That one dang genius who believes?

[RJT]

Using some stats that we have (I have no problem changing these %, if someone has other suggested %s) we know that perhaps 90% of geniuses in the science category do not believe in any god.

To makes things easier for me to write, let say we take the 1000 top scientist in the world. And out of these top 1000 we have 900 who think there is no god. We then have 100 who think there is some type of god.

We then want to narrow the top 1000 down to the top 100. Let’s say the % stays the same ( I have no problem agreeing it might go to higher than 90% when we do this). So we now have 90 -no god and 10 god.

Let say we narrow it down to 10.The score is 9 no god -1 god.

For this exercise it doesn’t really matter if the % stay the same. I want to reduce it to the lowest number in the group that still leaves us with 1 god person.

So we now have 1 believer and x number of non believers.

Now we have a conversation.

I want to know what the heck this one believer thinks.

What if he is the “Einstein” of the group. Then what?

I also want to know the lowest number we can get to and still have a Christian in the group.

What if he is the “Einstein” of the group. Then what?

[Jim T]

You are essentially bringing up a logical fallacy - "Appeal to (Unqualified) Authority"

[Prevaricator]

and there's the implied premise that it is possible for a christian to also be a "genius."

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
and there's the implied premise that it is possible for a christian to also be a "genius."

[/ QUOTE ]

Newton

[A_C_Slater]

So what.

Bobby Fischer supposedely has a higher IQ than Einstein did and he believes in all sorts of wacky and inane things.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
So what.

Bobby Fischer supposedely has a higher IQ than Einstein did and he believes in all sorts of wacky and inane things.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just responding to the suggestion that genius and christian were mutually exclusive.

Newton was both.


chez

[RJT]

[ QUOTE ]
So what.

Bobby Fischer supposedely has a higher IQ than Einstein did and he believes in all sorts of wacky and inane things.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, this kind of illustrates my question, then what?

[David Sklansky]

If Newton was alive now and was STILL a religious Christian, I would significantly alter my personal assessment about whether I thought Christianity is true.

[sexdrugsmoney]

[ QUOTE ]
If Newton was alive now and was STILL a religious Christian, I would significantly alter my personal assessment about whether I thought Christianity is true.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know you made this point believing that if Newton was alive today, you'd wager that he wouldn't be a Christian, yet considering Newton believed the Bible to be the inspired word of God and read from it daily, I think if he saw the possibility that the Book of Revelation may be fulfilled by looking at certain things in the world like that TIME Magazine story I made you aware of, it's a good chance he would still be a believer.

50/50 IMHO - He would either lose his faith entirely or be more certain of it.

Pity he's not alive so we could watch.

Cheers,
SDM

[malorum]

[ QUOTE ]
If Newton was alive now and was STILL a religious Christian, I would significantly alter my personal assessment about whether I thought Christianity is true.

[/ QUOTE ]

This reliance on arguments from academic authority, is perhaps characteristic of the American educational system.
Right through undergraduate level it appears to involve the regurgitation of facts and arguments based on "those more learned than I".

This IMHO leads to a mis-understanding of scientific models as actual insights into the way reality supposedly is, rather than as predictive models.

If I found a quote of Newton stating 2+2=3 (in 'normal', non-modulo base ten arithmetic) would you reconsider your pot odds calculations???