Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

[WIP]

Careful Pliny, Wip does not take kindly to people criticizing Drea, he's butted into 2 or 3 conversations I was having with her. Some kind of weird atheist kindred spirit or something. But you're spot on, Drea seems to think intelligence is as you say.

And I thought I was on your much celebrated "ignore list." Am I your new obsession?

[Drea]

Your rebellious nature is making Jesus very angry. :angry:

very angry indeed!

[WIP]

Drea, you're a fanatic:

You believe that people who do not think what you think are less-than yourself.

You also believe that a form of utopia will descend upon the world once people start to think what you think.

If you were Christian, you'd be a Christian fanatic, but since you're an atheist, you're an atheist fanatic.

It's unreal how much fanatics like yourself say they despise Christian fanatics, and how identical the two of you sound.

Also, the same professor did studies that showed that men were smarter than women. If you accept the findings of this religion intelligence study, does that mean you accept his study on gender & intelligence?

So, you agree with the findings of the study, since you're not denying them but instead resorting to accusing atheists of believing in utopia and being fanatics, to shift the argument to personal attacks.

[MontyBurns]

... they don't care what Muslims, atheists, liberals, aboriginals, homosexuals........

Of course not! These groups make Jesus very angry.

Edited June 16, 2008 by MontyBurns

[JB Globe]

I have already gone over this with another poster... I had not read his other works regarding the brains of women vs the brains of men. If you would like to start a thread about it I would be happy to participate... although I don't believe either gender has cornered the market on "better" brains.

But how can you agree with the findings of this professor's study on religion, and not with his findings on gender?

One matches up with your worldview and the other doesn't - that's your basis for accepting one and dismissing the other? Doesn't sound too logical to me.

I on the other hand outright dismiss studies attempting to link intelligence to factors such as race, gender, political ideology, etc - simply because there's too many other variables in the equation that make any sort of solid conclusion impossible to come by without cutting corners.

One must have a certain level of close-mindedness (which is a sign of a lacking intelligence imo) to accept religious dogma.

Actually, close-mindedness has nothing to do with intelligence. A person can have a very high IQ and still completely prejudiced in their worldview. ie - Bush's cabal of neocons.

All you can do to refute the article

You refuted the professor's study on gender because you didn't like it's findings, didn't you? Why do you get to play by different rules?

Why not find a link that supports your view?

Because I disagree with your whole premise of a binary opposition between atheists and those who believe in religion. I don't think any one group is any more intelligent than the other. I think the whole premise is as ridiculous as trying to find a link between intelligence and race - and then trying to say one race is better than the other because of it.

This is another similarity between you and Christian fanatics - it's always either/or. Either you're athiest such as yourself, or you're a fanatical religion follower who believes in their religious text literally, and has no independent thought.

This simply proves my point that belief in religion is the domain of those with lower intelligence...

And therefor religious people are less than non-religious people, and therefor they can be treated as such, and therefor . . . Do you see where this type of bigoted thinking leads? Or do I need to connect all of the dots for you.

heck even you can't provide a link... imagine trying to talk sense with a staunch believer! Holy shamoly!

Where did I state I believe anything? That's an assumption - something someone who claims they have superior intelligence shouldn't be doing.

"fanatic" ... the flavourful word of the decade... nice to see you've jumped on THAT bandwagon. Now why not jump on the brainwagon next time? Ask yourself "Am I afraid to lose my afterlife or risk burning in hell to question my religion?"

Another unfounded assumption. If I am religious, whose to say I haven't questioned my own religion?

You know, it's quite easy for you to be knocked down when you put yourself up on a pedestal.

Once again, it is NOT MY FAULT that believers are closeminded.

Of course, it IS your fault that YOU are close-minded.

And yes, I'm sorry, just because you're an atheist does not make you incapable of prejudice.

Also - I've yet to see a study linking close-mindedness (which is different from IQ) to religion versus atheism.

I know you can't get enough of me, but really.

This is probably the most egotistical thing I've read on here in a while. Sorry to break it to you, but other than when I'm responding to your comments I don't really think about you.

To all rational, non-prejudiced atheists in this thread - I'd like you to know I do not believe this woman speaks for you.

[JB Globe]

So, you agree with the findings of the study, since you're not denying them but instead resorting to accusing atheists of believing in utopia and being fanatics, to shift the argument to personal attacks.

No, I disagree with any study trying to equate IQ with any sort of race, ethnicity, sex, political ideology, or religious non-religious world view. Even if a study shows that a group I belong to has a higher IQ - example - many studies have said "liberals" in the US are smarter than "conservatives" - I would have to belong to the liberal group, but I still reject outright the whole premise of those studies. They almost always do not take into account environmental and historical factors, or if they do, they're given almost no weight.

[MontyBurns]

To all rational, non-prejudiced atheists in this thread - I'd like you to know I do not believe this woman speaks for you.

Don't let Drea lead you over the cliff. Let Drea face the angry wrath of Jesus on her own.

[WIP]

Firstly, I apologize if I was being annoying. The pomposity of the premise in the opening article stirred my own pomposity.

The acceptance of a belief system is a conclusion. Upon the adoption of a belief system all questions regarding life and the universe must now be explained within the primary premises of the belief, other explanations must be ignored unless one changes his mind and adopts a different set of beliefs.

Everybody developes a belief system. Some people just inherit one without giving it more than passing consideration, and that's the beef I have with most religious people -- so many have never bothered to take the time to examine what they believe and why! A belief system is not necessarily a conclusion though! It is for people who fear having long-held beliefs challenged because they have so much emotional connection to a set of beliefs. A set of beliefs can be flexible, if someone is able to maintain a somewhat detached connection to them, so that they can be changed or altered upon re-examination.

Science claims the upper hand in belief systems, and it is a "belief system". Like others. Because it is entirely based upon perception and analysis of perception and ignores all that falls outside of perception and concerns itself with measurement and proof it cannot conceive of anything prior. Religion concerns itself with cause science concerns itself with effect. It doesn't presume to know cause. It will never prove the existence of life. It has in fact concluded that life is a series of electro-chemical reactions. This is their belief system and there is nothing else to life. No other scientific evidence exists regarding life.

The scientific method is the new way to gain knowledge and has only been in existence for a few centuries. The religious method to gaining insight seems to be part of our natural, instinctive way of understanding our world. When anthropologists study primitive tribes in the Amazon or Borneo, the people never say they don't know how they got there, who made their world, what causes lightning, thunder and rain -- even though they have mythical answers to all of these questions that are many times totally different than the ones from nearby tribes, they still insist they have answers! The gradual accumulation of knowledge has revealed a series of false conclusions arrived at by every religious method of understanding. The religious answer has to be quietly scrapped, altered or re-interpreted when new knowledge is available.

Life for an individual must revolve around ones accepted system of beliefs. A belief system does not explain everything but promises to, even if only death provides the answers.

Only if you assume you have a supernatural soul that will carry your personality and your memories into a supernatural world! But why should you have to wait for the next world to get the answers. If this world had a designer who was concerned about our situation on Earth, why didn't this creator provide all of the clear answers to these questions to clear up the confusion and end the conflicts and wars fought over who has the right beliefs?

The article is fallacious because it presumes science is a superior belief system because it does not require beliefs only proof of existence through measurement and perception. It's failure is that it always finds effect but never cause. And it assumes cause to be something measurable or observable, such as an electro-chemical reaction.

Since it measures intelligence it defines it within it's own terms - that is the fundamental error.

And again, I don't consider it an error to presume causes. Sometimes when enough information is available, then it is safe to conclude what the cause is, otherwise it is just jumping to conclusions.

Even in that statement she indicates that these intelligent people are analytical in all other matters but are lacking intelligence in religious matters. She suggests fear as a possible reason.

And it may very well be fear that motivates some people to protect long-held beliefs. One might be a fear of death. In our modern world where sick people are sent to the hospital and the old people are shut away in hospices when they are dying, we live in a society of people that cannot face mortality. Death has traditionally been denied through the belief in an afterlife, either through resurrection of the body, or the later idea adopted from the Greeks, that we already have our immortality contained in an immaterial soul.

In recent years, as many people have moved away from traditional religious beliefs, it's no coincidence that there has been a flourishing business of New Age claptrap focused on communicating with the dead and wrapped in quantum quackery thanks to charlatans like Deepak Chopra and B. Alan Wallace, who throw in a generous dose of physics terminology to make their ideas sound scientific.

Anyway, the point is that like all other animals, we have a biological survival instinct that does not want us to die, and I don't blame people if this might be one of the sources for their clinging to religious or metaphysical beliefs that appear to be without any real evidence to support them. This is all I have time for, I'll try to respond to your other points later if I have the chance.

[Guest American Woman]

Everybody developes a belief system. Some people just inherit one without giving it more than passing consideration, and that's the beef I have with most religious people -- so many have never bothered to take the time to examine what they believe and why!

How in the world would you even begin to know if "most religious people" have "never bothered to take the time to examine what they believe and why?" That's a totally off-the-wall unfounded accusation.

Edited June 16, 2008 by American Woman

[Drea]

Of course not! These groups make Jesus very angry.

Well GOOD. If god/jesus/allah/spaghetti monster really is up there in the clouds looking down, perhaps the lazy buggers should DO something!

Anything. Really... any peep at all will do.

But nope. You will never see a god do anything because they are not real.

Santa will never bring you presents. He is not real.

The tooth fairy will never bring you a quarter. She is not real.

...etc.

But if you want to base your life and justify killing others... I guess no one should care. We should just allow the idiocy to continue.

[Drea]

How in the world would you even begin to know if "most religious people" have "never bothered to take the time to examine what they believe and why?" That's a totally off-the-wall unfounded accusation.

Because if religious folk (not those who believe in vague spirituality) looked at their religions with a critical eye they would have to either drop the religion or lie to themselves. Many people would simply rather not know so they can happily go along with their "belief" (no matter how outlandish).

[Drea]

Don't let Drea lead you over the cliff. Let Drea face the angry wrath of Jesus on her own.

You really think that some myth is going to affect me in any way shape or form? Do you truly believe that jesus is real and that he/it will come to smite me?

Come on.

You can't be serious.

You are a pretty levelheaded guy in most threads... never falling for tinfoil hat conspiracies and the like... yet you seem to believe that a myth has the power to do amazing things. *shakes head in disbelief* (pun unintended LOL)

Tin foil anyone?

[capricorn]

Drea's linked article in her OP says:

Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, said many more members of the "intellectual elite" considered themselves atheists than the national average.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/211...-in-God%27.html

There is evidence that religiosity is linked to happiness.

There is now extensive research suggesting that religious people are happier and less stressed.[9][10] Surveys by Gallup, the National Opinion Research Centre and the Pew Organization conclude that spiritually committed people are twice as likely to report being "very happy" than the least religiously committed people.[11] An analysis of over 200 social studies contends that "high religiousness predicts a rather lower risk of depression and drug abuse and fewer suicide attempts, and more reports of satisfaction with sex life and a sense of well-being"[12] and a review of 498 studies published in peer-reviewed journals concluded that a large majority of them showed a positive correlation between religious commitment and higher levels of perceived well-being and self-esteem, and lower levels of hypertension, depression and clinical delinquency.[13][14] Studies by Keith Ward show that overall religion is a positive contributor to mental health[15] and a meta-analysis of 34 recent studies published between 1990 and 2001 also found that religiosity has a salutary relationship with psychological adjustment, being related to less psychological distress, more life satisfaction, and better self-actualization.[16] Finally, a recent systematic review of 850 research papers on the topic concluded that "the majority of well-conducted studies found that higher levels of religious involvement are positively associated with indicators of psychological well-being (life satisfaction, happiness, positive affect, and higher morale) and with less depression, suicidal thoughts and behavior, drug/alcohol use/abuse." [17]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness

I won't link other articles. There are plenty to be found by googling "spirituality/religiosity linked to happiness".

So if most of these Mensa-types are atheists, does this mean they are less happy than the national average? I have encountered a few in my days and come to think of it, very few appeared to be happy individuals although I can't say whether it is linked to their beliefs.

Personally, I think there is more to this life than my mere existence. Oh, and did I mention that I am happy?

[MontyBurns]

Santa will never bring you presents. He is not real.

He is real.

I had my picture taken with him at the mall last Christmas. He brought me presents also.

[Brain Candy]

Everybody developes a belief system. Some people just inherit one without giving it more than passing consideration, and that's the beef I have with most religious people -- so many have never bothered to take the time to examine what they believe and why!

Thats my beef with most people in general.

[Pliny]

Everybody developes a belief system. Some people just inherit one without giving it more than passing consideration, and that's the beef I have with most religious people -- so many have never bothered to take the time to examine what they believe and why! A belief system is not necessarily a conclusion though! It is for people who fear having long-held beliefs challenged because they have so much emotional connection to a set of beliefs. A set of beliefs can be flexible, if someone is able to maintain a somewhat detached connection to them, so that they can be changed or altered upon re-examination.

Not too many people "develop" a belief system. When one accepts and adopts a belief system they have made some conclusions regarding life and further understanding must fit within the framework of the belief system. What has been concluded is the search for a source of information about the origin of life. Questions about life from that point on are only considered answerable by the originator of the belief system.

The scientific method is the new way to gain knowledge and has only been in existence for a few centuries. The religious method to gaining insight seems to be part of our natural, instinctive way of understanding our world. When anthropologists study primitive tribes in the Amazon or Borneo, the people never say they don't know how they got there, who made their world, what causes lightning, thunder and rain -- even though they have mythical answers to all of these questions that are many times totally different than the ones from nearby tribes, they still insist they have answers! The gradual accumulation of knowledge has revealed a series of false conclusions arrived at by every religious method of understanding. The religious answer has to be quietly scrapped, altered or re-interpreted when new knowledge is available.

Altering, scrapping and reinterpreting is constantly occurring. The Church of England is an example and Lutheranism, The council of Nicea, the Inquisition, the infallibility of the Pope. These are all related to Christianity.

What new knowledge is available? Science? It has theories of the origin of the universe and life but they are theories. There are some new observations but if we try hard we can fit them into any belief system. They are false conclusions because you deem them so and you are intelligent. It all fits together in your belief system. Just as others make facts fit into their belief systems.

Is the universe an illusion and requires a belief system?

Only if you assume you have a supernatural soul that will carry your personality and your memories into a supernatural world! But why should you have to wait for the next world to get the answers. If this world had a designer who was concerned about our situation on Earth, why didn't this creator provide all of the clear answers to these questions to clear up the confusion and end the conflicts and wars fought over who has the right beliefs?

And again, I don't consider it an error to presume causes. Sometimes when enough information is available, then it is safe to conclude what the cause is, otherwise it is just jumping to conclusions.

We are where we are in our evolution.

And it may very well be fear that motivates some people to protect long-held beliefs. One might be a fear of death. In our modern world where sick people are sent to the hospital and the old people are shut away in hospices when they are dying, we live in a society of people that cannot face mortality. Death has traditionally been denied through the belief in an afterlife, either through resurrection of the body, or the later idea adopted from the Greeks, that we already have our immortality contained in an immaterial soul.

Did the Greeks develop that idea. Wow! Way ahead of Einstein, who wasn't an atheist, I believe.

In recent years, as many people have moved away from traditional religious beliefs, it's no coincidence that there has been a flourishing business of New Age claptrap focused on communicating with the dead and wrapped in quantum quackery thanks to charlatans like Deepak Chopra and B. Alan Wallace, who throw in a generous dose of physics terminology to make their ideas sound scientific.

Anyway, the point is that like all other animals, we have a biological survival instinct that does not want us to die, and I don't blame people if this might be one of the sources for their clinging to religious or metaphysical beliefs that appear to be without any real evidence to support them. This is all I have time for, I'll try to respond to your other points later if I have the chance.

Talk to you later!

[WIP]

No, I disagree with any study trying to equate IQ with any sort of race, ethnicity, sex, political ideology, or religious non-religious world view. Even if a study shows that a group I belong to has a higher IQ - example - many studies have said "liberals" in the US are smarter than "conservatives" - I would have to belong to the liberal group, but I still reject outright the whole premise of those studies. They almost always do not take into account environmental and historical factors, or if they do, they're given almost no weight.

I'm not to keen on IQ studies either, since it is still far from conclusive how closely IQ tests relate to intelligence. But in general, people who are capable of great academic achievements are going to be a lot smarter than the average, and so far, nobody has ventured to give me a reason why the members of the elite scientific bodies mentioned in the article, have so few believers compared to the general population:

A survey of Royal Society fellows found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God - at a time when 68.5 per cent of the general UK population described themselves as believers.

A separate poll in the 90s found only seven per cent of members of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/211...-in-God%27.html

One thing I am sure of -- the more you know about the natural world, the less likely you are to believe in a supernatural one!

[WIP]

How in the world would you even begin to know if "most religious people" have "never bothered to take the time to examine what they believe and why?" That's a totally off-the-wall unfounded accusation.

Do you always selectively quote someone's posts just so you have an opportunity to be outraged? Or does it make you unable to read the rest of the sentence: so many have never bothered to take the time to examine what they believe and why!

Now, if that raises your indignation, I don't have any way to sugarcoat the fact that most people just follow whatever their priests, ministers, pastors etc. tell them is true Christian doctrine. Whenever I've engaged with Christian advocates on other forums who have made some in-depth study of religion, I have noticed, almost without fail, that they changed religions at some point when they had reached adulthood. Some went from Catholics to Pentacostals or Baptists, others converted to Catholicism - in fact the only two Catholics I've encountered online who've taken the time to study advanced theological topics like Natural Law or the writings of Thomas Aquinas, were converts. The average Catholic couldn't be bothered, and would just go with whatever the priest said!

The one thing that sets a convert apart from the ones who are following the family tradition, is that they had to at some point, decide they weren't happy where they were, and did at least some study while they were searching for a better religion.

[WIP]

Drea's linked article in her OP says:

There is evidence that religiosity is linked to happiness.

I won't link other articles. There are plenty to be found by googling "spirituality/religiosity linked to happiness".

So if most of these Mensa-types are atheists, does this mean they are less happy than the national average? I have encountered a few in my days and come to think of it, very few appeared to be happy individuals although I can't say whether it is linked to their beliefs.

Personally, I think there is more to this life than my mere existence. Oh, and did I mention that I am happy?

I have to mention off the top that a belief may be false and still provide positive benefits! When children get an extra present under the Christmas Tree from Santa, that makes them very happy also, even though the god-like bearer of gifts that brings so much joy to children, does not exist. I hope we're all in agreement on this one at least!

For myself, after many bad experiences earlier in my life with organized religions and religion in general, I have been determined that all of my beliefs be as accurate as possible, regardless of whether they are comforting or unsettling -- I'd rather hear the unvarnished truth than try to believe a pleasant sounding myth.

And, from what I've noticed about the wikipedia article on happiness, the section on the happiness of religious people is based on studies conducted in the U.S. If we look at the happiness index based on national averages, we find the U.S. ranks below most Western European nations AND CANADA, and strangely enough, even some Latin American nations (must be the weather!):

TOP NATIONS (Top 14 out of 95)

* DENMARK 8.2 (rank 1)

* SWITZERLAND 8.1 (tied, rank 2-3)

* COLOMBIA 8,1 (rank 2-3)

* AUSTRIA 8.,0 (rank 4)

* ICELAND 7.8 (rank 5)

* FINLAND 7.7 (tied, rank 6-8)

* AUSTRALIA 7.7 (rank 6-8)

* SWEDEN 7.7 (rank 6-8)

* CANADA 7.6 (tied, rank 9-14)

* GUATEMALA 7.6 (rank 9-14)

* IRELAND 7.6 (rank 9-14)

* LUXEMBOURG 7.6 (rank 9-14)

* MEXICO 7.6 (rank 9-14)

* NORWAY 7.6 (rank 9-14)

(The U.S.A. has a rating of 7.4, with an overall rank of 17)

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...?hub=TopStories

One thing that jumps out at me right away, is that most of these top 14 happy countries have fewer churchgoers than the United States, which is the most religious of the wealthy nations. So if religion makes you happy, why aren't the Americans happier than those godless Scandinavians?

I would venture a hypothesis that the reason why religiously affiliated Americans are happier than non-churchgoers is because America has very little community services aside from what the churches provide, unlike Denmark or Sweden. This has been the real secret of the success of the many pentacostal mega-churches that have sprung up in the suburbs and exurbs -- it's not the speaking-in-tongues and baptism of the Holy Spirit that new members are paying their tithes for; it's the sense of community the church provides in an otherwise sterile environment. If you're not into the church experience in places like this, you would have to put more effort into making friends and social contacts that are provided almost instantly to the church crowd!

[WIP]

Not too many people "develop" a belief system. When one accepts and adopts a belief system they have made some conclusions regarding life and further understanding must fit within the framework of the belief system. What has been concluded is the search for a source of information about the origin of life. Questions about life from that point on are only considered answerable by the originator of the belief system.

But the person who accepts these beliefs has to apply their own subjective interpretation, even if they think they are following the words of wisdom of their favourite religious figure.

Altering, scrapping and reinterpreting is constantly occurring. The Church of England is an example and Lutheranism, The council of Nicea, the Inquisition, the infallibility of the Pope. These are all related to Christianity.

And much of the altering and reinterpreting had to be done because of new evidence that challenged the church teaching. An example would be the discovery that the earth wasn't flat, and the biblical cosmology of a three decker universe -- heaven, earth and hell, could not be interpreted literally. Next to go, was the teaching that the earth was at the center of the universe, thanks to Copernicus. And then, the teaching that the heavens were perfect was challenged by Galileo, when he developed the telescope and discovered the sun had blemishes (sunspots), and the moon wasn't smooth, but was instead pockmarked with craters. Over time, supernatural explanations for the movement of the planets, earth forces like wind, rain, earthquakes and volcanoes, were replaced with natural explanations for the phenomena. The one thing that never happened was for a natural theory to be replaced by a more convincing supernatural theory!

What new knowledge is available? Science? It has theories of the origin of the universe and life but they are theories.

You might want to look up the scientific use of the term "theory." It is more than a mere idea; it has to explain a set of natural phenomena, and be capable of making predictions of future occurrences or observations. Not many people would dispute Germ Theory as a way to explain the cause of disease.

There are some new observations but if we try hard we can fit them into any belief system. They are false conclusions because you deem them so and you are intelligent. It all fits together in your belief system. Just as others make facts fit into their belief systems.

Is the universe an illusion and requires a belief system?

You can be entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own truth! I think I've already pointed out previously where the gaps in knowledge are and ways of filling the gaps that are highly speculative right now. There are other concepts that have substantial evidence to back them up, and can be used to make some trustworthy observations about the world we live in -- so no, it is not an illusion!

[White Doors]

But you should care what others believe! The problem with conservatives is that they don't care what Muslims, atheists, liberals, aboriginals, homosexuals........and there must be others on the list that conservatives either want to kill, subjugate or just make disappear without having to take the time or trouble to understand what they believe.

Did you have a point or was that just more wandering babble?

[sharkman]

White Doors, that quote from Wip is more than babble, it's hate speech trolling. Conservatives want to kill some of those groups he's listed, how irresponsible to say that. Has this turned into just another bash the right thread?

[White Doors]

White Doors, that quote from Wip is more than babble, it's hate speech trolling. Conservatives want to kill some of those groups he's listed, how irresponsible to say that. Has this turned into just another bash the right thread?

predictable ain't it? He's like rue in the babbling, and buffy and Kuzadd in the direction.

Once he made it his job defend Drea, well that pretty much says all that needs to be said doesn't it?

[kuzadd]

predictable ain't it? He's like rue in the babbling, and buffy and Kuzadd in the direction.

Once he made it his job defend Drea, well that pretty much says all that needs to be said doesn't it?

why whitedoors, do you have a "thing" for me?

sorry, baby, I am happily married!

don't dwell on me too much, some people may get the idea,

you have no life?

or are obsessive?

[Drea]

White Doors, that quote from Wip is more than babble, it's hate speech trolling. Conservatives want to kill some of those groups he's listed, how irresponsible to say that. Has this turned into just another bash the right thread?

LOL

Good one.

I thought conservatives were against hate speech laws...? Guess when it suits you it is okie dokie right?

The conservatives in North America would love to see all muslims, gays, feminists and humanists (and academics/scientists) "disappear" or at the very least "shut up".

I don't want religion "shut up"... I want it put on full display and analyzed.

A while back I asked one of my coworkers (no longer employed with us) "Do you think god created the earth?" and she said "Look at that car you are driving, did it randomly build itself, or did it have a creator?"

She has closed her mind to evolution. She THINKS she knows all about evolution, she THINKS that evolution came about randomly, but science has NEVER said that it was random, but a gradual development.

So she has been taught (by her pastor perhaps) that evolution could not possibly be true because birds (for example) just don't "appear" out of nothingness (this is what she believes, that evolution is stuff coming from nothing). So obviously she has never read about it herself and simply accepts what she has been told.

If she were to open her mind... but she won't... she is too afraid. And she is a normal, everyday Christian woman with 4 sons and a husband. She is not fanatical, she is really a fun person and I wish she still worked with us. So if this non-fanatical woman closes her mind... I can imagine how sealed a more staunch believer's mind would be.

Edited June 17, 2008 by Drea