Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
@Kataclismic: GREAT POST I KNEW HE COULD DO IT!!! I VOTE FOR EGOTISTICAL SELFIE SEEKER. I THINK HIS INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT PROVES IT.
@Cog - It just cracks me up: A guy seeking Jesus winds up in the Darwin Awards. What more evidence does a person need?
Ah well, I'll just keep laughing. xD
@Kataclismic: The day I read the article I was in tears of laughter. That was why I started the thread
https://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/atheist-hub/christian-missionary-...
His death should not be in vain. At least we can get a good chuckle out of it.
@Cog - Ah yes, I looked at the date and thought for a moment that surely somebody had beat me to it but I still couldn't resist!
The combination of ignorance ,arrogance and stupidity can be fatal. One hopes he never got to breed.
Yes, I'm a cold hearted old fart. I'm simply unable to muster any sympathy for the idiot.
Don't know anything about his family, or the source of his idiocy.
It would be a bit like taking my family to Himachal for a summer vacation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2GhJq_6y7I
or booking them for an Eland Safari.
(Too graphic for a link)
Re: OP
So sad.... So very... very.... sad... (that there are people out there who are that stupid.)
Attachments
Attach Image/Video?:
@Tin: Wait a minute? We already knew there were stupid people in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui7jeZSsgFs
We just don't see many around here.
Definitely deserving of darwin awards.
The macabre side of me wonders what his final lucid thoughts were before the pain of torture took over all rational thought?
"Oh god why hast thou forsaken me?" Or a more rational: "oh fuck I am stupid this was stupid, I am going to die!" Did he even research the tribe? The news stories of things like them throwing spears at a helicopter that flew low to check the wellbeing of the tribe after a major hurricane hit the island?
Did he really think that "god" would protect him from the normal outsider response these people had?
To me the whole thing is an interesting morality question. Does the tribe get held responsible for torturing and killing a man that visited their island? Or are they allowed to torture and kill anyone that is stupid enough to visit their island?
Harder morality question: What if a woman to no fault of her own, wash up on their shores after a shipwreck? What if they do not kill her but take her as a sex slave? Does the tribe get held responsible? Does an elite team of navy seals go to the island and extract her, possibly killing dozens of the tribe members with superior firepower/training, possibly ending a 60,000 year old human tribe forever?
If I wash up on that island with a automatic rifle, no fault of my own, am I allowed to defend my self with deadly force? What if I walked up to a local, and sneezed on them, then managed to escape? Am I held responsible for wiping out a 60,000 year old tribe of people? Do I go to jail for killing them, even though they can kill people and not go to jail or face any sort of justice?
@Logic - Yes indeed! I had the same thoughts. I wondered about a world that can actually convince a person so unquestioningly that they will be saved by a supernatural force when they break laws and knowingly put themselves in harms way. Or was it just a defect in this person's ability to think critically?
And at any point in time did he think, "Wow, I totally f#cked up."
You travel too far down the rabbit's hole for me, I just wanted to know if this is evidence of absence. LOL
@Kataclismic
I imagine he did. But it all probably happened so fast to him he barely had time to think. He should of done his thinking before doing such a crazy stupid endeavor. But then religious zealots like him don't get a whole lot of practice on critical thinking.
Yeah I tend to do that. I try to limit myself so I don't sound too crazy :)
@Kataclismic
"I wondered about a world that can actually convince a person so unquestioningly that they will be saved by a supernatural force when they break laws and knowingly put themselves in harms way. Or was it just a defect in this person's ability to think critically?"
In the Maji Maji Rebellion the The followers of Bokero's movement believed that they could not be harmed because the Germans' bullets would turn to water.[
In the Battle of Tippecanoe, Tenskawata set himself up as a prophet, and lacking the military skills of his brother, decided to attack the Anglo settlers. He claimed that the Master of Life had come to him and told him that the American Indians would succeed in defeating the Americans. He also stated that the whites' bullets would not harm the American Indian forces.
Above passage partially plagiarized from https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Tenskwatawa
History is full of many examples of people believing dumb shit.
It isn't really evidence for absence anymore than it is evidence for ignorance
@Titilayo - Must be evidence for the native islander's god then. He obviously isn't too keen on the competition.
@Titilayo: I would certainly call it evidence of ignorance, and definitely evidence of absence of intelligence.
I disagree that being a theist in and of itself shows a lack of intelligence. Many posters here (and elsewhere) who identify as atheist were once theists. Did they (or you) magically grow more intelligent when they stopped having gods? I seriously doubt it.
We have often discussed childhood religious indoctrination. I’ve heard folks refer to it as child abuse. We would probably all agree that it’s pretty easy to successfully indoctrinate a wee bairn. Does that mean these children lack intelligence? Instead, I think it shows how dangerous and successful indoctrination can be.
If you encounter a theist, here or elsewhere, perhaps consideration should be given to the concept of indoctrination rather than jumping to a conclusion that the individual lacks intelligence. Just maybe it’s a theist like those here who have given up having gods.
Giving up gods and religion can be terribly frightening. It often mean giving up family, friends, community, comfort, so many things. Even highly intelligent people can be overcome by fear.
I think the assertion that all theists lack intelligence is akin to the assertion that gods exist. Practicing what one preaches seems rather more appealing to me.
@CyberLN: "I disagree that being a theist in and of itself shows a lack of intelligence"
I certainly agree with that. On the other hand, if you are a snake handling Christian and your father gets bit and dies by snake bite, and then your brother gets bit and dies by snake bite and then you get bit and die by snake bite, someone in the family is not passing on the intelligence gene.
I would also assert that RELIGION in general FEEDS ON THE IGNORANT. Intelligence is not a product of religious indoctrination. As you say, many of us were once theists. Religion certainly seeks to indoctrinate those incapable of seeing past its vapid assertions. 1
Cog, you wrote, “...if you are a snake handling Christian and your father gets bit and dies by snake bite, and then your brother gets bit and dies by snake bite and then you get bit and die by snake bite, someone in the family is not passing on the intelligence gene.”
Either that or someone in the family passed on the gene for susceptibility to indoctrination. The snake handler, after all, was taught from birth that if you get bit and die, your faith was just not strong enough.
Edited to add: perhaps religion feeds on the weak of will rather than the weak of mind.
@CyberLN: RE: "Someone passed on the susceptibility of indoctrination gene..." Yea! That works too.
RE: "Weak of will" vs. "Weak of mind." I would include "will" in my definition of mind as one of the many components. Still, I see nothing wrong with being more specific. I tend to see will as more of an "compulsion" thing. i.e. "I won't at that last piece of chocolate cake." Then I eat it anyway. But whose to say religion is not addictive? That is after all the claim made about programs like AA. "They are just trading one addiction for another." In that regard, your point is well received.
Cog, I’ve been pondering this and am wondering how much laziness plays into the mix. Folks might not want to think for themselves because it’s just too difficult and time consuming.
Do you suppose that might be a factor?
@CyberN:
I just finished watching a video or reading an article, I can't actually remember which or by whom, sorry or I would cite it, that explained how lazy the human brain actually is. Apparently the brain is made to run stupid / automatically. The reason for this is the amount of energy the brain sucks up when it is being used to think. The brain is a sugar magnet and when in use it sucks energy from the body. This is why thinking, concentrating is such a difficult task. (I think this was a lecture by Sam Harris.) The brain wants to sleep. It wants to drive you from point A to point B without making a decision. It wants time to pass without you noticing it. Using your brain is a high energy activity and so to conserve energy, you are biologically designed not to engage it.
If I run across the link I will post it for you. Sorry I just don't recall who I was listening to or where I read it. (I'm leaning towards a Sam Harris lecture but I really don't recall. ) So, in this regard I think you are probably on a fruitful path of exploration.
Then it would make sense that folks cling to religion because it makes decisions for them. Thanks for the info, fascinating.
I will send the link if I can find it.
No
Laziness is a facile and biased claim to make of any human behaviour. . Doesn't really explain anything.It's been used for going on 200 years to blame the poor for being poor for example.
Bertrand Russell said " Most people would rather die than think. Most people do"
It is a life observation that as a species human beings spend very little time navel gazing. It seems to m that relatively few people ever seriously question the religious beliefs they absorbed like little sponges. Even less so the zeitgeist they have formed over a life time.
It's also hard to philosophise on an empty stomach. The great a majority of humanity is far too occupied with the survival of self, family and children to ponder metaphysical propositions.
A final reason is that people don't like change, especially if they are the one's expected to change
@Cranky: Re: The Poor. It's really difficult to express or encourage higher cortical functioning when you are worried about where your next meal is going to come from or how you will pay the rent. In the end, I fear we are all victims of the bell shaped curve regardless of our lot in life.
The smartest person in a tribe of Amazonians it still using his brain more than the fellows around him. And, if Tin follows through on his threats, kidnaps me, puts me in a plane, and drops me into the Amazon Jungle, I want that smartest person in the tribe to be the one to show me the ropes. I don't think calling the Brain lazy is the same thing as calling people lazy. Lazy brains think when they have to and when they don't.... religion and superstition appears to be the result.
And those raised on Norse mythology believed that if they died a glorious death in battle, they went to Valhalla.
Present day suicide bombers beleive they will go to some heaven once they trigger the explosive.
Somebody's aunt in Mississippi believes she will die and awaken surrounded by flowers and angels.
For all, they are victims of the greatest con of all time. They are not stupid, but this con, religion, pushes all the right buttons in most people.
@Cognostic I don't know about absence of intelligence. Indoctrination is a powerful instrument that can warp even the most brilliant of minds
@Titilayo: I do not disagree with the fact that religious people can be intelligent. My assertion would be that the not so intelligent are more likely to be attracted to religious ideologies. (More susceptible to indoctrination.)
JANUARY 2018, Neuroscience News
“It is well established that religiosity correlates inversely with intelligence,” note Richard Daws and Adam Hampshire at Imperial College London, in a new paper published in Frontiers in Psychology, which seeks to explore why.
" Based on the low-IQ-religiosity link, it could be argued that humanity is on course to become collectively less smart."
"One suggestion is that perhaps religious people tend to rely more on intuition. So, rather than having impaired general intelligence, they might be comparatively poor only on tasks in which intuition and logic come into conflict – and this might explain the lower overall IQ test results."
"In contrast, for a complex reasoning task – “deductive reasoning” – for which there were no obviously intuitive answers, there was much less of a group difference." https://neurosciencenews.com/religion-atheism-intelligence-8391/
"If, as this work suggests, religious belief predisposes people to rely more heavily on intuition in decision-making – and the stronger their belief, the more pronounced the impact – how much of a difference does this make to actual achievement in the real world?"
SO, INTUITION INTERFERING WITH INTELLIGENCE MAY BE THE REAL CULPRIT. OBVIOUSLY STUDIES INTO THE REASON WHY LOWER INTELLIGENCE IS CORRELATED WITH RELIGION CONTINUE. WE CERTAINLY NEED TO LEARN MORE, AND IN MY OPINION, DRAG RELIGION, KICKING AND SCREAMING, OUT OF THE DARKENED PEWS AND INTO THE LIGHT OF DAY.
Thanks for the post.
Test Post
This thing said I was banned, then let me post, IDK what is going on.
@Cognostic
I like the way you use "religious ideologies" as the same with religious beliefs and make out they are the same thing. And the herring "do not disagree" which requires intelligence to decipher
Pages