I don't think it's intelligence, merely curiosity, that determines the amount of faith one can have. If you can't just let a unknown factor in, you'll need a lot more intelligence or time thinking to get to sleep at night.

I think it's the pride of intellectualism that locks God out, not intellectualism itself.

There've been lots of faithful intellectuals. Augustine and Marcus Aurelius were two (one early Christian and one Stoic). Most of the Greek philosophers were mildly religious, whether that expressed itself in Dionysian ritual or Stoicism.
Most mediaeval thought came from religious figures, although admittedly the depth and breadth of anyone's faith in the middle ages was questionable. In any case one of the west's earliest political theorists was a devout Muslim, and in fact his beliefs strongly tinged his ideas.



Sorry to spoil the fun, but cosmonauts were almost exclusively atheist. I'm not sure whether they've kept the faith or not, but the USSR didn't let ideologically unstable people into space.



I've been seeing depictions of earth from space since I was a kid. I don't think it would be a big deal, or any bigger than going somewhere breathtakingly beautiful on earth. The weightlessness would be trippy though.

Yes and yes it’s much easier to have faith if you have a less analytical mind because it’s the simplest answer to all of life’s big questions and your not as concerned with the inconsistencies that drive the analytical mind nuts. Christians seem to think intellect is important to faith as evidenced by how hard they tried to show Einstein to be religious. In reality the largest intellects that ever lived had no greater insight into God than the most feeble minded amoung us because intellect is useless as a tool for knowing God.

 

I've been trying to say that for a while...

"If God gave me a brain, shouldn't I use it?" Sure, for brain things. To control your body. To do your job. But if you want to know God, He gave you a spirit.

I agree to a point as long as you're not saying analyticals can't get there.  As far as inconsistencies, I would consider myself and my husband as analytical (he more so) and we don't see any.  So that wasn't a factor in belief for us. 

I don't try to convince anyone that Einstein was religious.  He wasn't as far as I'm aware of.  He wasn't an atheist but he didn't believe in a personal God either.  At best you could describe him a deist. 

this is true although God does tell us he wants us to not only use our mind but to love him with it. 

how about to love God with it? 

 

 

Nice article KFC. I don't think the two are antithetical. However, I do believe that fundamentalism drives intellectuals nuts.
See ya.

Really? How so.  Do I drive you nuts.....    What about those who consider themselves both?   I've known some pretty smart fundamentalists whom I would brand as intellectual.  

 

I consider both you and Lula to be very intelligent but your like the opposite of the scientist who’s great with equations but has almost none of the social skills some of us take for granted. Neither you nor Lula understand what science is and no one has been able to explain it too either of you. You quote mine from various sites like AIG and when they’re shown to be incorrect you don’t know enough about science to understand that, and yes that can be frustrating.

A selective intelligence is a requirement to be a fundamentalist anything. Sometimes the brain is simple wired so it can’t learn certain concepts and other times certain concepts are willfully ignored. Ken Ham is an example of the later. When confronted by real science he will sometimes admit he is wrong but somehow the museum never changes to reflect his admitted error. That’s because he willfully ignores any information that doesn’t seem to fit even if he has enough knowledge to know it’s true. As you’ve pointed out many scientist do have a personal belief in God but it would be exceedingly rare to find a fundamentalist among them. 

Letting an unknown factor be the answer to all doesn't sound like curiosity to me So do you mean that the more curious you are, the less amount of faith you can hold or is it the other way around?

Usually I quote from Scientific journals not AIG although I like AIG.  I agree that I'm not a Scientist so forgive me for frustrating you Stubby.  My son is a Scientist and one that I would consider an intellectual.  He is also very fundamental in his belief in God. 

 Henry Morris (now dead) is another Scientist I would deem as a fundamentalist and I use his material as well.   He served on the faculities of major universities and had all sorts of degrees to his name.  He is to Creation Research what Darwin was to Evolution. 

can you give me an example on this?  I went to the museum recenlty and, of course, was very impressed.  For one thing Ham gave both sides in his displays.  He had one side with the secular explanation and the other side he put the Christian explanation of the evidence. The seculars NEVER do this. 

While I was there I copied down a quote from Stephen Jay Gould who said in 1977 in explaining how people in the 19th century abused Science to support their own prejudices.

"Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859 but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory." 

I believe we are still seeing this today.  People are abusing Science to support their own bias and that's what I have an issue with especially when it comes to teaching it to our children as fact.