(March 5, 2013 at 2:36 pm)Darkstar Wrote: [quote='jstrodel' pid='409932' dateline='1362504739']
It is not a bad thing, but it is very vain and small to center your life around trying to prove that you are smarter than other people.
Quote:You seem to confuse knowledge and intelligence with being arrogant and showy. Intelligence does not necessarily lead to arogance.
No, I don't. Being showy and arrogant is different from being proud. To be proud means to direct your life energies towards selfish pursuits, proving your intellect, careerism, etc. This is antithetical to true learning. It is extremely destructive. It leads people to think because they have mastered one subject in one way, that they know everything. It is authoritarian, because they will tend to want to enforce their understanding on others because of their pride. Pride is much deeper and more destructive than being arrogant.
Quote:Such beautiful irony
Is it ironic to see the greatest intellectual ferment in history coming out of a Christian civilization that values truth very highly? I don't see what is ironic about that at all. I think what is ironic is when atheists find the most questionable ministries e.g. Kent Hovind and they take a weak opponent and call that person the epitome of Christianity, meanwhile ignoring the fact that the entire atheist movement owes its existence to the culture of the universities that Christians founded. And then, on top of that, they call themselves free thinkers or complain about Christians ideological prejudices, when they themselves have just intentionally removed from vision all the serious exponents of Christianitiy. 55% of scientists are Christians, not that there is anything especially special about science and a great deal of science takes place at organizations that were founded to be Christian.
