Consonants and vowels all together, equally

So the distrust of atheists comes from the assumption that atheists think believers believe only out of stupidity and naivety?

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Why do atheists make theists feel stupid? And frankly I want someone smarter than me operating on a family member, because I'm clearly too dumb to do it.

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dejaspirit.livejournal.com

I actually think it works both ways. I've certainly seen enough condescending Christians/ Theists/ Whatever in my day, and liberals are guilty of this as well and I think it's more like the whole' chicken and the egg' thing where we get into who belittled who first, etc...etc..

The goals are different, however. Religious folk clearly want the world to believe in what they do or at least acknowledge what they believe in as a possibilty while non-religious folk just want these people to stop leaving fliers on their door.

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I have had conversations with people who are really close RL friends of mine, who are on this LJ, who made me personally feel stupid and naive for not being an atheist and also for feeling that the Rational Intellect is not the highest form of thought. It's why I don't talk about my beliefs in public except in really concrete ways: I'm pro-choice, I'm pro-gay marriage, that sort of thing. So I think that's at least part of it, but I was making a much larger point about where a lot of the Left and certainly the Democratic party is right now, and why we keep losing.

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I'm not saying it doesn't. I'm just saying that you know, I've had conversations with you where I certainly felt sort of stupid and naive and that religion is a larval state that I'll eventually grow out of because I'm an intelligent person.

My discomfort with atheism, minor as it is, really isn't about a wish to convert people. I honestly don't care. I personally find it to be empty, but that's ME, and not anyone else. It isn't the right thing for me. I don't think that means that I'm a bad liberal, or not as intelligent as I might be, or that it's a sign of my own personal weakness, that I believe in a higher power.

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My atheist friends in the philosophy dept. tend to shake the Rational Intellect stick around a lot, and as they are all very very intelligent people (much smarter than I), I can see how that could very well be a phenomenon. They occasionally make me feel stupid for reading literary theory, for example, which to them is the stuff of crap.

It can go the other way, though; I can absolutely see why you would resent being made to feel stupid and naive for being a theist. On the same token, I resent being made to feel immoral and corrupt for being an atheist. Of course, there are plenty of people in my life who are theists and who have never ever made me feel that way, but reading that particular survey made me feel ooky, rather like a social leper.

Interesting theory, though, that making others feel stupid is political suicide. It certainly explains Dubya's initial appeal.

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On many occasions, from early college on, it has been said to me in both implicit and explicit ways, by people that I liked, trusted and respected, that one cannot be both intelligent and a Christian at least, if not intelligent and a non-atheist. Which usually leads me to one of my core beliefs, that thinking of Intellect or at least Rational Thought as being necessarily better than other ways of being in the world is an illusion--as much of one as any religion, really, and one that has driven humanity into almost as much trouble.

Theists who don't care probably just don't care. Maybe my naivete isn't in being a Christian, but in wanting the respect of my friends who are not. In my experience, I'm not sure that I have that.

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The one thing in that study that I felt to be really true and something worth looking at is the charge of cultural elitism. It's there, I can see it and feel it and it truly dismays me. And you know, this doesn't just explain Dubya; it also explains Clinton. Clinton was really smart but also knew how to frame things so people would understand him, and wanted people to understand him. He didn't think being an intellectual meant you had to be an intellectual snob. Certainly you don't, either, which is one of the many things I really like about you, but yeah, all that stuff is just really, really, really working at cross purposes.

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wednesdayschild.livejournal.com

I think that's fair enough, but what are people doing that makes others feel stupid? Are they being obnoxious, or are people just objecting because they feel foolish and ignorant in the face of more knowledgeable people? Because, in many instances, I suspect it's the latter. I've seen it at school and at work, and now here at my current university--people taking an instant dislike to what they consider to be 'brainy' people, just because they have divergent beliefs and interests. I've heard so many people at my current university say derogative things about Cambridge students--who they've never even met--just based on reputation, and then be very surprised to discover that I'm a Cambridge graduate.

So while I agree that if you are actively trying to make someone feel stupid (and there are people who do this, and it's very obnoxious) then, yes, I can't blame people for disliking you; but I'm not convinced that that's what usually happens.

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Intellect or at least Rational Thought as being necessarily better than other ways of being in the world is an illusion--as much of one as any religion, really, and one that has driven humanity into almost as much trouble.

That is debatable. The problem with Rational Thought is that people can easily make it into an ideology, which is, in many ways, just like faith in a god and a set of rules presumably set down by said god. Civilization progresses towards rationality and away from blind adherence.

As for your friends, I have had the same thing happen, but with Christians. Some (many) people do not understand that faith and intelligence are not mutually exclusive. It has nothing to do with being an atheist or a theist and everything to do with being an asshat.

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wednesdayschild.livejournal.com

Oh, and it's curious to discover that such a small percentage of Americans are atheists, although I suspect it's because of my social circle and the fact that I'm from a much more secular country. But still, outside my church and my family I am in a minority as a Christian at university. In fact, I was the only philosophy student in my year who believed in any sort of god, so, again, I find it very strange to discover that so many Americans look down on atheists.

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But the opposite of Rational Thought isn't just blind adherence. The opposite I usually talk about is Emotional Thought. I mean, there are lots of places one can get to that rationality won't take you to. Deciding to marry, have children, those aren't always "rational" decisions and that doesn't mean that they are bad. Having a gut instinct that something (be it a job, a person, a school, any situation) is good or bad is often helpful. But none of these things are Rational.

The way I think is sort of circular and full of weird sideways connections and leaps of logic and when I run into Priests of Logic they usually think I'm an idiot.

There were a lot of them at Harvard, needless to say. They usually wondered what the hell I was doing there.

Yeah, I mean, in some ways I suppose that I should have less respect for folks who would have less respect for me for that reason, but mostly I just feel sad and a little defensive.

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dejaspirit.livejournal.com

Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry if I made you feel that way. I certianly don't think that, as you are about a gazillion times smarter than me. I'm just so often put on the defensive about what I believe, and I think that might be what you're getting at, because in normal, everyday crowds you aren't usually forced to defend Christianity. If you win an academy award and you thank God no one bats an eyelash. If you stand up and thank your family and then declare that 'you don't believe in God, you've won yourself a spot on the CNN ticker. I think you've just found yourself in a agnostic crowd of folks, so you're feeling like the odd woman out.

But I respect you, and love you, and support you in any spiritual journey you take.

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tropes.livejournal.com

Two of my best friends on the planet, Irina and Meggo, are both religious. Meggo, especially, is very very religious, and a near-theologian. And I'm an atheist. And they're both about 50 times smarter than me, and I know it. I dunno, maybe I'm a minority in a minority, because I don't tend to think that belief defines intelligence, per se. The only thing that starts to bug me is when people haven't thought things out much, and spout weird shit like intelligent design arguments, which seem really specious to me. But I think that that's an issue of dipshittedness rather than belief, and some of the people who spout silly things about religion would, if they weren't religious, spout silly things about... other stuff like, um. Kangaroos. Instead.

Am I making any sense? I am so circular.

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Cultural elitism exists, certainly, but I'm skeptical that people like my grandmother, for instance, distrust atheists because they might be elitist. But if we're looking beyond the whole atheism/theism debate, I've always felt like the truly great intellectuals were always smart enough to know that despite all they know, there's still a lot they don't fucking know.

And yeah, Clinton was smart and a great communicator, but he was also known as slick willy, suggesting that despite his attempts to reach out to everyone, his Rhodes' scholar history still worked against him.

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You know all those red state blue state conversations? Those "you only can vote for Bush if you're an idiot" statements? Those "well, we can live without the midwest" banners? That's pretty much what I'm talking about. Keep thinking that way and why should any of those people switch over to vote on the left?

On a personal level yeah, I see what you're saying. But I really do feel there are ways to present yourself and whatever you're talking about and not cause resentment. I went to a less than mediocre high school in a rural area so I got the hang of it at a very early age, but when I got to university I had to learn an entirely different way of talking in order to not look like an idiot. It was sort of suprising.

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some of the people who spout silly things about religion would, if they weren't religious, spout silly things about... other stuff like, um. Kangaroos. Instead.

Not only do I totally agree, I think it's very well said, and we should have an icon made.

I really admire people who are on a spiritual journey. I'm kind of a junkie about stuff like that.

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Yeah, the atheism thing prompted my finally making this post but absolutely isn't everything I meant by it, and your point about your grandmother is very well taken. There's a whole larger unease that I understand but absolutely cannot articulate.

Re Clinton: maybe his Rhodes' scholar yet from a poor background history. We may say we love the self made but we actually don't trust them as far as we can throw them.

I've always felt like the truly great intellectuals were always smart enough to know that despite all they know, there's still a lot they don't fucking know.

Absolutely. I mean, this may also be a function of having hit a lot of annoying young intellectual men who weren't having it, at a formative time in my life, though I still run into those Types on a more than frequent basis.

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Deciding to marry, have children, those aren't always "rational" decisions and that doesn't mean that they are bad.

Those things are actually rational in an evolutionary and biological sense; they are unconscious, rational decisions that further the species. Being around other people, eating, sex, sense of accomplishment - all of these things feel good, and things that feel good are positive for our continued survival.

That, however, has nothing to do with whether they are meaningful or not. ;) Just because you know that certain things are just chemicals reacting to your biological urge to perpetuate yourself and the species, that doesn't make them any less real or personally moving.

mostly I just feel sad and a little defensive.

That's a rational response!

But seriously, there are some sociological reasons why people do such things, but none of them are, in fact, very logical at all in the context of our society today, but I won't bore you with that.

I also have the feeling that some of the atheists you know hadn't quite grown out of their RARG RAGE AGAINZT THE MACHINE/I AM UBERMENSCH phase that makes being an atheist so embarrassing at times. Ideologues are annoying no matter what they believe.

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Ah, but you know, them 'as loves the Rational distrusts the unconscious in many ways. If you say, "I don't like that guy but I don't know why," they tell you that you are being irrational. So we can say that it's rational in a true sense but in this particular vernacular sense it is not. I mean, what you're saying is a good argument for why emotional thought and rational thought are not actually different and the whole thing is a false dichotomy, but that would be like admitting that your mother was right about something which I doubt any of these people want to do.

Ideologues are annoying no matter what they believe.

We need to stitch that onto a pillow, I mean, make an icon of that. So wise.

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but that would be like admitting that your mother was right about something which I doubt any of these people want to do.

XD Further proof that they are not truly of the Logical Mindset, as someone of said mindset would constantly reevaluate his or her beliefs and would not find shame in admitting they were wrong! Few people like doing that, though (which is, I suspect, also biologically influenced, but I have no evidence to back that up atm), so really asshattishness is a meme that embraces all without prejudice.

...not that I have it all figured out or anything - I only spent, like, forty minutes thinking about this while I walked the dog, so you know. I MIGHT BE WRONG

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wordplay.livejournal.com

This is something you and I have sort of talked around endlessly over the last year or so, this issue of cultural elitism, but I don't know if we've ever talked about religion in this light. Certainly we've discussed elitism as it relates to class and regionalism and politics, and what's most interesting to me right now, I guess, is the way that all of these things conflate. As you know, I have my own set of Issues with religion, but it's largely about how these things seem to bundle - I have a good handful of friends who are liberal and progressive Christians and they're always doing this really INTERESTING work, and I'm pragmatic enough that what I really CARE about is what people are doing rather than what they might be thinking.

And you and Josh and I have had these conversations about the elevation of the rational and the scientific above all other ways of thinking about work and thinking about the world and, to be honest, I kind of don't like these conversations conflated into one, because it makes me all head hurty and fearful. However I might run my personal life (because, yeah, you know I have no idea what I'm doing but it every decision seems vaguely to be the right one) I am intensely uncomfortable with a culture and a power structure that places emotional and value judgments over ones based in reason.

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I find that 3% stat. questionable, if only because about 90% of my real life friends are atheists.. and this is in the heart of the midwest.

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tromboneborges.livejournal.com

I am intensely uncomfortable with a culture and a power structure that places emotional and value judgments over ones based in reason.

Wait, wait, we shouldn't make decisions based on value judgments? You got an ethical scheme for sale that allows me to do that? We need axioms and postulates, and those sit outside the logical reasoning that comes out of them. (I happen to have Kurt Goedel right here...) Axioms represent values. So do lots of other things, of course, but at the very least, the premises on which we build even the most rationalistic worldview represent our values about the world.

The US officially holds some truths to be self-evident, for instance.

I think you're probably being way more specific with what you mean here, but I think that, generally, the divide isn't, in any way, between reason vs. emotion; it's between different sets of postulates for how the world operates.

And of course that's not to say that you can't make value judgments between those sets of postulates. That's (often) how you decide how to live, or at least how you want to live.

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wordplay.livejournal.com

OMG this is what it takes to pull you out of LJ lurkdom? Me babbling on on Clio's journal on a lazy, aimless day? I call 'not fair', Josh.

I think what I mean to say is that it's somewhat alarming to live in a country that thinks a war that is unwinnable by most reasonable measures is a really good idea because it gives them warm fuzzies about spreading 'liberty'. Beyond that, I mostly have no idea what I'm talking about. :))

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Hahaha, I think she was talking more about the disturbing trend of truthiness than any solid philosophical construct of reality.

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tromboneborges.livejournal.com

*laughs* No, you are probably right, not fair. And, you know, unfortunately, I've got a lot of leftover frustration from having spent most of my professional life among people who just wish we were all more like robots, so I tend to be more iconoclastic when it comes to rationality than I do when it comes to emotionality.

And yeah, what was actually no fair is I was pretty sure I knew what you meant anyway -- the idea, wonderfully satirized by Stephen Colbert on his show, that we should make major policy decisions based on what *feels* right, without any attention paid to what is actually going on. Which is terrifying. There's a reason we developed rationality in the first place, and part of that reason was to be able to make good decisions based on more than our biased, confused, unconsciously-driven, difficult-to-express emotional relationship with something.

If you *do* have an ethical system for sale that allows you to make decisions without value judgments, please contact your local philosophy department, as they will be very interested.

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tromboneborges.livejournal.com

Hee, my Colbert reference and yours crossed, see my reply to Carrie above. (Although yours is of course much pithier.)

I think we should come together in the spirit of condemning condescension generally. That seems reasonable. Atheists have to promise not to think religious people are stupid just because they are religious, and religious people have to promise not to think atheists are immoral just because they aren't religious. That seems fair. :)

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Hee, my Colbert reference and yours crossed, see my reply to Carrie above.

OMG GET OUT OF MY HEAD! XD

I think we should come together in the spirit of condemning condescension generally.

But... that's rational, and it makes me feel good...

*MIND = BLOWN*

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zorb

And here I was about to whip out another Colbert example - his "condemnation" of the "New England, Ivy League liberals," or however the refrain goes is exactly what Clio was talking about in the first place.

Clearly, Stephen Colbert should join in this discussion.

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mahoni.livejournal.com

I completely agree with this. My husband and I are Democrats who live in ConservativeRepublicanville, but my husband is also a long-time resident and can commune with the rednecks because he's just shy of being one himself.

He likes to call in to a local conservative talk radio show and shoot down some of the propaganda in favor of liberal ideals, and it's so funny to listen to. He goes on and on in a very pompous tone of voice (his default tone, alas) and uses generally big words and rattles off tons of facts. But then he also always manages to work in references to beer-drinkin' and fishin' and workin' hard every day to support his family, and along the lines will inevitably say how, gee whiz, he's just like all y'all out there listenin'. And sure enough, the next set of callers will ring up on the show to say "you know, he's so dang pompous that I hate to say this, but he has a real good point. I ain't never thought of it that way before."

Which is quite a contrast with his brother, who talks like he wants to be Professor of the Year and can't be bothered with Irrational People, and who makes EVERYBODY mad when he talks politics, even people who agree with him.

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sistermagpie.livejournal.com

I've had a lot of atheism vs. theism discussions on the net and while I've come across the "you must be stupid to believe in God" and "you must be denying God to not believe in God," I've found that sometimes the subject matter makes it very hard to avoid the "you think I'm stupid" thing.

I don't have a belief that God doesn't exist. I spend a lot of time focused on spiritual things in life. I'm not anti-religion at all. (Most atheists I know are "soft atheists" who lack a belief in any gods, but don't believe that therefore no god could exist.) But even I have occasionally get into trouble is where a religious person insists they can "prove" the existance of God or the tenents of their religious rationally, that non-believers are just illogical. Then they start explaining their religion based on the way they've learned and if you point challenge the things that make no sense to you, suddenly you're being insensitive and mocking, treating their religion as a game.

This has driven me crazy since I have no desire to prove that God doesn't exist. I'm just compelled to respond honestly to what they've said. Sometimes I get defensive. Like, if someone explains something and I say it back to them using different words and they get offended I'm like...well, I didn't change it. If it sounds so stupid to you when I repeat it back to you how that my fault? It's not that I hold rationally thought above everything at all--on the contrary. I just don't like people dressing up irrational thought in religious language and calling it rational. It makes me feel bullied, like I have to accept things that I don't accept just to be polite, while the other person doesn't. It's not that I think people should drop their religion...it's really I don't think they should be threatened by challenges.

The thing that struck me about that article linked was that with so few atheists, I really have a hard time believing most of these people have been made to feel stupid. If atheists have taken the place of, say, Catholics in terms of trying to take over the world. That's paranoia, not real bad behavior on the part of atheists--even if there are badly behaved atheists. In my experience with people arguing with me in the atheist position I more often was treated as someone who was ethically retarded rather than condescending. But then, that was usually when I was speaking to people who were religious and also arrogant (and mostly happened to have horrible moral beliefs imo--go figure!). As I said, I usually had perfectly pleasant conversations with religious people and would be the first to disagree with the idea that spirituality=stupid.

I don't think this goes against your point, though. In pleasant conversations I've had neither me or the other person held the other person in contempt. I've been surprised by people telling me I'd made them think about some element of their faith through my questions, and I wouldn't have the conversations if I didn't want to think about what they were saying, so it was all good.

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wordplay.livejournal.com

I know it's contrary to your goal of trying not to be condescending, but the problem with this is that it's so EASY to find reasons to think people are stupid, but I think maybe it's harder to find reasons to think perfect strangers are actually immoral?

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I probably shouldn't have linked to the atheism thing, because I was really only responding to a small part of it. The larger issue I'm talking about is much MUCH larger than just this study. It was only the note about cultural elitism within the study that made me think of it. I doubt that these people don't like atheists because they made them feel stupid at some point. But I do think they don't like cultural elistists because they made them feel stupid at some point, which was the larger issue.

I think that a lot of this brings me back to the ideas I have about rational and nonrational thought and why we feel the need to always justify with rational thought. I think faith is inherently non-rational; you can't explain belief like that. But I also think that all the genuflecting at the altar of rational thought isn't that helpful. I would never try to explain my spirtuality in a rational way and I really don't think I should have to. But for that matter, I would never try to explain why I like the color blue or the friends I have. I just end up with Tim Gunn's "I respond well to that." Which, for me, is the larger issue.

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adjudicated.livejournal.com

Gah, I am completely incapable intellectually of contributing anything to this conversation, but I've read every word with great fascination.

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Okay, now I have a crush on your husband! That's awesome. I'm sure it comes as no surprise to you that I am much more of a subversive than a revolutionary.

I actually find Irrational People to have the best comments sometimes because they come so out of left field that they can actually lead to new ways of thinking about a problem.

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No, actually, I think it's pretty easy to find reasons to think perfect strangers are any negative thing you can think of, because they are a "them" and not an "us". So why is that person over there instead of over here? Because they are too stupid to understand that here is a better place, too weak to handle being here because there is an easier place, or too immoral to be able to be here. There's lots of other reasons but that comes off the top of my head. Accepting difference is really really difficult.

I think part of the cultural elitism thing is that the elites look across the country and think, well, unlike the dominant culture we actually accept difference! Therefore we are better! It can blind the elites to all the differences that they don't accept, either.

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