Your perception of theists

[Catholic_Lady]

blah, blah, blah

[Paraphrasing mine.]

Hey, Catholic Lady.  How come you no vote in my poll poll?

http://atheistforums.org/thread-34462.html

Will do!

---

Oh I must have misunderstood you then. I thought you were saying that an Atheist can't really say he has no control over the fact that he does not believe God is real unless he informs himself, investigates, etc.

You said people have no control over what they believe, but you still admire them for investigating (and pyrrho tried to make the stupid comparison between admiration for inanimate objects and sentient beings that supposedly have free will).

I'm saying people do have control. Not necessarily complete control, but they are in control of factors that, in one way or another, lead to their conclusions. That was the point of my bullshit about investigations.

It's not about the result. If you come to the correct conclusion then obviously you have no choice over what your conclusion ought to be. Just the same way you don't get to decide that the Earth is spherical and not flat. But the control of whether the investigation is done scientifically, or accurately is in the hands of the one doing the investigation. Thus, you have some control over what you believe, because you're in control of the investigation. If for example you do a bad investigation of whether the Earth is round, by simply looking into the horizon, then your conclusion is going to be wrong. But you're the one in control of that conclusion. Perhaps not in a direct sense, but in doing a poor or scientifically flawed investigation you've come to the wrong conclusion about the Earth's shape.

Likewise, if you don't investigate at all, and simply deny the Earth's spherical-ness, you're still in control of that. You're in control of whether you bury your head in the sand or whether you seek more knowledge. If you believe in free will, in any form, then it's absurd for you to say you do not have control of your beliefs, because you have control over whether to investigate and how that investigation goes. This was my beef with you earlier when you said people have no control over what it is they believe. They do. Most people don't just pick a belief out of a hat, ofcourse. It's more indirect than that. But they do have control over what they believe through their desire to investigate truth, and how they go about ascertaining that truth.

Sorry it took me a while to understand exactly what you meant. Yeah, if you put it that way I agree. I guess I should have added that in  when I talked about people not having control over their disbelief in God.

[RobbyPants]

I said no, if for no other reason that I generally assume most people I meet to be theists. It's just that what matches my expectations on a subconscious level. So, I'm not usually surprised to find out that someone believes in God when I'm talking to them; I'm more likely to be surprised and disappointed if I find out they hold some creepy or otherwise disturbing views.

[Ravenshire]

Words have meanings Benny. You can't communicate without accepted definitions.

Are you proposing you have some evidence that those words are used other ways or are you just wanting to make shit mean whatever you want it to for right now?

Do you want me to google it for you?  How do you want the obvious served up to you?  Link to sites claiming those names which are different than each other?  Etymology?  A bibliography?

The accepted definition of "Satanist" is "someone who believes in Satan, or who implements ideas about Satan in a system of thought" or something like that.  How that applies to real people in real social contexts is obviously going to vary a lot.  There's no Church of Satan™ to officially declare that Satanism is X and not Y.

Reading comprehension is not one of your greater strengths is it? What part of LaVeyan did you miss when I posted the link to LaVeyan Satanism?!? And yes, they do have an official church: Welcome to the official website of the Church of Satan. Or, are you going to ignore this link the way you obviously ignored the ones I posted earlier.

[Silver]

 Perhaps less intelligent, or less rational, or less educated, or less good, etc?

That question was quite loaded.

I do not think of them as less intelligent or less educated.  They can be smart individuals worldly and book-wise.  

I do, however, view theists as rather irrational and not quite on par with morality as they imagine themselves to be.

[Cephus]

When it comes to evaluating people's rationality, absolutely.  Believing in gods is not a rational act.  It's like asking if someone who believes in leprechauns is less rational than someone who does not.  Absolutely they are.

[Dystopia]

When it comes to evaluating people's rationality, absolutely.  Believing in gods is not a rational act.  It's like asking if someone who believes in leprechauns is less rational than someone who does not.  Absolutely they are.

While agree that believing in gods is irrational it depends on how you define rational - For someone less educated, without scientific knowledge or perhaps in a deeply depressive life episode it may make sense to believe in god or some higher power. We don't really pick to believe or not, I would never be able to believe as much as I tried because I simply don't, and my brain doesn't want to.

[Simon Moon]

When you learn that a particular person is a theist, does that fact alone make you think any less of them? Perhaps less intelligent, or less rational, or less educated, or less good, etc?

If so, how and why?

Thanks!

Less intelligent, less educated, no. 

Most atheists, at least in the US, used to be theists. They did not become more intelligent when they gave up their god beliefs.

Less rational, yes.

Considering that their belief in gods is not based on demonstrable evidence or reasoned argument, by definition, they are less rational.

That's not to say that theists are less rational in other aspects of their lives. I am sure that the % of theists that believe in alien abductions or the Loch Ness monster is pretty low. And they probably arrive at their disbelief for rational reasons (lack of evidence).

They just do not apply the same level of scrutiny to their religious beliefs as other supernatural beliefs.

[rado84]

When you learn that a particular person is a theist, does that fact alone make you think any less of them? Perhaps less intelligent, or less rational, or less educated, or less good, etc?

If so, how and why?

Thanks!

It depends on the theist's behaviour (so I voted "other"). If they just keep babbling about god and how I'm supposedly "burn in hell" for not believing in fairy tales, that's when I start thinking of them to be lesser people and I just run as far as possible from them.

[robvalue]

That's the thing. Very often, the scepticism is there. All you have to do is wave around a different holy book and suddenly there's questions, demands for evidence, "standards"...

Just not for their own religion. That's how it goes.

[Pyrrho]

That's the thing. Very often, the scepticism is there. All you have to do is wave around a different holy book and suddenly there's questions, demands for evidence, "standards"...

Just not for their own religion. That's how it goes.

Yes, which shows a lack of consistency in the application of their own standards, which shows them to be irrational, about that one thing at least.

If you know that a person is irrational about at least one thing, and that is all you know about the person, does that affect your opinion of the person?  Well, it should.