Although I'm not a religious person myself, I believe that being a creationist doesn't really mean being stupid, although believing something unexplainable might seem so, it isn't. Now I can't give you some examples but I think that some of the great minds of humanity where christians.
Just try to not listen to much to media, it uses the basic formula that grief and suffering=more viewers=more money, it can't be trusted and it always shows the world in a pessimistic way.
To give you an example, another documentary has proven that the average IQ raises with 1 point per year so I for one think that you can still put high hopes in humanity.
It's badly worded which doesn't help. It mentions 'Darwin's theory of evoloution', but the generally accepted model used today isn't 'Darwin's theory', it's just based on his original ideas.
I think IQ and believing in something doesn't really correlate in being stupid.
To not question what you believe and not being a bit skeptical every now and then is stupidity in my books. Relaying solely on Santa, Eastern Bunny and Gods to provide the ultimate and the only truth while denying anything else is just childish.
Why are they stupid? Just because they don't think evolution alone can explain the structures of living organisms it doesn't mean they are stupid. I personally like to keep an open mind, and I think a combination of evolution and intelligent design could be possible. I don't think some giant god built everything in 7 days, but the universe is essentially just a really big explosion, it's crude enough to have been grown in the same way we grow trees and plants. We don't determine the exact structure of a plant, we just plant the right seed and give it the right conditions to grow in.
My parents did the same. They weren't as fanatic as others, because they did so more out of a tradition. I was never an enthousiastic christian kid, and I just attended certain events and clubs because I had to. At the age of 14 I started to question my parents' ideas, and decided not to be christian any longer (if I ever was :shrug. Some parents are really good at training their children though.
Problem is intelligent design is really a pseudoscience whose only purpose is to justify teaching creationism as a science in schools in US.
As far as I'm concerned they could start teaching nouvelle cuisine as a science in schools and it would be more useful and mind-opening than creationism.
One should also point out that relying on the concept of creation opens the door to a boatload of logical issues, last but not least, the problem of explaining how one thing could exist without having been created simply moves up a level, and in a land where everything and its opposite can be held as true simply because there is no reality check.
PS:
I laugh at these attempts of making science pass as just another type of religion. When I'm done laughing I start worrying
It starts with a misconception. Evolution is a solid scientific theory. It's not something you can choose to believe or not.
Perhaps not, but it does mean they choose to ignore solid scientific evidence, in favour of wishful thinking and/or childhood imprinting. Understandable (from a psychological point of view), but not very smart.
Evolution is about the development of life on Earth, starting from the first bacteria. It has nothing to say about the origins of the universe.
Being Christian does not necessarily mean you reject evolution. Ken Miller, the biologist who defended evolution in the Kitzmiller v. Dover lawsuit, is a Catholic.
There have been great minds who believed in the literal truth of Genesis, but these have become very scarce in the last 50 years, when the evidence for evolution became compelling (especially since the discovery of DNA).
For me, that merely proves that we should take IQ tests with a grain of salt. If the IQ tests really measure intelligence, then an average teenager of today could become a star at Cambridge, if he could time-travel back to 1930. With an IQ of 180, he'd equal Wittgenstein, Russell and Turing... But I expect he'd fail miserably at the entrance exams.
Did you know, according to bonafide scientific research you are less likely to survive a major illness if you are aware that somebody is praying for you. The religious fraternity have condemned the results as "a statistical anomaly" without stopping to ask why.
You see, it's one thing to believe in rational explanation, and it's another to just believe, but it's worse still to carry the burden of somebody elses beliefs.
This is why indoctrination of the young should be abolished. Religious people should practice their rituals in private and churches should be turned into community shelters for the homeless and gothic metal music venues.
Tolerance of religion is propagating hate (seeing as all religions cast judgements of who is a sinner and who isnt, and all brand me a sinner).
I'm not kidding.
This is the 21st century, it's time to move out of the 1st century.
. Some parents are really good at training their children though.
