Atheists are smarter , but it seems also more creative.

[Obvious Leo]

Gawd, you're a great story teller, so you're a writer heh?

I've been a writer all my life but I've always preferred to think of myself as a story-teller. However as a philosopher of science the stories I've always preferred to tell relate to matters of the nature of reality and the way that we as humans interpret the world we observe around us. To me reality is perfectly real but the way that we understand it is nothing more than a procedure of thought. By the way this is hardly bleeding-edge philosophy because I know of no major philosophical school which has ever presumed to claim anything different. Physics, however, is another matter.

[thedoc]

So now that you understand, which are the more intelligent, all the ones that agree, or the one that differs? Have you had any dealings with probability? If so, what would it lean toward?

Is self preservation a kind of intelligence? To fit in with the majority is to maintain ones safety in a crowd, to buck the system is to put one's self at risk of being eliminated.

[Obvious Leo]

Is self preservation a kind of intelligence? To fit in with the majority is to maintain ones safety in a crowd, to buck the system is to put one's self at risk of being eliminated.

In a sense it all comes back to evolution. If we project ourselves backwards in time as a species to our hunter-gatherer roots it's not hard to see how being able to make a distinction between "us" and "them" would have definite survival value. The problem is that we haven't outgrown the habit.

[SpheresOfBalance]

The one that differs is the most creative. If he makes an issue of it, he's the most pig-headed. If he gets martyred for it, he's a damn fool.
I have no way of assessing his intelligence.

Why?
I'm thinking that it's because you don't know what it is that any of them believe, such that you can compare it to what you believe you know, such that you can effectively judge, no? Or how would you put it in words.

And honestly, I don't believe that anyone could say that the one was necessarily more creative, with any sense of certainty, unless they knew what it was that they all believed.

[SpheresOfBalance]

It seems to me that you believe this was about me, not at all doc, it was about philosophy, and that which is it's focus, knowledge! At least that's why I'm here!

Again this was a general observation about people in general, not about anyone in particular, especially not you. Someone once said that if you had X number of people and asked their opinion on a topic, you would have X number of opinions on that topic. I'm not sure it's that bad but it's close. Part of the problem is that people need to see things as they are, not as they would like them to be. When people don't have the correct information to start with, you can't expect them to come up with the correct answer from faulty information. To put it simply, my perception of reality might not be the same as yours, my understanding of the world might not be the same as yours, so my answers will not be the same as yours. If each of us could live with the differences, there would be no problems, but too often one person will insist that they are correct and everyone else is wrong.

BTW I am involved in a thread with just such a person on another forum, and that person's ideas have been demonstrated to be wrong many times, but she continues to insist that she is correct and everyone else is wrong. And she has been on the internet for well over 10 years, and always with the same results, others will show her where she is wrong, but she refuses to give up her beliefs.

OK doc but we have a history, and it includes others, with various interactions, beliefs and propositions posed, that may or may not hold any water, and it surely seems that your thoughts continue some of those potential falsehoods. My mind can be like a vise! But then it may only be coincidence.

Anyway, it is true that I have seen many disagree, while it's only due to the language they have chosen.

[Skip]

The one that differs is the most creative. If he makes an issue of it, he's the most pig-headed. If he gets martyred for it, he's a damn fool.
I have no way of assessing his intelligence.

Why?

Why which?
Why I have no way to assess his intelligence is that I haven't met him.
Why he's a damn fool to insist on his version against the overwhelming majority is that he can't win, can't make a worthwhile point: if he thinks his horrible death will teach anybody anything or save anybody from anything, he's drastically overestimated his own species. Even an original thinker can be wrong - indeed, they're far more often wrong than right.

I'm thinking that it's because you don't know what it is that any of them believe, such that you can compare it to what you believe you know, such that you can effectively judge, no?

It's nothing to do with me or what I believe, or even the correctness of whatever they believe. The odd-man-out who goes against the prevailing trend usually gets punished by the people who have less imagination. The Chinese have a saying: "The nail that sticks out gets hit on the head." and they know a thing or two about conformity.

And honestly, I don't believe that anyone could say that the one was necessarily more creative, with any sense of certainty, unless they knew what it was that they all believed.

It's usually the more creative who apprehend differently from the average. The factual content of belief is a function of knowledge. The ability to take a different look, from another angle or distance; to spin a different yarn from the same plot components, is a function of creativity. At least, that's close enough to my definition of the word. I'm unaware of anyone else volunteering a definition. Though, of course, my attention is spotty; I could have missed it.

[Hobbes' Choice]

For the vast majority of people religion is not a choice at all. It is the habit of custom and tradition.

I can certainly see that. So (typically) is religion or god more of the driving force for a person? Perhaps they don't want to buck tradition... and they want to make their family proud of their participation. They're doing what they're told. They're doing what's expected of them. So, likewise in this situation, it seems that "god" still comes after the indoctrination.

God never "comes" at all.
But the idea of god comes part and parcel of the indoctrination, from day one.

[attofishpi]

What is leaving you so convinced there is no God, or even further, that if there is one, that one will not be made aware of its existence?

Insufficient reason. You're asking the wrong question of a non-believer. Most people who don't believe in god don't believe in god because there is insufficient reason to do so. That's all there is to it. What I don't get is why this should bother you so much. I don't give a fuck what you believe so why should you give a fuck what I don't believe?

Its what people do on an internetz forum, they debate with people of differing opinion to themselves. On a philosophy forum, i think its mandatory.

[attofishpi]

This is the heart of the problem. Belief is about choice. Any fool can chose. It takes more effort to discriminate on the grounds of knowledge and evidence. And it can take imagination to be able to free oneself of the endemic assumptions of your community, and its tacit ideology.

Where is this evidence and knowledge that you possess that convinces you that there is no God?

The burden of proof is with the person making the claim.

Now there's a Hobbes cop-out. You are the one claiming to have knowledge and evidence contradicting the existence of a God.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Where is this evidence and knowledge that you possess that convinces you that there is no God?

The burden of proof is with the person making the claim.

Now there's a Hobbes cop-out. You are the one claiming to have knowledge and evidence contradicting the existence of a God.

What god, which god, where?
I claimed no such thing.
No cop-out, no problem.

[attofishpi]

mmm pissed at myself for stating 'of a God' rather than 'of God' considering any argument of God is of the one God no matter how many variations man has implied via religions.

[Hobbes' Choice]

mmm pissed at myself for stating 'of a God' rather than 'of God' considering any argument of God is of the one God no matter how many variations man has implied via religions.

So what do you mean by "God", or "a God"?

[attofishpi]

mmm pissed at myself for stating 'of a God' rather than 'of God' considering any argument of God is of the one God no matter how many variations man has implied via religions.

So what do you mean by "God", or "a God"?

Panentheism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism

[SpheresOfBalance]

The one that differs is the most creative. If he makes an issue of it, he's the most pig-headed. If he gets martyred for it, he's a damn fool.
I have no way of assessing his intelligence.

Why?

Why which?
Sorry! I usually put any question 'directly' under that which I'm questioning. I'm sure that you've noticed that I'll chop up ones quote, so as to accomplish this. If I don't chop it up it's usually the last thing one said.

Why I have no way to assess his intelligence is that I haven't met him.
I understand this, (yet I'm talking about them not him alone), but I'm asking for the dynamics involved contained within that meeting. This quote of mine addresses why I believe, that you believe, you can't assess his intelligence:

I'm thinking that it's because you don't know what it is that any of them believe, such that you can compare it to what you believe you know, such that you can effectively judge intelligence, no?

(I've added 'intelligence,' to my original quote which makes it clearer.)

Why he's a damn fool to insist on his version against the overwhelming majority is that he can't win, can't make a worthwhile point: if he thinks his horrible death will teach anybody anything or save anybody from anything, he's drastically overestimated his own species. Even an original thinker can be wrong - indeed, they're far more often wrong than right.
I clearly understood the fool part, and I agree with you. Though again I see that it's biased, in this case, by the rather common, 'fear of death,' that most of us share.

I'm thinking that it's because you don't know what it is that any of them believe, such that you can compare it to what you believe you know, such that you can effectively judge, no?

It's nothing to do with me or what I believe, or even the correctness of whatever they believe. The odd-man-out who goes against the prevailing trend usually gets punished by the people who have less imagination. The Chinese have a saying: "The nail that sticks out gets hit on the head." and they know a thing or two about conformity.

And honestly, I don't believe that anyone could say that the one was necessarily more creative, with any sense of certainty, unless they knew what it was that they all believed.

It's usually the more creative who apprehend differently from the average. The factual content of belief is a function of knowledge. The ability to take a different look, from another angle or distance; to spin a different yarn from the same plot components, is a function of creativity. At least, that's close enough to my definition of the word. I'm unaware of anyone else volunteering a definition. Though, of course, my attention is spotty; I could have missed it.

Let me frame it so you can see that it's not true in this case. His belief is that: "this thing is black!" Theirs is that "Actually, it only appears to be black, because it's surface absorbs all visible light," In this case they are also correct, compared to this worlds understanding, but that has nothing to do with the creativity quotient, the example was just off the top of my head so as to prove a point. Their more complex belief, compared to initially not having any such belief, can only be seen as more creative, no?

But my main focus is on the topic at hand, not creativity, rather Intelligence, or as the OP called it "smarter."

[Skip]

Well, I understood the op to say "Atheists are smarter, but it seems also more creative" .

By which I took it to mean that some questionnaire made up by some people
(whom I haven't met)
used some criteria
(that I'm not familiar with)
to arrive at a comparison of theists and atheists
whereby they determined that atheists [on average] are the smarter
(which we already knew from an earlier, much-discussed article)
and - this is the new addition: also more creative of the two sample groups under comparison.


And I took that to mean:
we can use some definition of creativity
(which I did)
and some criteria for measuring and comparing this attribute
(which I have postulated)
and discuss why the atheist sample group might have shown more of the attribute than the theist sample group.
(just as we had previously used some definition of "smart" or intelligence to discuss the finding of that earlier study)
So I did. Expressing my own opinion and claiming no clairvoyance or omniscience.