(December 5, 2013 at 8:13 pm)The_Thinking_Theist Wrote: I, personally, dislike the atheism symbol which includes an electron cloud around an "A". I feel like it enforces the stereotype that all atheists are freethinking, educated, smart people. That couldn't be farther from the truth. The truth: there are free thinking atheists, goddamn ignorant atheists, smart atheists, really stupid atheists, free thinking theists, horribly ignorant theists, outstandingly smart theists, and downright idiotic theists. Because in other words, atheists and theists are people, not a "way of life" that automatically makes you smart or stupid.
Just some thoughts.
As others have said, there is not just one 'atheist symbol'.
Yes, you are correct, atheists come in all levels of open mindedness and ignorance.
The same can be said for theists.
Being an atheist does not make one more intelligent, but the more intelligent one is increases their chances of being an atheist. I didn't gain IQ points when I deconverted.
I can't speak for every atheist, but I am much more open minded now that I am an atheist than when I was a theist.
There are some interesting findings though.
"In 2008, intelligence researcher Helmuth Nyborg examined whether IQ relates to denomination and income, using representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, which includes intelligence tests on a representative selection of white American youth, where they have also replied to questions about religious belief. His results, published in the scientific journal Intelligence, demonstrated that atheists scored an average of 1.95 IQ points higher than agnostics, 3.82 points higher than liberal persuasions, and 5.89 IQ points higher than other dogmatic persuasions"
Helmuth Nyborg also found;
"Firstly, using data from a U.S. study of 6,825 adolescents, the authors found that atheists scored 6 IQ points higher than non atheists.”
Higher education also positively correlate with atheism.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
