Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth - Religion - Nairaland
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| Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by therationa(m): 2:05pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
In my first post to this forum, I indicated my disgust at the effect religiosity was having at some African universities, particularly Nigeria but also in Cameroon. I was horribly disappointed with the response, in that all the respondents seem to attack me directly or attacked atheism, though I was not making a defense for atheism in that post. We have witnessed a generation of Africans brought up on a diet of rudimentary education (of the type that enables a barely passable functional literacy), popular and vacuous TV programs and films and hardcore religious dogmatism. At the same time, standards in our institutions of learning have been plummeting thanks to governmental neglect and a cultural detestation of challenging and critical questioning. Take for instance a thread started by Jen33, titled "Jesus Did Not Exist" https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-39918.0.html. This being a very controversial subject, he post a detail essay on the support from Jim Walker. I have just read the article by Jim Walker and it by and large agrees with mainline scholar opinion on all the fact he presented. Scholar opinion is still divided on some of the interpretations and conclusions. All but one respondents to this post seem to have reviewed the material, as none made a direct refutation of the premise of the article. Here is a flavour of the responses to the post; Nella: 9ja4eva : Omo Eko : 9ja4eva : star01 : mrpataki : Is this the kind of spirit and attitude education is suppose to impart? Where are we headed as a people? This really is an embarrassment to the Promethean ethos of learning. ===================================================================================================== Some of my other threads The Dangers Of Religious Fundamentalism To Intellectualism https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?topic=110955.msg1929006#msg1929006 Danger! 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| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by therationa(m): 3:08pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
Why do the majority of christians and religionists hate learning about science, history and philosophy? When asked to review such material they always shy away. Have they got something to fear in these material? |
| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by 4Him(m): 4:24pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
therationa: Now i agree that you are going through a kind of brain freeze. Isaac Newton was a christian ditto for Charles Darwin. Most of the early scientists were christians. Lets not go too far . . . the most successful brain surgeon in the world today (Ben Carson) is a christian. My parents have been staunch christians for 30yrs, my mum is a doc and my dad an engineer. Where are the christians shying away from learning science? |
| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by therationa(m): 4:41pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
4Him: I must admit, my comment was a bit too broad-brush, but the essence is largely true, for the ordinary christian. Admittedly, science is a hard exercise and demands a lot of mental effort to really appreciate it at the intellectual level, not simply at the level of application. My comments did not mean to say that Christians cannot make good scientist. Far from that. I know some very good Christian scientist that I greatly admire for their work, viz Francis Collins, Kenneth Miller, Simon Conway Morris etc. To use Stephen J Gould phrase, to a lot of people science and religion are Non-overlapping Majestaria (to a degree). I was speaking about the ordinary christian, of the type you run into daily. I have tried to introduce some of the christian acquintances to popular science literature to no avail. I used to lecture in an Engineering department and had to assess students yearly of their understanding of scientific principles and found those who rejected accepted scientific facts did so on religious grounds. At the time of Newton and Darwin, dis-belief was not only uncommon, it was punishable by death of imprisonment. Check out what happen to Geordano Bruno. So if they were any unbelievers, it was literally worth their lives to not make their view public. Although Darwn started life as a Christian, he most certainly lost his belief later in life. Newton was not only and Christian, he was also a mystic. |
| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by 4Him(m): 4:45pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
therationalist, i think your virulent brand of atheism has blinded you such that you cant see the truth anymore. There are many christian professors here in my grad school . . . they have not allowed their faith to blind their quest for scientific knowledge even if it means challenging those very biblical theories that they learnt as children. |
| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by therationa(m): 4:55pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
4Him: Where in my comments did I say Christians cannot make good scientist? |
| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by Nobody: 4:58pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
@therationa Volumes of documents and critical thinking are both NOT SUFFICIENT to disprove the existence of Christ/God. |
| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by 4Him(m): 5:05pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
therationa: therationa: |
| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by therationa(m): 5:06pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
imhotep: Why am I NOT surprised. That when the going gets tough you would resort to your refuge of existence/non-existence argument. Look at the title, we are not debating that here!!!!!! |
| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by therationa(m): 5:11pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
4HIM, Did you not see the qualifier that I added later? Here it is; I must admit, my comment was a bit too broad-brush, but the essence is largely true, for the ordinary christian. Admittedly, science is a hard exercise and demands a lot of mental effort to really appreciate it at the intellectual level, not simply at the level of application. My comments did not mean to say that Christians cannot make good scientist. Far from that. I know some very good Christian scientist that I greatly admire for their work, viz Francis Collins, Kenneth Miller, Simon Conway Morris etc. To use Stephen J Gould phrase, to a lot of people science and religion are Non-overlapping Majestaria (to a degree). To use the word [b]majority [/b]does not mean ALL. |
| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by Nobody: 5:14pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
therationa: You are basing your arguments on randomly selected documents. NONE of those documents is the final word on the issue it is discussing. YOU SHOULD NOT RELY TOO MUCH ON THEM. Remember that -> Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis Try to get a balanced view of these things. |
| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by Nobody: 5:18pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
therationa: Yes. It is an [b] established fact [/b]that documents, critical thinking, atheism etc etc cannot disprove the existence of God. |
| Re: Danger! Religion May Damage Your Intelligence And Your Mind If Not Your Wealth by therationa(m): 5:20pm On Feb 25, 2008 |
4HIM, In fact, here is the statement I made; Why do the majority of christians and religionists hate learning about science, history and philosophy? When asked to review such material they always shy away. Have they got something to fear in these material? It says nothing there about christians not making good scientist. I was referring to the habit of only considering one side of the debate when challenge to explain their position. I don't know if you followed the Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. case in the US some years ago. Here a classic case of what I am referring to was displayed on the docks for all to see. When Michael Behe, expert for the Intelligent Design side to the stand, he was questioned as to how much recent scholarly material he had read or review. It turned out that he had not read the most important material in the field he was writing about. He so embarrassed himself that he refuse to take the stand again in a subsequent trial. This is the sort of thing I meant. Checkout the case. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District I am seeing it here on this forum as well. |
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