(December 1, 2015 at 10:45 pm)wallym Wrote:Instead of thinking about what 20yo brain could have accomplished without theism, start thinking about what 50 year old brain couldn't have accomplished with it!(December 1, 2015 at 10:09 pm)bennyboy Wrote: They say that intelligent people are more easily hypnotized, because they have a superior power of imagination. I find it quite easy to find that intelligent people can easily be religious, because the world view of an intelligent person is more complex, and therefore more full of mystery, than that of a stupid person. This means more chance for superstition, not less-- as easily revealed by my Beagle's apparent lack of belief in God.
Cheese, he believes in. God, not so much.
That's how religion got me to begin with. As a youngin' I was raised Catholic, so that was 'truth' by default. And I was quite creative as an apologist supporting that 'truth.' Enough that I could hold my own against non-believers. Starting with a default 'truth' rather than choosing one set me back 15 years in my philosophizing. Which makes me a bit sad, because my 20yo brain was much more dynamic than my old rusty brain. I'd have liked to send the ideas I bat around now back to the younger me to play with.
Glass half full, my friend.

Which is better:
To die with ignorance, or to live with intelligence?
Truth doesn't accommodate to personal opinions.
The choice is yours.
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There is God and there is man, it's only a matter of who created whom
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The more questions you ask, the more you realize that disagreement is inevitable, and communication of this disagreement, irrelevant.