Marcus Bales wrote:
> True believers are anti-intellectuals by definition. If you believe
> the Bible you cannot question freely or test honestly or conclude
> truly; instead, you must simply believe.
>
> This is not to say that one cannot believe in God, even the Christian
> God, and still be a scientist; but it means one cannot be a "true
> believer" -- that is, someone who always chooses whatever the holy
> writings or the holy people say over the evidence.
On 11 May 2005 at 15:30, Jeffrey Payton wrote:
> That would mean, then, with regard to your definition, that the
> reverse would also be true...that one cannot be a 'true non-
> believer' and be an 'intellectual' (because one would have to
> 'believe' in 'non-belief'). Right? Have you shot your own
> 'intellectual' self in the foot?
The notion that "non-belief" is just a species of "belief" is simply
wrong, in the same way that the notion that "indifference" is simply
a species of "anger" is wrong. Of course it CAN be, but it isn't
necessarily so. SOME people use indifference to express anger; SOME
people embrace non-belief religiously.
"True believers", irrespective of what they believe in, are anti-
intellectual by definition because the tenets of a true belief reject
the notion of science implicitly where the rejection is not explicit.
One cannot enjoy the freedom to explore other points of view or other
explanations of pheneomena, by declaring up front that one abjures
those freedoms together with any other point of view or explanation.
Marcus
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