

Ask PG: Are you an atheist? - curiouslurker

This comment by John McCarthy the creator of LISP whom you greatly admire, made me curious:<p>"Responding to Richard Dawkins's pestering his fellow atheists to "come out", I mention that I am indeed an atheist. To count oneself as an atheist one need not claim to have a proof that no gods exist. One need merely think that the evidence on the god question is in about the same state as the evidence on the werewolf question."
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dasht
"One need merely think that the evidence on the god question is in about the
same state as the evidence on the werewolf question"

Most theologies that I'm aware of might balk at the way McCarthy expresses
that but, after clarifications all around, would emphatically agree. Indeed,
the two are comparable. Faith is called "faith" for a reason.

Also, it is generally considered rude to publicly inquire about the details of
another person's faith in such a confrontational manner as you've done here,
however well you are intended or whatever McCarthy means. I think it is a safe
bet - and he can correct me if I'm wrong - that McCarthy (and Dawkins) were
encouraging personal choices, not externally pressured choices.

[That came off pretty condescending so maybe now I'm the horribly rude one. I
hope people understand and agree with my intent here, though. Wrong question,
wrong forum.]

~~~
getonit
The word 'curious' in the OP's question doesn't jive with the word
'confrontational' in your reply, IMHO.

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btilly
Based on <http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html> I suspect that pg will not
answer.

It is worth pointing out that in my personal experience there is little to no
correlation between intelligence and religious affiliation. John McCarthy is
very intelligent and an atheist. Don Knuth is very intelligent and deeply
religious. Martin Gardner was very intelligent, religious, and was very
conscious of the fact that he could not logically justify his religious
beliefs. I could give you more examples indefinitely.

Pointing to yet another intelligent person who is somewhere on this spectrum
demonstrates absolutely nothing, and I believe that pg fully understands that.
No matter what his religious beliefs are, for him to answer would only serve
to potentially upset people who believe differently. Why go there?

~~~
getonit
Your personal experience appears to differ from peer-reviewed studies...

~~~
btilly
I'm fully aware of the peer-reviewed studies that you mention. The
correlations they find are highly statistically significant, but the
correlations are fairly weak. For instance one study found a 5.83 point gap
between the IQs of atheists and dogmatically religious people. That is
significant over a large population, but not for individuals. And our society
has so many more dogmatically religious people than atheists that there is no
problem in finding lots of very intelligent, dogmatically religious people.

Also the cause of that is far from established. For instance religious belief
and ethnic background are strongly correlated, and ethnic background is more
strongly correlated with IQ than IQ is with religious belief. How much of an
effect does this have? It is hard to quantify.

Therefore I wouldn't put much weight on those studies. Don't pat yourself on
the back too much for being an atheist, because it doesn't say much either way
for your intelligence.

(Disclaimer. I am an atheist. But I know plenty of people who are much more
intelligent than me who are strongly religious.)

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pg
Yes.

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s-phi-nl
See his reply, but I had already inferred that he was from that he considers
religion a lie in <http://paulgraham.com/lies.html>

