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RE: Where would you rather live?
August 30, 2010 at 8:53 am
(This post was last modified: August 30, 2010 at 8:54 am by DiRNiS.)
(August 30, 2010 at 8:24 am)Scarface Wrote: I would choose a theocratic state, only because I believe that such a state would, overall, be more interesting to live in (I've always found people who believe in god to be more creative and artistic). But if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't know which to choose.
Yes, they are creative and artistic enough to create and draw their own imaginary friends, so it's easy to say that.
Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
 
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RE: Where would you rather live?
August 30, 2010 at 8:58 am
Theists are generally among the most creative and artistic people yes.
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RE: Where would you rather live?
August 30, 2010 at 9:24 am
(August 30, 2010 at 8:58 am)Scarface Wrote: Theists are generally among the most creative and artistic people yes.
Harlan Ellison, Lovecraft, Hemingway, Arthur Miller, Robert Graves, Seamus Heaney, Philip Larkin, Graham Greene, Houseman, Orwell, Shelley, George Eliot, Beckett, Primo Levi, Giacomo Leopardi, Sartre, Camus, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Rimsky-Korsakov, Dmitri Shostakovich, Bela Bartok, Pierre Boulez and Richard Strauss (to name only a small handful off the top of my head) are hardly lightweights in literature and music (and don't get me started on gay artists!).
You might be surprised who is and is not a theist (not to mention any orthodox believers). Its hardly as black-and-white as you're making it out to be.
My only concession is that you'd get Bach and atheists would be stuck with Barry Manilow...
“Society is not a disease, it is a disaster. What a stupid miracle that one can live in it.” ~ E.M. Cioran
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RE: Where would you rather live?
August 30, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Most of the world's artists, musicians, poets, playwrights, authors, dancers, are theists. It seems that theists have more imagination and creative flair than atheists. Everyon has their strengths, and for atheists, creativity doesn't appear to be one of them. This s a generalization of course but it's hard to ignore the pattern. This isn't a criticism of atheism, just an observation.
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RE: Where would you rather live?
August 30, 2010 at 7:22 pm
(August 30, 2010 at 7:13 pm)Scarface Wrote: Most of the world's artists, musicians, poets, playwrights, authors, dancers, are theists. It seems that theists have more imagination and creative flair than atheists. Everyon has their strengths, and for atheists, creativity doesn't appear to be one of them. This s a generalization of course but it's hard to ignore the pattern. This isn't a criticism of atheism, just an observation.
Bingo. You've got us. We're not nearly as imaginative as theists are. It couldn't possibly be that atheists are a minority in the world and there are no statistics on believers vs. nonbelievers in terms of 'artistic talent' or any other form of unsubstantiated statement.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: Where would you rather live?
August 30, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Wait, hold on. I'm not saying that all atheists are unimaginative. What I'm saying is that the mindset of an atheist is not very conducive to creativity. Even if atheists were in a majority, the mindset would not give rise to very much creativity.
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RE: Where would you rather live?
August 30, 2010 at 7:41 pm
(August 30, 2010 at 7:36 pm)Scarface Wrote: Wait, hold on. I'm not saying that all atheists are unimaginative. What I'm saying is that the mindset of an atheist is not very conducive to creativity. Even if atheists were in a majority, the mindset would not give rise to very much creativity.
Wording is key.
Nonetheless, I disagree. I don't see a correlation between one and the other. Just because we don't choose to believe in the supernatural, does't mean we're less creative. The only statistics I've really seen on a faith-basis which seems to be indicative of anything is the one where it shows that Atheists are very much unrepresented in US prisons.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: Where would you rather live?
August 30, 2010 at 7:56 pm
(This post was last modified: August 30, 2010 at 7:57 pm by Scarface.)
Statistics is one thing, observing real life (for which one doesn't require letters after their name or a pat on the back from their "peers", just eyes) is another. From what I've seen, not once but so many times, atheists (again I'm generalizing and I must reemphasise that) often "miss the point" when it comes to creative matters. I'll give you an example...
When I was at school there was this kid who was a musical prodigy. He was a very good piano and violin player. I don't know what grade he was but he was good. Now I'm a musician myself, and when my friend and I once tried to jam with him, it was impossible. He could do absolutely nothing unless it was notated. He certainly couldn't improvise. We can both read music but we never feel the need to put that to any use, but we did notate something for him, at his request, but he isn't really a musician, merely a good technical player, so what he ended up playing was pretty useless. He couldn't understand us when we talked because nothing we said related to the musical terms which he was familiar with (I'm talking about the italian terms used in music). He was totally lost. His manner was so robotic, and he had no feeling to his playing. It was nice, but not spontaneous and completely reliant on instructions put in front of him. The poor guy was lost. It turned out that he was an atheist and I attribute that mindset to his style of playing.
What i'm saying is that people who are extremely logically orientated are good at following clear instructions, and knowing what's going on from beginning to end. But they lack spontanaeity, creative flair. It's not the atheism itself which is a hindrance to creativity, it's the mindset involved. Requiring everything to be backed up, filed, listed, categorised, etc, that is not the creative way. You can't be good at everything, and there's nothing wrong with that but it's just a fact.
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RE: Where would you rather live?
August 30, 2010 at 8:16 pm
(August 30, 2010 at 7:56 pm)Scarface Wrote: Statistics is one thing, observing real life (for which one doesn't require letters after their name or a pat on the back from their "peers", just eyes) is another. From what I've seen, not once but so many times, atheists (again I'm generalizing and I must reemphasise that) often "miss the point" when it comes to creative matters. I'll give you an example...
It's still a gross generalization based on a few anecdotes based on possibly incomplete information.
Most people are good at some things and not others. Creative in some ways but not others. You even mention that you found out he was an atheist after the fact and you personally attributed one to the other and I honestly can't see where you have any reason to do so.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: Where would you rather live?
August 30, 2010 at 8:22 pm
It's the mindset. The sort of person who doesn't believe in certain things is not likely to have creative flair. Theists are better at lateral thinking, introspection, and all of the things which aid creativity. Our imagination is much more developed. I mean look at the words you're using, for example : "incorrect information", does that sound like something a creative person would say when having this kind of conversation? You're talking like a scientist, and I'm not knocking it but it doesn't belong in this discussion and it's actually a great demonstration of what I'm talking about.
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