My hypothesis is that people with a low intelligence are more easily drawn toward religions, which give answers that are certain, while people with a high intelligence are more skeptical," says the professor.

As for your questions, I owe you no explanation as I believe you are really not interested in more than an arguement.

Had the men and women found a higher power prior to going to jail, it is very likely they wouldn't have committed their crimes.

In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies

If one feels that Atheists are proselytising(spelling?) their beliefs, and it bothers you, maybe it is a wake up call where one gets a taste of their own medicine, and see's how annoying and obnoxious it feels.

The Dangerous Atheism of Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris
By Chris Hedges, Free Press. Posted March 22, 2008.

From demonizing Muslims to believing we can use science for our own moral advancement, the New Atheists preach a dangerous faith. Tools

I flew to Los Angeles in May of 2007 to debate Sam Harris, the author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, in UCLA's cavernous Royce Hall. I debated Christopher Hitchens, who wrote God is Not Great, two days later in San Francisco. I paid little attention, until these two public debates, to the positions of the new atheists, writers that also include Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet. Those are many people of great moral probity and courage who seek meaning outside of formal religious structures, who reject religious language and religious ritual and define themselves as atheists. There are also many religious figures that in the name of one god or another sanctify intolerance, repression and violence. There is nothing intrinsically moral about being a believer or a nonbeliever.

These New Atheists attack a form of religious belief many of us hate. I wrote a book called American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. I am no friend of Christian radicals. We dislike the same people. We do not dislike them for the same reason. This is not a small difference.

The New Atheists embrace a belief system as intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalists. They propose a route to collective salvation and the moral advancement of the human species through science and reason. The utopian dream of a perfect society and a perfect human being, the idea that we are moving towards collective salvation, is one of the most dangerous legacies of the Christian faith and the Enlightenment. Those who believe in the possibility of this perfection often call for the silencing or eradication of human beings who are impediments to human progress. They turn their particular good into a universal good. They are blind to their own corruption and capacity for evil. They soon commit evil, not for evil's sake but to make a better world.

I started Harris' book when it was published but soon put it aside. His facile attack on a form of religious belief I detest, his childish simplicity and ignorance of world affairs, as well as his demonization of Muslims, made the book tedious, at its best, and often idiotic and racist.

The liberal church, attacked by the atheists as an ineffectual "moderate" religion and by the fundamentalists as a "nominal" form of Christianity, is, as their critics point out, a largely vapid and irrelevant force. It may not support the violent projects of apocalyptic killing championed by atheists such as Harris or Hitchens and these Christian radicals, but it also does not understand how the world works or the seduction of evil. The liberal church is a largely middle class, bourgeoisie phenomenon, filled with many people who have profited from industrialization, the American empire and global capitalism. They often seem to think that if we can be nice and inclusive everything will work out.

There is nothing in human nature or human history to support the idea that we are morally advancing as a species or that we will overcome the flaws of human nature. We progress technologically and scientifically, but not morally. We use the newest instruments of technological and scientific progress to create more efficient forms of killing, repression and economic exploitation, and to accelerate environmental degradation. There is a good and a bad side to human progress. We are not moving towards a glorious utopia. We are not moving anywhere.

Religious institutions, however, should be separated from the religious values imparted to me by religious figures, including my father. Most of these men and women frequently ran afoul of their own religious authorities. Religion, real religion, was about fighting for justice, standing up for the voiceless and the weak, reaching out in acts of kindness and compassion to the stranger and the outcast, living a life of simplicity, finding empathy and defying the powerful. It was about caring for the other. Spirituality was not defined by "how it is with me," but the tougher spirituality of resistance, the spirituality born of struggle, of the fight with the world's evils. This spirituality, vastly different from the narcissism of modern spirituality movements, was eloquently articulated by Dr. King and the Lutheran minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was imprisoned and put to death by the Nazis.

Many of these atheists, like the Christian fundamentalists, support the imperialist projects and preemptive wars of the United States as a necessity in the battle against terrorism and irrational religion. They divide the world into superior and inferior races, those who are enlightened by reason and knowledge and those who are governed by irrational and dangerous religious beliefs. Hitchens and Harris describe the Muslim world, where I spent seven years, most of them as the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times, in language that is as racist, crude and intolerant as that used by Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell. They are a secular version of the religious right. They misuse Darwin and evolutionary biology, just as the Christian fundamentalists misuse the Bible, by trying to argue that we can evolve morally -- something Darwin never asserted. They are as anti-intellectual as the Christian Right.

And while the atheists do not have much power and are not a threat to the democratic state, they engage in the same chauvinism and call for the same violent utopianism of the radical Christian Right. They sell this under secular banners, but this does not excuse it. They believe, like the Christian Right, that we are moving forward to a paradise, a state of human perfection made possible by science and reason. They argue, like these Christian radicals, that some human beings, maybe many human beings, have to be eradicated to achieve this better world.

Harris, echoing the blood lust of Hitchens, calls, in his book The End of Faith, for a nuclear first strike against the Islamic world. He defends torture as a logical form of interrogation. He, like all utopians, has reduced millions of human beings and cultures he knows nothing about to primitive impediments to his vision of a better world.

"What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry?" Harris asks. "If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own.

Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime -- as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day -- but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe." Harris reduces a fifth of the world's population to a vast, primitive enemy. He blithely accepts that we may have to murder "tens of millions of people in a single day." His bigotry, and the bigotry of all who dehumanize others, sets the stage for indiscriminate slaughter and atrocity. The people to be killed, we are told, are not really distinct individuals. They do not have hopes and aspirations. They only appear human. They must be destroyed because of what they represent, what lurks beneath the surface of their human form. This dehumanization, especially by those who live in a society with the technological capacity to carry out acts of massive industrial slaughter, is terrifying. The new atheists see only one truth -- their truth. Human beings must become like them, think like them and adopt their values, which they insist are universal, or be banished from civilized society. All other values, which they never investigate or examine, are dismissed as inferior.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/80449/

It is therefore hoped that this initial look at a subject of pressing importance will inspire more extensive research on the subject. Pressing questions include the reasons, whether theistic or non-theistic, that the exceptionally wealthy U.S. is so inefficient that it is experiencing a much higher degree of societal distress than are less religious, less wealthy prosperous democracies

My what bitterness and hatred. I am really quite suprised by some people on this forum.

People that believe often seem to be happier and have a more joyful life than those that don't.

They feel that Christians all want to convert them.

So then they say that we aren't true Christians if we don't believe as they think we should

I hate people lumping everyone together no matter what it is.

Had the men and women found a higher power prior to going to jail, it is very likely they wouldn't have committed their crimes.

* Again, there is no actual study that has shown those that believe in a higher power have lower IQ's. * Again studies aren't saying that those that believe have a lower IQ.

But there have been actual studies showing most scientists do believe in a higher power.

Belief in a higher power has shown people to have happier lives

Clearly you have proven the OP's point as you feel the need to press your anti-religious beliefs.

correlation is not causal...but hey carry on.

Sorry, but this just doesn't fly. Look at the gay marriage issue. Everywhere that people have voted on the issue the masses have rejected it. This homophobia isn't just found in the zealots, it's mainstream. Theists don't generally separate politics from religion. Every time a Theist votes he's voting based on religious beliefs.

Many Atheists wish to better this and see converting people as a good place to start.

Gee, this sounds familiar. I think you might have just proven the "athiesm is a religion" concept addressed in another thread.

Yes I would be just as annoyed if an atheist knocked on my door or stopped me on the street to try to convert me to their belief system.

That depends – are you part of the “I use the definition of words” kind of person, or the “I make up definitions for words” school of thought?

One way of examining whether something is a religion is to look at its attributes. (am indebted to http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/ for the comparative analysis)

Religious Attribute..........................Religion........................Atheism

Belief in God(s)...................................Yes..................................No

Prayer ................................................Yes..................................No

Churches / temples / Mosques.............Yes.................................No

Holy Book / Scripture..........................Yes.................................No

Priests / Religious leaders -heirarchy....Yes................................ No

Belief in the supernatural (including
............................angels/devil ).............Yes................................No

Miracles.................................................Yes................................No

Afterlife..................................................Yes................................No

Holy Wars...............................................Yes...............................No

Heaven / Hell..........................................Yes...............................No

Lifestyle restrictions (dress, diet,............Yes..............................No
marriage etc etc.)
Belief without evidence (faith as a...........Yes...............................No
virtue)
Belief despite conflicting evidence..........Yes................................No

Supernatural origins of universe..............Yes...............................No
and/or humans
Murderous fundamentalist extremists......Yes..............................No
(who are so, based on their religious
convictions)

Annoying street / doorstop preachers.......Yes..............................No

Belief in an immortal soul...........................Yes..............................No

Regular ritual, ceremonies, acts of..............Yes..............................No
worship, liturgy,

Belief in sin (original or otherwise)...............Yes.............................No

Blasphemy....................................................Yes............................No

We are god's chosen people...........................Yes............................No

I do not go onto the property of a Christian and insult their beliefs, disrupt their time, preach to them about my religion, why on earth, do some feel ok doing it to me?

The lack of a belief is not a belief

The stance that there is no God is still a belief..

By virtue of the fact that there is no proof, for either side of the equation (and everyone in between) all we have are beliefs. We are all the same in that regard.

Not sure why this is so repugnant to some.

The stance that there is no God is still a belief..

By virtue of the fact that there is no proof, for either side of the equation (and everyone in between) all we have are beliefs. We are all the same in that regard. Not sure why this is so repugnant to some.

And it's true that some non-christians attempt to press their beliefs on others, but certainly not all. The same can be said of christianity or virtually any other group. Generalizing others says far more about the person doing it than it does who they are generalizing

Msg: 114, Msg: 118, Msg: 120 & Msg: 124. CountIbli makes similar points in Msg: 121 & Msg: 127. Which I refrenced in Msg: 141.