What's The Odds That The Man Who Stops Hurricanes

[David Sklansky]

Number 2 is obviously an exaggeration. I don't even have ironclad proof that religious Christians are LESS likely to have a member who figures out how to stop hurricanes. The original questions and most of the replies simply stipulated to that.

[NotReady]

1. People who are both well meaning and smart have a chance to figure out how to stop a hurricane.

There's no way to know this. I think many smart people would say there is no known technology that would even begin to hold any hope. We can't even make it rain(in any significant way). We can't stop it from raining. So there's no reason to believe humanity will ever have a clue how to stop a hurricane. Also, it's not in the OP.

2. A religious person has no chance to figure out how to
stop a hurricane

Ridiculous premise as to "religious person" but accurate in general.

3. Since religious people are well meaning, they must not be smart.

Since both 1 and 2 are false(or unknown as to stopping hurricanes), 3 is false.

**********************************

1. Smart people are more likely to be right than non smart people about subjects they have thoroughly investigated.

2. Smart people who investigate specific religions are more than 99% sure that any particular religion is wrong.

This premise isn't in the OP. I doubt you have any data for this either, it looks like a totally unsupported assertion.

3. Therefore there is a greater than 50% chance (not 99%-see why?) that any particular religion is wrong.

Even if 2. was in the OP, 3 doesn't follow logically. (see why?)

[RJT]

David,

Perhaps this is obvious to you. I feel it might not be.

Most people who call themselves religious have not really studied their own religion seriously. Most folk simply live there lives. They are born into their religion, get a job, have families. Then they spend the rest of their lives with their religions and their families. I wish I could have such a life. Wouldn’t you really choose the life of not thinking about it? (One way or the other - a believer or an atheist rather than agnostic?)

Most who look seriously into their religion do so as an adult. After they have chosen a profession. They become for example scientists first then they re-evaluate their religious beliefs.

Most people don’t discern their religious beliefs and then choose a vocation in life.

I would venture that scientists are scientist first then they discern to be agnostics. You seem to suggest the opposite. That the number of scientists come from the pool of agnostics. I find this hard to believe.

It isn’t that Christians are choosing not to be scientist. It is scientist who are choosing not to become (remain? ) Christians (or any religion).

Maybe, I am wrong.

RJT

[xniNja]

[ QUOTE ]
It isn’t that Christians are choosing not to be scientist. It is scientist who are choosing not to become (remain? ) Christians (or any religion).

[/ QUOTE ]

In my mind this is the same, or an even better point than the OP is making. If they were originally Christians, once they learn methodology, or scientific reasoning, they abandon their illogical blind-faith... wouldn't this support the arguments Sklansky is making?

[RJT]

Posts like these are so pompous. Of course, smart people can deduce that the odds of the Red Sea being parted are astronomically against it.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (literally) to realize that the odds that any major religion is the true one is over whelming against it being the true one.

Again, what does a zillion to one mean when discussing God? Is that highly likely or highly unlikely?

Any discussion about probability and faith is absurd on its face. Any suggestion that intelligent people have a better grip on what life is about is equally absurd.

[David Sklansky]

"It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (literally) to realize that the odds that any major religion is the true one is over whelming against it being the true one."

If you really believe, this then I have been wasting a lot of words.

[RJT]

Wait a sec. You are saying that it does takes above average level of intelligence to realize that the odds are against Christianity ?


Seems simple to me that Christianity is completely illogical and the odds are against it being true.

[David Sklansky]

I was saying almost the opposite.

[RJT]

RJT- “Wait a sec. You are saying that it does take above average level of intelligence to realize that the odds are against Christianity?”

DS - “I was saying almost the opposite.”

Well, that is what I was saying - it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out. Perhaps my verbiage was a bit garbled.

[andyfox]

"he is more likely to be correct if he disagrees with you about any subject assuming you have spent the same time and effort investigating it. Religion baseball, tuning a piano, or even coming up with a good joke."

This is clearly untrue. A smart person is more likely to be correct only in areas where he is smart, or expert (or both). Piano tuning, for example, involves having a good ear and some physical ability as well as smarts and science. George Carlin can come up with much better jokes than Ed Miller.

I brought up the example, in another thread, of Von Neumann, and his thinking that the world would be doomed once the Soviets got nuclear weapons, so we should attack them at once. Was he more likely to be right in this than, say, Dwight Eisenhower, or J. Robert Oppenheimer? I've also posted about Robert McNamara, a brilliant man who saved Ford Motor Company. He was indeed among The Best and the Brightest, the group of brilliant men John Kennedy brought to Washington. They studied Vietnam backwards and forwards, using their brilliance to design a disastrous policy because A) they were looking at all the wrong things; and B) [and I think this is the important thing] they were so sure that because they were smarter that they were more likely to be right, that they refused to consider other possibilities.

Beware the experts when they get out of their field of expertise. All too often, brilliance + hubris = trouble.