WTF Atheists!?

[Brian37]

Just a future reminder, anytime I respond to these comments it is not for your benefit it is for the benefit of the theist who might read this and missunderstand what you say.

Thank you for clarifying my clarification, or rather expansion, since like you I wasn't strictly addressing your post so much as developing upon it. Still, every little helps . Watch as I do it again:

The problem with the type of atheists (they are few in number yet are quite vociferous) you most likely have a problem with is that they think that they are somehow intelligent for not believing in religion and don't need to adhere to any academic standards whatsoever.

Speaking only for myself, of course, I concur with others who consider me intelligent, not because I don't believe in religion (is religion something one can believe in anyway?) but because what I am in the habit of calling my intellect is not shackled by religious ideology; my capacity for learning and self-correction is not hamstrung at the starting gate by the desperate need to conform to dodgy dogma.

Well theists can be intellegent too, so solely basing it on intellegence is not a good measure either. Otherise I would have fallen for the same "Aquinus knew about quantim physics, because he was a smart man". I actually heard that from a guy who was arguing for his cristianity and all he came up with was an ambiguos sentence you could retrofit after the fact.

And even between scientists they should want that scrutiny and ethics of others kicking their tires because even with intellegence scientist are not the tool, they are a human using the tool, so it always helps when others check the work of those "intellegent" people.

It isn't some appeal to authority, it is conformation of fact along with someone making that claim, even IF they are the authority on that particular subject. You still need the police policing the police otherwise you can set up a psudoscientist to sell snake oil, and or get stuck dwelling on Alechemy which Newton did for a while.

Independent fact checking insures better accuracy of data, always and even with intellegent scientists. And the ethical ones who do believe in a god STILL seperate what they believe with what they do in a lab.

Hitchens for example was no evolutionary biologist himself, but that does not mean he shouldn't have any right to comment on evolution. I couldnt comment on every detail of it, but I do know the simple atoms that make up DNA which science has proven consistantly over and over as matching up with Darwins theory.

So for those who may not know, Adinine, Guanine, Thymine and Cytosine(sp) DNA.

So even a layperson like me knows the truth of evolution without knowing every aspect of it. Just like you can drive a car without having to know how to build one, to know that it does not run on pixy dust.

While I have no problem with the statement people should get an education, the simple fact is none of us can be experts on every issue on every subject. Not even a neurosurgon is going to know everything a dentist would know or vice versa.

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Ultimately when someone says "what would you know, you don't have a degree" I hate that insidious argument. No I don't(in that feild, I do have a BA) but that does not mean I advocate keeping people stupid nor does it mean if I tell the truth that means it isn't true because I am a layman on one subject.