[NonIndigenous]

Originally Posted by Brandon

I think it has everything to do with intelligence. Religious debates are nothing new to our civilization. They've been going on for a long time. If you're really that intelligent, you would know what kind of arguments the other person is going to say because of your extensive knowledge about the other side of the argument. If you can't look past your own point of view, you are only limiting your own capabilities and you're not fully understanding other perspectives. An intelligent person knows that they don't know everything but strives to know everything; it doesn't matter whether it's completely illogical to them or not. Everything is information and information is neither bad or good in itself; it's just knowledge. If you refuse to seek knowledge, are you really that intelligent? Perhaps you have the capacity of extensive learning, but if you intentionally deprive yourself of knowledge, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Shooting yourself in the foot is, of course, a stupid thing to do. If it's habitual, people would look at you as an idiot. So yes...if someone is religious/non-religious and argues while not being able to see past their own views, they're pretty much an idiot. At least in my eyes.

The way I see it is that some people have the intelligence, but don't use it fully in every way. Some are able to score 90% or more in some exams, but harbour some very stupid, backward and narrow minded opinions with regards to other things, mostly inherited from other people feeding them the stuff, and regard themselves as someone better than almost everyone around them.

Originally Posted by Snufkin

It's hard to be smug over a statement like this because it isn't a blanket label. You aren't automatically intelligent for being an athiest, and you aren't automatically stupid for being part of a religion. Statistics barely matter to individuals. I've met plenty of stupid athiests and intelligent religious types.

Yea well... it was the immature spiteful side of me that showed itself there. I'm still stomping it out. Give it a few more years at most I hope.

I still sometimes feel irrational anger towards all the people, and the religion associated with them, who by means of threats and even intimidation sometimes (mild at best) would try to "make me" a Christian. Some teachers at school putting out punishments and humiliating students for stupid shit on the grounds of something religious. Pft. Pfffffft. Achieved f/all.