Are People Who Believe in God Stupid?

[tattuchu]

... there is a Supreme Being slot that needs to be filled by something?

[Robert_S]

... there is a Supreme Being slot that needs to be filled by something?

[Coito ergo sum]

If I'm going to fill the slot of a Supreme Being, I would choose this one:

[amused]

Back to the question in the post title - No, I don't think that people who believe in god are inherently stupid. I know that I'm a part of something much bigger than I, and that there are parts of it we haven't yet discovered. Those parts might also include some sort of system-wide intelligence that could be called god. That is a matter of scientific discovery.

Religions, on the other hand, are man-made concepts that pretend to know things that are not now knowable. So yes, it would be stupid to base your life on a belief system that has no supporting evidence for its truthfulness.

[hiyymer]

Back to the question in the post title - No, I don't think that people who believe in god are inherently stupid. I know that I'm a part of something much bigger than I, and that there are parts of it we haven't yet discovered. Those parts might also include some sort of system-wide intelligence that could be called god. That is a matter of scientific discovery.

Religions, on the other hand, are man-made concepts that pretend to know things that are not now knowable. So yes, it would be stupid to base your life on a belief system that has no supporting evidence for its truthfulness.

Our life decisions are based on irrational feelings whether we like it or not. Reason can help predict but can't determine our feeling about the prediction. Whether you say God told you do it, or whether you pretend that you consciously decided to want what you want, neither is particularly truthful.

[Coito ergo sum]

Back to the question in the post title - No, I don't think that people who believe in god are inherently stupid. I know that I'm a part of something much bigger than I, and that there are parts of it we haven't yet discovered. Those parts might also include some sort of system-wide intelligence that could be called god. That is a matter of scientific discovery.

Religions, on the other hand, are man-made concepts that pretend to know things that are not now knowable. So yes, it would be stupid to base your life on a belief system that has no supporting evidence for its truthfulness.

Our life decisions are based on irrational feelings whether we like it or not. Reason can help predict but can't determine our feeling about the prediction. Whether you say God told you do it, or whether you pretend that you consciously decided to want what you want, neither is particularly truthful.

Some of our decisions are based on irrational feelings, others are not.

People pretend that God tells them to do things when our actions are determined by our brains and our brains' interactions with the outside world.

[hiyymer]

Back to the question in the post title - No, I don't think that people who believe in god are inherently stupid. I know that I'm a part of something much bigger than I, and that there are parts of it we haven't yet discovered. Those parts might also include some sort of system-wide intelligence that could be called god. That is a matter of scientific discovery.

Religions, on the other hand, are man-made concepts that pretend to know things that are not now knowable. So yes, it would be stupid to base your life on a belief system that has no supporting evidence for its truthfulness.

Our life decisions are based on irrational feelings whether we like it or not. Reason can help predict but can't determine our feeling about the prediction. Whether you say God told you do it, or whether you pretend that you consciously decided to want what you want, neither is particularly truthful.

Some of our decisions are based on irrational feelings, others are not.

People pretend that God tells them to do things when our actions are determined by our brains and our brains' interactions with the outside world.

If our actions are determined by our brains, and our brains are creating our experience, how could our decisions be rational and conscious? It can't be the experience of "I deciding" that is actually deciding.

[Coito ergo sum]

Our brains don't "create" our experience. Our brains receive information from our senses, and sends impulses out to our muscles to move us around to do what our brains want to do. That's where our consciousness is - in our brains. The world exists irrespective of our brains.

The brain is, in part, a decision-making machine. The structures in the brain create what we call "consciousness" and those structures perform certain controllable functions.

Of course our actions are determined by our brains. What else are they determined by? Our feet? Heart? Lungs? Our brain is the thing that thinks, and our brain is the thing that creates our emotional responses. Destroy the brain, and the person is gone.

[Robert_S]

I use "non-rationality" to refer to my love of cheese. I use "irrationality" to refer to me thinking that I can eat two pounds of it and not need take a book or netbook to the toilet with me later. I rationally know my love of cheese is just the result of a bunch of stuff going on with my body, especially my nose, tongue and brain that I irrationally spend too much money on.

[Coito ergo sum]

[hiyymer]

Our brains don't "create" our experience. Our brains receive information from our senses, and sends impulses out to our muscles to move us around to do what our brains want to do. That's where our consciousness is - in our brains. The world exists irrespective of our brains.

Are there colors in the world without our brain? Are there sounds in the world without our brain? Is there solidity and thing-ness without our brain or just a sea of molecules? Is there agency without our brain creating it, or just a physical caused reality that creates the experience of "I deciding" as part of the mechanism?

[Feck]

I do like that image ,it would look good on my front door or maybe the back of my car

[Coito ergo sum]

Our brains don't "create" our experience. Our brains receive information from our senses, and sends impulses out to our muscles to move us around to do what our brains want to do. That's where our consciousness is - in our brains. The world exists irrespective of our brains.

Are there colors in the world without our brain?

Yes, of course. We have machines that can detect colors. Colors are wavelengths of light. There are different wavelengths of light in existence with or without our brains. Our brains receive signals from our eyes which process wavelengths of light and interpret those wavelengths. There are shapes without our brains too - the Earth is still spheroid with or without our brains, and the same wavelengths of light bounce off the Earth whether we're here or not.

Are there sounds in the world without our brain?

Yes - what we call sounds are vibrations of air molecules. There would still be those vibrations with or without our brains. Our brains don't create the sound waves. Our brains interpret sound waves.

Is there solidity and thing-ness without our brain or just a sea of molecules?

There is a solidity and thingness without our brain. If I die today, the world goes on without me. The universe went on for 13.5 billion years without human brains, and stars and planets became solid and formed quite nicely without a brain.

Is there agency without our brain creating it, or just a physical caused reality that creates the experience of "I deciding" as part of the mechanism?

I don't know what you mean by "agency." You'll have to define that for me.

This entire sentence is subject to too many varying meanings, I think - it's vague and ambiguous. Is there just a "physical caused reality?" I don't know what you mean by "just?" There is a reality. I can say that much, or at least - from everything I can perceive there is a reality - the universe looks like it has been around for a lot longer than humans have been here, and will be here long after we are gone.

The rest of the sentence - "creates the experience of I deciding as part of the mechanism" is difficult. I'm not sure what you mean. What mechanism? I can say that it appears that the brain creates what we call consciousness - it interprets things from outside of the brain and can decide to do things (and does them, within the limits of what appears to be a physics that exists regardless of what the brain thinks).

[devogue]

Our brains don't "create" our experience. Our brains receive information from our senses, and sends impulses out to our muscles to move us around to do what our brains want to do. That's where our consciousness is - in our brains. The world exists irrespective of our brains.

Are there colors in the world without our brain?

Yes, of course. We have machines that can detect colors. Colors are wavelengths of light. There are different wavelengths of light in existence with or without our brains. Our brains receive signals from our eyes which process wavelengths of light and interpret those wavelengths.

Indeed, but it is the nature of the interpretation that is fascinating. The "redness" of red - where does that come from? It doesn't exist in the universe outside of our brains/minds. Qualia bother me.

[Coito ergo sum]

Our brains don't "create" our experience. Our brains receive information from our senses, and sends impulses out to our muscles to move us around to do what our brains want to do. That's where our consciousness is - in our brains. The world exists irrespective of our brains.

Are there colors in the world without our brain?

Yes, of course. We have machines that can detect colors. Colors are wavelengths of light. There are different wavelengths of light in existence with or without our brains. Our brains receive signals from our eyes which process wavelengths of light and interpret those wavelengths.

Indeed, but it is the nature of the interpretation that is fascinating. The "redness" of red - where does that come from? It doesn't exist in the universe outside of our brains/minds. Qualia bother me.

Yes, our brains create what we think of as red - the differentiation between colors. But, the brain doesn't create the differing wavelengths. Those are there whether we are here or not. Our brains don't create differing wavelengths any more than our brains create the chemical compositions of different materials.