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Atheists outperform theists at nearly all reasoning skills

Brickjectivity

Brickjectivity

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
charlie sc said:
There are tons peer-reviewed published scientific articles that use online platforms to recruit participants.
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...tons of peer reviewed non-repeatable studies. That's sociology, and it relies heavily upon p-values and most importantly random sampling. To get meaningful p-values you need random sampling. Do you know what a p-value is? I'll give you a chance to explain it.

This study didn't use random sampling did it? Instead it used excuses. The distribution of its sample was probably not close enough to the population distribution to be taken seriously, yet because its in Sociology....
 
Quintessence

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
charlie sc said:
Sometimes the truth hurts, but trying to understand it while going against it is different from being in denial. I consider the denial part passive aggressive. I have no complaints though.
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I haven't run across the notion that denial is passive-aggressive before. That, combined with the idea that what is presented is "the truth" is.... odd. The study isn't actually about "theists" and "atheists" either, but you titled the OP in a way to suggest that it is. That's odd too. The study actually uses self-identification as "religious" which is not the same question as asking whether or not one identifies as theist. Granted, the categories the study uses are bizarre, so I can understand the whoops of substituting "theist" for "religious" when discussing this study. Their categories are kind of terrible, and so is the study sampling, frankly. The researchers themselves acknowledge these weaknesses, which is awesome, but let's not pretend that these findings are "the truth" of the matter, yeah? Most importantly of all:

"Similarly, the small-to-medium group effects observed here mean that there is very substantial overlap across populations in terms of cognitive performances. It is therefore inappropriate to generalize these effects to specific individuals."​
 
Sky Rivers

Sky Rivers

Active Member
Audie said:
Fair enough, though you must agree that it goes
beyond mere opinion, nothing more.

If your annoyance is equally expressed for those
who assert their religious convictions as fact,
great. Keep it up.
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If sufficient evidence doesn’t exist for a claim, it’s simply something a person asserts as truth, not a fact.
 
Audie

Audie

Veteran Member
atanu said:
However, exception proves.
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Keep workin' on them cognitive sills!

For lo-

It appears you not know what the idiom you
half-way quoted means.

The presence of an exception applying to a specific case establishes ("proves") that the general rules exists.

:D :D :D
 
Audie

Audie

Veteran Member
Hawkins said:
So if it is assumed that Satan > atheists > theists. Then who owns who in the end.

Example:
------------
The hard truth is the humans don't know how to identity a hard truth.

The question should be asked in a reversed order. That is, if God is a truth then what should be done?

The only way such a kind a truth can convey among humans throughout a history of thousands of years is by means of human witnessing via a religion. That's the only way unless God shows up in front of all mankind. However in the case that God has a strong reason to hide behind, then believing in witnessing by employing a religion remains the only way for such a truth to convey.

So in identifying a truth, it is rather similar to how all other humans can identify what you ate in one of million meals you ever had in your life. You eat 3 meals a day, so by the age of 31 you have eaten more than 30,000 meals none of which you can evidence. A certain meal can be identified only when an eyewitness testify what you ate on a particular day. So it boils down on how reliable and credible the claimed eyewitness is. If a close friend of you said the he had a big meal on a Christmas day, you will choose to believe him. That's how such a truth conveys, most of the time it remains the only way.

Similarly, a true religion should be identified this way. Christianity is established by eyewitnesses testify by martyring their own lives. There's no a better way to make this more reliable and credible! To put it another way, even when Jesus is a truth, you can't find a better way to convey such a truth!

Humans divide themselves into various societies. This is a normal establishment. It is because so that a true God must urge to "preach the gospel to the every corner of the world". So if the god of a religion didn't do so, he can't be a true god. Preaching a truth and to invite for faith to believe is the only way for such a kind of truth to convey.

Other than the reliability and credibility of witnessing, the reason why the god of a religion must hide behind is another factor worth examining (or reasoning). In Christianity, there is a final covenant between God and men saying that humans need to be saved by faith. So if the God of Christianity shows up, humans can no longer be saved. If on the other hand, He doesn't show up at all, humans don't even know that such a covenant exists. The only way which works is for God to show up to His chosen eyewitnesses for such a truth to convey through valid human testimonies based on those eyewitnesses accounts.

That being said. The only hard truth is that humans don't have the intelligent to work out a hard truth. They think that they are intelligent but they aren't. They think that the OP is an intelligent and plausible reasoning but it isn't. One day when they find out that they wind up in a kind of hell, it's because they are actually stupid!
Click to expand...

Maybe this is one of those exercises in psychological
projection that we hear about?
 
Audie

Audie

Veteran Member
Sky Rivers said:
If sufficient evidence doesn’t exist for a claim, it’s simply something a person asserts as truth, not a fact.
Click to expand...

Um yeah-so do you get equally annoyed when people
say they know there is a god? May I recommend post #84
with its assertions of facts not in evidence?
 
charlie sc

charlie sc

Well-Known Member
Brickjectivity said:
Don't deny what the report admits "Several limitations should be considered. Most notably, both of our cohorts were self-selecting populations of internet users which could have introduced sampling biases."
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All studies have limitations, though it's not like these results conflict with previous literature that weren't done online. ;) In fact, this just adds to and confirms the previous literature. This study had a massive sample size, which adds to it's credibly, and tried to find out why rather than if.
 
Brickjectivity

Brickjectivity

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
charlie sc said:
All studies have limitations, though it's not like these results conflict with previous literature that weren't done online. ;) In fact, this just adds to and confirms the previous literature. This study had a massive sample size, which adds to it's credibly, and tried to find out why rather than if.
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You didn't post any previous literature, and this same study keeps coming up on this forum.

Soft science studies put forward only to annoy people. 60,000 picked values are not the same as a random sample. Only a random sample approximates the population well, even if you use nice software and lots of covariant analysis. Why isn't sex a consideration? The word 'Sex' doesn't even appear in the report.

Why does Sociology get a special version of Science that doesn't require confirmation of results?:)
 
Sky Rivers

Sky Rivers

Active Member
Audie said:
Um yeah-so do you get equally annoyed when people
say they know there is a god? May I recommend post #84
with its assertions of facts not in evidence?
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I consider the existence of a creator obvious. However, to an Atheist, my assertion is nothing more than opinion.
 
Audie

Audie

Veteran Member
Sky Rivers said:
I consider the existence of a creator obvious. However, to an Atheist, my assertion is nothing more than opinion.
Click to expand...

So special rules for special people. The "theist" does
not get called on statements of opinion as fact, but
atheists do.

Whatevs, just checking.
 
charlie sc

charlie sc

Well-Known Member
KenS said:
My understanding is that when people have higher IQ, their leadership capacity goes down.

I wonder if their capacity for spirituality goes down too along with their leadership ability and explains why their capacity to hear and understand God goes down? Maybe because they rely too much on their own capacity? Certainly those who decide to hear God, seem to be able to go farther than their capacity, IMHO.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-14279-001

It is reported that once Carver prayed, “Mr. Creator, show me the secrets of your universe.”

“Little man, you’re not big enough to know the secrets of My universe, but I’ll show you the secret of the peanut,” was the reply.


George Washington Carver ca. 1910
His prayer and heaven’s response launched him into a lifetime of discovery.
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Umm, I looked at the abstract of the article you linked and it seemed like it was talking about how people perceive leadership lol. I can't answer your questions and it seems like they're a lot of assumptions within them. Though I appreciate your intellectual honesty on the matter :)
 
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