They are, after all, probably smarter and more articulate than you. You must think that their position is so indefensible that only a crazy person could defend it.
For the average person, theism/atheism is just a matter of culture.
Among the very smart, successful and articulate (generalizing from 3 extremely smart theist friends and 3 family members), theism indicates certain errors of epistemology.
All 6 smart theists that I know make the following systematic pattern of errors in areas other than theismv (as in, during discussion of empirical questions): 1) over-reliance on inference (“jumping to conclusions” being a common symptom) 2) failure to use parsimony as a discriminating tool.
Additionally, 2 of the 6 do not distinguish rhetoric from argument while thinking, and sometimes accept phlogiston-style explanations, and 1 of the 6 has demonstrated too much trust in authoritative sources such as textbooks and scientific papers (A good scientist always keeps the possibility that the result is wrong and the experiment was flawed in mind) .. although to be fair a lot of equally smart atheist friends have made the same error so that may not be related to theism. Data pending on the others.
In addition to people i know personally, I find that writings from known smart theists follow the same pattern...as do the writings of many atheists. But among people who get it right...well, they’ never turn out to be theists.
Sounding “intelligent and articulate” is about being able to make connections, spot internal contradictions within systems, and having a large store of knowledge and vocabulary. You can ascertain someone on that dimension within a few hours of conversation. The above skills can only be ascertained by a more in-depth discussion.
I’m not sure if the skills I listed are a matter of culture or of general cognitive health, but I know that I, at least, was making the same sort of errors (with stuff unrelated to theism) until around 16-19 years of age—at which point I began gradually undergoing a shift. (My metric for “shift” is “does my past self’s written work sound stupid or naive to my present self” and I’m 24 now.) That’s the age when I started seriously reading scientific literature, but it’s also an important stage of brain maturation, so it’s hard to say what caused it.
My point is, I don’t think smart theists are “stupid”, but I do think they have certain systematic recognizable deficits in their thinking which makes their epistemology untrustworthy. People who believe Theism seem to systematically make exactly the sort of errors I would expect from people who believe Theism...a position which is, in essence, a chain of over-long inferences which leads to an unparsimonious conclusion. (It’s possible that knowing they were theist colors my observation, of course)
For the average person, theism/atheism is just a matter of culture.
Among the very smart, successful and articulate (generalizing from 3 extremely smart theist friends and 3 family members), theism indicates certain errors of epistemology.
All 6 smart theists that I know make the following systematic pattern of errors in areas other than theismv (as in, during discussion of empirical questions): 1) over-reliance on inference (“jumping to conclusions” being a common symptom) 2) failure to use parsimony as a discriminating tool.
Additionally, 2 of the 6 do not distinguish rhetoric from argument while thinking, and sometimes accept phlogiston-style explanations, and 1 of the 6 has demonstrated too much trust in authoritative sources such as textbooks and scientific papers (A good scientist always keeps the possibility that the result is wrong and the experiment was flawed in mind) .. although to be fair a lot of equally smart atheist friends have made the same error so that may not be related to theism. Data pending on the others.
In addition to people i know personally, I find that writings from known smart theists follow the same pattern...as do the writings of many atheists. But among people who get it right...well, they’ never turn out to be theists.
Sounding “intelligent and articulate” is about being able to make connections, spot internal contradictions within systems, and having a large store of knowledge and vocabulary. You can ascertain someone on that dimension within a few hours of conversation. The above skills can only be ascertained by a more in-depth discussion.
I’m not sure if the skills I listed are a matter of culture or of general cognitive health, but I know that I, at least, was making the same sort of errors (with stuff unrelated to theism) until around 16-19 years of age—at which point I began gradually undergoing a shift. (My metric for “shift” is “does my past self’s written work sound stupid or naive to my present self” and I’m 24 now.) That’s the age when I started seriously reading scientific literature, but it’s also an important stage of brain maturation, so it’s hard to say what caused it.
My point is, I don’t think smart theists are “stupid”, but I do think they have certain systematic recognizable deficits in their thinking which makes their epistemology untrustworthy. People who believe Theism seem to systematically make exactly the sort of errors I would expect from people who believe Theism...a position which is, in essence, a chain of over-long inferences which leads to an unparsimonious conclusion. (It’s possible that knowing they were theist colors my observation, of course)