge is weak them you wont accomplish much. I'm sure the authors of many books are smart, but that doesn't mean they are right.

 

[dphantom]

The Mayans made a lot of astronomical observations but they still believed the earth was flat with four corners.

You are correct, my mistake. I should have stuck with the Chinese who learned the Earth (celestial bodies) were round.

The average intelligence (not just knowledge) of the world was probably lower.

That I do not know so can only speculate but would not be surprised that the average ancients intelligence was on par with ours.

 

[soulcougher73]

Not worth my time to put stock into people who didn't understand natural disasters and how they happen. Every natural disaster must have been god punishing them, when in fact it was nothing but a volcano, earthquake, tidal wave etc that we would have seen coming a mile away with our superior knowledge of the universe.

 

[Retro Rob]

You can be as smart as you want, but if your foundation of knowledge is weak them you wont accomplish much. I'm sure the authors of many books are smart, but that doesn't mean they are right.

You don't have to be right to be smart. Its obvious that Newtonian gravity set the foundation for General Relativity, so a comparitvely and relatively weak foundation was the foundation for a more robust theory.

So while Newton himself didn't accomplish much relatively speaking, much of findings set the tone for advanced math (trigonometry, correct me if I am wrong), among other things.

 

[PingviN]

You don't have to be right to be smart. Its obvious that Newtonian gravity set the foundation for General Relativity, so a comparitvely and relatively weak foundation was the foundation for a more robust theory.

So while Newton himself didn't accomplish much relatively speaking, much of findings set the tone for advanced math (trigonometry, correct me if I am wrong), among other things.

He did accomplish much, saying anything else is silly. Even if his theories lacked the extremely advanced mathematical models we can create today and even if he was wrong on certain aspects he didn't have the means to further research, his accomplishments around the field of gravity are major.

But, he didn't just write a book and was assumed to be right. He made observations, he made calculations (although fairly crude) and he presented facts and his theory. The same goes for all the geniuses of previous generations. The authors of the Bible (to get back to the original argument) were probably smart, but they had no base of knowledge. Had the Old Testament been written today and claimed to be the words of God that had to be taken seriously, we'd laugh so hard we'd probably die.

 

[witeken]

That I do not know so can only speculate but would not be surprised that the average ancients intelligence was on par with ours.

Absolutely not. Ever heard of the Flynn Effect? Just a mere 100 years ago, the average intelligence was an IQ of 70, compared to us. An IQ of 70 means "intellectual disability". Better education and more knowledge directly influence your intelligence.

BTW, we still have the same amount of neurons (84B).

 

[PingviN]

Absolutely not. Ever heard of the Flynn Effect? Just a mere 100 years ago, the average intelligence was an IQ of 70, compared to us. An IQ of 70 means "intellectual disability". Better education and more knowledge directly influence your intelligence.

BTW, we still have the same amount of neurons (84B).

I assume he speaks of the geniuses of their eras, not the average person.

 

[witeken]

You don't have to be right to be smart. Its obvious that Newtonian gravity set the foundation for General Relativity, so a comparitvely and relatively weak foundation was the foundation for a more robust theory.

So while Newton himself didn't accomplish much relatively speaking, much of findings set the tone for advanced math (trigonometry, correct me if I am wrong), among other things.

Newton accomplished a lot. What you say is exactly how science works. You don't gain all the possible knowledge in 1 day by saying there is a god who created everything, but by gradually discovering more things.

 

[witeken]

I assume he speaks of the geniuses of their eras, not the average person.

Since when does the "The average intelligence (not just knowledge) of the world" only include the geniuses of their eras?

 

[PingviN]

Since when does the "The average intelligence (not just knowledge) of the world" only include the geniuses of their eras?

I don't know, it just seemed weird to talk about average intelligence when everyone knows the average intelligence was lower before than it is now (and will be lower compared to people in the future).

 

[dphantom]

Absolutely not. Ever heard of the Flynn Effect? Just a mere 100 years ago, the average intelligence was an IQ of 70, compared to us. An IQ of 70 means "intellectual disability". Better education and more knowledge directly influence your intelligence.

BTW, we still have the same amount of neurons (84B).

be careful how you interpret information. It appears that what is being measured, in part, is a change in how we think, not necessarily how smart we are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

There is debate about whether the rise in IQ scores also corresponds to a rise in intelligence, or a rise in skills related to taking IQ tests. Because children attend school longer now and have become much more familiar with the testing of school-related material, one might expect the greatest gains to occur on such school content-related tests as vocabulary, arithmetic or general information. Just the opposite is the case: abilities such as these have experienced relatively small gains and even occasional decreases over the years. Recent meta-analytic findings indicate that Flynn effects occur for tests assessing both fluid and crystallized abilities. For example, Dutch conscripts gained 21 points during only 30 years, or 7 points per decade, between 1952 and 1982.[8] But this rise in IQ test scores is not wholly explained by an increase in general intelligence. Studies have shown that while test scores have improved over time, the improvement is not fully correlated with latent factors related to intelligence.[14] Rushton asserted that the "gains in IQ over time (the Lynn-Flynn effect) are unrelated to g".[15][16] Researchers have shown that the IQ gains described by the Flynn effect are due in part to increasing intelligence, and in part to increases in test-specific skills.[17][18][19]

 

[Retro Rob]

Absolutely not. Ever heard of the Flynn Effect? Just a mere 100 years ago, the average intelligence was an IQ of 70, compared to us. An IQ of 70 means "intellectual disability". Better education and more knowledge directly influence your intelligence.

BTW, we still have the same amount of neurons (84B).

You seems awfully stubborn and reluctant to accept the fact that people, who by sheer chance, weren't born in the modern age were intelligent, and perhaps posses more intelligence than you have.

As dphantom mentioned, there are probably a good amount of people who don't posses the intellect to do half of the things ancients (who had NO form of internet whatsoever) were able to do.

 

[witeken]

You seems awfully stubborn and reluctant to accept the fact that people, who by sheer chance, weren't born in the modern age were intelligent, and perhaps posses more intelligence than you have.

I was talking about the average. There are always (significant) variations.

As dphantom mentioned, there are probably a good amount of people who don't posses the intellect to do half of the things ancients (who had NO form of internet whatsoever) were able to do.

That's isn't intellect, that are skills. People today need much different skills than ancients. That has nothing to do with intelligence.

 

[JEDIYoda]

That's isn't intellect, that are skills. People today need much different skills than ancients. That has nothing to do with intelligence

not true at all......
You are not born with skills.You must have some sort of intellect to be able to learn those skills and then use those skills. Such as hunting and fishing and skinning of animals and building a cabin or finding a safe place to live.....etc......

Yes they are skills that have been honed and developed by somebody who is intelligent enough to learn to do those things!

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

It does seem like an odd thing to argue.

Really, it doesn't matter whether they were smart or not, we have good reason to doubt their cosmology based on the tiny basis of data and theory they had available. With limited knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology, and nothing more advanced then their own eyes, they wouldn't have any way to correct flaws in their guessing. Even if their entire civilization was composed of super geniuses, they simply didn't have the tools or the skills to reach a reliable conclusion.

 

[witeken]

not true at all......
You are not born with skills.You must have some sort of intellect to be able to learn those skills and then use those skills. Such as hunting and fishing and skinning of animals and building a cabin or finding a safe place to live.....etc......

Yes they are skills that have been honed and developed by somebody who is intelligent enough to learn to do those things!

No. Skills have hardly anything to do with intelligence. You can learn to do certain things, and when you exercise enough, you can score very high. Intelligence doesn't work that way. It is a hardly variable part of you brain.