Thread: Are religious/stupid people literally parasites?

I know the title seems weird but hear me out.

After billions of years of evolution humans are developed.

Now we have these religious people, that dont contribute to scientific advancement at all. Because they believe evolution is a lie and we were created and all that.

On the other side of the fence we have the normal/smart people. That figures out stuff. And makes further technology possible.

BUT...

because we are the same species, and ideals and "mind sets" arent enough to truly divide us. We allow them to "feed" on our discoveries and technology and also allowing them to keep their beliefs and stupidity into reproduction.


If evolution is true then allowing stupid/religious people to reproduce slows down the advancement speed of our race right?

Just thoughts of mine, so tell me if im wrong. But from my point of view it would seem that the ignorance and stupidity in teaching false and irellevant information
as in religions - has and is causing enormous damage to our race.

Originally Posted by Raziell

If evolution is true then allowing stupid/religious people to reproduce slows down the advancement speed of our race right?

one word that will stop you dead in your tracks : eugenics

You are simply looking for excuses for your intolerant attitude.

Originally Posted by Raziell

Now we have these religious people, that dont contribute to scientific advancement at all.

That would be people like Newton, who was deeply religious, or the Roman Catholic priest, Le Maitre who first proposed the concept that developed into the Big Bang theory, or the muslim scholars who preserved and built upon the work of the Greeks, or the thousands of practicing scientists who just also happen to be followers of one religion or another?
You may find that if you begin an argument with a faulty premise, then your conclusion will be wrong.

Originally Posted by Raziell

Because they believe evolution is a lie and we were created and all that.

You seem to be conflating religious people with Christian fundamentalists. You do realise that, for example, the Roman Catholic church fully accepts evolution. (It was, after all, the monk Gregor Mendel, who laid the groundwork that delivered a mechanism to explain Darwin's findings.)

Originally Posted by Raziell

On the other side of the fence we have the normal/smart people. That figures out stuff. And makes further technology possible.

Yes, I see. And which side of the fence were you on?
Excuse me. That was rude, but really, your observations are nonsensical. There are plenty of dumb scientists and there are some very smart religious thinkers.

Originally Posted by Raziell

We allow them to "feed" on our discoveries and technology and also allowing them to keep their beliefs and stupidity into reproduction.

Well the stupidity here is largely on your side. Their beliefs are largely environmental, not genetic. Brought up under different cicumstances their belief structure would be different.

Originally Posted by Raziell

If evolution is true then allowing stupid/religious people to reproduce slows down the advancement speed of our race right?

Wrong. For the reasons noted above. a) religious is not the equivalent of stupid b) many religious people contribute to scientific and technical advances. c) religious people are so largely because of their environment.

Originally Posted by Raziell

Just thoughts of mine, so tell me if im wrong. .

You are wrong. :wink: But welcome to the forum anyway.

I second all of Ophiolite's observations, so I will restrict my own to this:

Originally Posted by Raziell

If evolution is true then allowing stupid/religious people to reproduce slows down the advancement speed of our race right?ant information

The definition of evolution is simply this: change in the gene frequencies of a population. When it comes to simple, bare-bones evolution there is no such thing as advancement or rising up or improving, etc etc. Change has no positive or negative value.

If you're talking about evolution by natural selection, then you're speaking of change wherein the genes that best increase relative reproductive success are more numerous in every succeeding generation. Thus an organism may be able to improve had well adapted to the environment it is.

But remember the ultimate currency of adaptation is how many successful offspring you have. In that sense, members of religious groups that promote very large family sizes and more or less outlaw birth control are far more reproductively successful than people who use birth control and only have one or two children. If you want to use terms like "advanced" in an evolutionary framework, then it is arguable that members of certain religious groups are much more advanced than those of us who do not follow their tenets.


Don't get me wrong, Raziell - as Ophiolite said, extreme fundamentalist religious thinking and refusal to change does indeed slow the progression of science and knowledge. But it has nothing to do with evolutionary fitness. In point of fact, you are committing an error which many fundamentalists use as an argument against evolutionary study - you are using the scientific theory of evolution to justify your personal bias against certain types of people. Your bias may be justifiable in general, and is in fact shared by many members of this forum, but no scientific theory should ever be used in that way. When it comes to value and moral judgments, you have to take your own responsibility for them.

Originally Posted by Harold14370

You are simply looking for excuses for your intolerant attitude.

I agree Harold. He has the arrogance to say that anyone who does not share his views is a parasite. No wonder he cannot coexist peacefully with them.

No for the simple reason you are confusing Stupidity and Belief


Stupidity is Sawing off a tree branch, whilst sitting on it

Belief is finding Reason behind all the unanswered scientific questions, to explain our existance in the most obvious way,



the proof is in the pudding, we have all these Fantastic technologies and at the base of them is religion, The pryramids wouldn't have been created if the people hadn't blindly followed a leader they truely belived was a god. National Religions act as Crowd Control and as the one base thing that unites huge masses, for example, tell me one other thing in history that has had 3 billion people all agreed on, besides Roman Catholocism?



assuming you are not an ignorant child I can see where you are coming from and it is in fact Human Intelligence that is slowing our evolution not Religious stupidity, 80 thousand years ago people belived a monstrous entity was what plagued their cattle and killed people, as a result they worshipped it and gave offerings to it, eventually they killed the bear and realised it wasn't a god, the religion built around it crumbled and a new, more modern one took it's place, With modern Religions, people are smart enough to encorporate new advances and keep the religion going, when Gallilaeo Suggested the world was round, this went against church stature, so they persecuted him, 200 years later Columbus Proved gallelaeo correct, Normally the curch would have crumbled and a new one sprung up, Instead they effectively said, "oh yes that was god's test har har fooled you" and the religion carried on, Now we have several religions far too old to be useful which are slowing the effects of moderninity (if that is even a word :-D )



but Religion and stupidity are not the same, it's like saying all black men have huge genitalia it's simply not true

Originally Posted by Booms

it is in fact Human Intelligence that is slowing our evolution not Religious stupidity,

1) There is no evidence that human evolution is slowing, and genetic data in fact suggests that our evolution is increasing in speed - there are a lot of recent changes in our genome.

2) As I tried to explain in my last post, this is NOT an issue about evolution. It is an issue about technological advancement. Raziell was worried about scientific research and confused that with evolutionary change. It appears you are doing the same.

I stand corrected,


*bows out to superior knowledge*

Wrote this when i was really tired, no excuse what so ever really. But when i read my own post and your responses now i realize how wrong i am in so many ways. Guess my hate over religion got me carried away.

Feel like doing a facepalm at myself right now.


Guess harold couldnt have been more right.

Originally Posted by Raziell

Wrote this when i was really tired, no excuse what so ever really. But when i read my own post and your responses now i realize how wrong i am in so many ways. Guess my hate over religion got me carried away.

Feel like doing a facepalm at myself right now.


Guess harold couldnt have been more right.

Everyone has a moment like this. It's an important learning experience to have - don't worry too much about it. And definitely don't let it stop you from participating in discussions here.

Originally Posted by Raziell

If evolution is true then allowing stupid/religious people to reproduce slows down the advancement speed of our race right?

I doubt there's much we could do to change the speed of evolution, assuming that we wanted to. We might change its direction, but then we'd be doing little more than projecting our desires onto an otherwise objective-free natural process. Evolution has no goal.

We don't need to second guess evolution any more than we need to second guess gravity. They'll both do their thing irrespective of our actions. What we consider to be favourable traits may be nothing of the sort when natural selection does it's thing. Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that narrowing diversity through eugenics makes a population much more susceptible to negative selection in the event of any significant shift in selective pressures (think ecological disasters, environmental change or epidemics). Diversity is stability.

Originally Posted by Raziell

But when i read my own post and your responses now i realize how wrong i am in so many ways.

Congratulations. You are a now a member of that very small group of elite individuals on online forums who readily admit to having been wrong.
Since I often use sarcasm and irony in my posts I want to make clear that I these are genuine congratulations. As paralith said, don't get hung up on it and certainly continue to contribute.
Cheers
Ophiolite

Originally Posted by Raziell

I know the title seems weird but hear me out.

After billions of years of evolution humans are developed.

Now we have these religious people, that dont contribute to scientific advancement at all. Because they believe evolution is a lie and we were created and all that.

On the other side of the fence we have the normal/smart people. That figures out stuff. And makes further technology possible.

BUT...

because we are the same species, and ideals and "mind sets" arent enough to truly divide us. We allow them to "feed" on our discoveries and technology and also allowing them to keep their beliefs and stupidity into reproduction.


If evolution is true then allowing stupid/religious people to reproduce slows down the advancement speed of our race right?

Just thoughts of mine, so tell me if im wrong. But from my point of view it would seem that the ignorance and stupidity in teaching false and irellevant information
as in religions - has and is causing enormous damage to our race.

non-religion based science is only 150 years old.

No time at all considering 100.000 years of human evolution.

But when i read my own post and your responses now i realize how wrong i am in so many ways.

Raziell, I think it's incredible that you admitted that you were wrong like that. I know I would've died of embarrassment or resent either way.

Although I do consider "Stupid people" as parasites because of how they never make an effort to understand their lives, I think that religious people have many plausible ideas/theories at times. Many religious people have provided excellent ideas to humanity (refer to Ophiolite's exhaustive yet wonderful facts)

I might sound unbelievably pompous by labeling some people as "stupid", but in my opinion, "stupid" means not having the will or motivation to rectify or improve one's situation. And those are the kind of people who make it only by living off of other people's valuable resources.

I'm new to this forum, so a thousand pardons if I offended anyone in any way.

Originally Posted by Raziell

because we are the same species, and ideals and "mind sets" arent enough to truly divide us.

Oh yes, ideals and mind sets can very much divide us, religion as an ideal and mind set divide all of mankind, in so much as wanting the destruction of the other groups.

Originally Posted by tritai

I'm new to this forum, so a thousand pardons if I offended anyone in any way.

As my post count reveals I am not new here. If anyone is offended by the good sense in your post they can leave. You can very definitely stay. Welcome.

Originally Posted by Raziell

Now we have these religious people, that dont contribute to scientific advancement at all.

Most definitely, those who have and would impede or stop the advancement of science were and are religious.

“Religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are not- that is, when they have nothing to do with suffering or its alleviation. Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral- that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings…[This] explains why [Christians] are more concerned about human embryos than about the lifesaving promise of stem-cell research.” Letter to a Christian Nation - Sam Harris

Because they believe evolution is a lie and we were created and all that.

oh boy, are we going to go the path of the religion sub forum over here? seems that u've put up ur point of view in the wrong forum. but anyways, nice one Q. but we have to acknowledge too that even the greatest scientists/astronomers believe in the existence of god (though how this links to religion is debatable) only after their greatest discoveries.

Originally Posted by oceanwave

but we have to acknowledge too that even the greatest scientists/astronomers believe in the existence of god (though how this links to religion is debatable) only after their greatest discoveries.

Most everyone believed in the existence of god, one had little choice but to do so, regardless of whether or not they did believe. You'll find very few scientists/astronomers who believe in gods these days.

Originally Posted by oceanwave

oh boy, are we going to go the path of the religion sub forum over here? seems that u've put up ur point of view in the wrong forum. but anyways, nice one Q. but we have to acknowledge too that even the greatest scientists/astronomers believe in the existence of god (though how this links to religion is debatable) only after their greatest discoveries.

I don't know of many overtly-religious, high-profile scientists. We tend to be an atheistic bunch. There are exceptions of course.

hahaha...neither am i religious too but i tend to be open on certain facts to avoid being labelled as narrow minded. im a scientist by nature! woohoo!

that said: you are so open minded that ur brain falls out (some quote i heard/saw from somewhere)

You'll find very few scientists/astronomers who believe in gods these days.

You're right.
Perhaps scientists consider God and religion as lame excuses for anything/everything that happens..........

It's like oh, im not getting enough rain for my crops....darn u, Jesus.
Or, My baby has blue eyes like me! Thank you god for making my baby look like me!

uhhhhhhhhhhh...................i dont think so. scientists just dont have that kind of laid back atmosphere where everything's solution is god.

In science, god is never the panacea.