Why are the most educated and respected people either agnostic, pagan, or atheist? (Non-religious)

Question

And *not* what they say they are, e.g.: politicians and people who need the 'attention' that claiming to believe in god gives them?.

Answer 1

because you're a poo face!!

Answer 2

I have often wondered that myself. Not that there aren't some well educated Christians out there. My step mother holds two science masters degrees. BUT she is also very accepting and open minded of other faiths.

Statics also show that as education increased, religion decreases. Still, co-relation does not equal causation. Has I have not looked in to how they GOT those stats, I'm not sure how accurate they are.

I know for pagans, speaking as one, in order to BE a pagan you have to be willing to read. A lot. Especially if you are a reconstructionist (like yours truely). We have no had the luxury that Christianity does in learning since the cradle. Only the most recent generation really does. We also have a great deal that's been lost to us. We must culturally decide how we wish to deal with that both spritualy and acadmically. Recons sludge through texts that have long since been forgetten, many written near the turn of the last millinium and slog through dry acadamic books on literature and archeology. If you aren't real bright, you aren't going to survive long.

Also many pagans, atheist and agnostic value eduacation and intelligence. Many Christians do as well, but there does seem to be a fundamentalist movement that discourages any thing but the Bible. I can only hope they lose thier little battle and don't fling us back to the dark ages.

If you would like to add to your list, LeVeyan Satanist are all very intelligent and driven. They also prize it highly.

Answer 3

I'm a bit tired of treating the over-zealous like people, so I'm just going to be brutally honest with my opinion.  There's this old saying that I don't really agree with that goes: "Those who can't do teach."  Maybe that applies at least partially to the religious.  Those who can't do worship an imaginary being who does everything.  Of course some are drawn to religion for other reasons, but that doesn't negate the fact that faith is an epistemologic safety net.  Kind of a brief survey of the issue, but I guess you get the idea.

Answer 4

I agree with you that most highly educated people are non-believers. People who require a statistic to prove this are trying to quibble in semantics, when they know full well that the great majority of scientists, writers, philosophers, etc. do not believe in an all-powerful God.

I think the reason is that intelligent people are interested in exploring the world as it is, instead of as they'd *like* it to be or have been told that it is.

Answer 5

Where are you getting these "facts" from? Who says that the most educated and respected people are non-religious? There are many people in my school who are smarter than me, but have still retained their religion.

Give me a link to a statistic that validates your question.

Answer 6

Is this a rhetorical question?

p.s. Atheist is somebody who believes in no god.

Agnostic believes in higher power, just maybe not "a" god.

Answer 7

Why is it that men smart men, great men, men respected by all do not belief in religion but pretend to? The answer is simple...they give themselves meaning to life...unlike the rest of the blind fools who follow religion(no offence intended) on "faith". They trust what they can see with their 2 eyes and nothing else. This is why their great, they have not blinded themselves to the facts. There is no god, God religion, most of it is a hoax if you ask me, have you seen the bible? Everything that cannot be explained is replaced with the word "FAITH". Although they do teach people moral values they do teach people how to act accordingly in society, religion is limited, it is limited to what was written a few millinia ago and has not been updated anytime recently. However these brilliant people they make their own rules. They live not by the rules of another man but by their own. You think Jesus was a god? I doubt it...think about it, religion is the worlds biggest con game ever created. jesus was  a religious leader = a magician(illusionist), a visionary, a brilliant man himself in his own right, he was able to understand people very well, he learnt that giving people hope something to belief in would make them follow him. So this smart man created religion, he practically ripped a couple of million people of making them his followers. And after a couple of millenia people still belief it, any reasoning you may give them, they just say your an unholy person and they say there is FAITH. FAITH is so over used that I doubt it had the same meaning in the past.

Over all 1 thing is beyond doubt, the man jesus christ was a genius, whether he is gods son is up to you to decide, I am just opening your eyes to the facts...the least people can do is read this, at least it gives them a chance to view the world in a different light. However I know I probably will get alot of thumbs down and rud remarks thrown at me...someone has to tell the truth and it hurts so deal with it.

have a nice day all :) hope this changes your perspective if not...remember Jesus said if a man slaps you give him the other cheek...

Answer 8

Because they lean toward the cerebral rather than the gut.  They tend to turn away from faith as an answer...and towards something more challenging, more intriguing.

They desire to let will and intellect guide them.  Or, perhaps it's the other way around:

They would have will & intellect control desire.

Answer 9

Most men are wise in their own eyes....

I'm guessing the educated ones aren't any different than anyone else, in that respect.

Answer 10

Sorry, but the most educated people are not the atheists, etc. Modern-day society is so humanistic that they believe only what fills their pre-conceived notions and they accept those who espose those notions as being "intelligent". As to "most-respected", that would mean immoral movie stars, sports stars who use drugs to get ahead, etc.

In other words, it is a testament on our times, our societies, our governments.

And I agree; there are too many who claim to be "religious" thinking by saying so they will win respect.

Answer 11

You have skipped something basic and seem to be asking your audience to accept your premise without any proof.

Respected by whom? Educated in what fields? Who says so? Like one of your other responders, I want to see some statistics and their sources before I would base an answer on your statement.

The phrase "who need the 'attention' that claiming to believe in god gives them" could be taken as a sign of bias on your part. There are no doubt plenty of people like that, but there are also many people who believe in god and are not just 'claiming' to do so, nor are they believing in god in order to get attention.

There are also people who I think "need the attention" that being atheists gives them. Richard Dawkins comes to mind.

Answer 12

Well I can only speak for myself but I'm sure there are others out there that share my view.  I don't consider myself educated and respected, I'm not that vain, but I am a person who likes to ask questions and get answers.  It seems to me that the more drive to find answers that you have the more likely you are to avoid religion.  The problem with any and every religion is that it gives you a set of core beliefs and then piles on tons and tons of traditions and rules that have no purpose.  Religion answers nothing.  It gives all this credit to god yet has not one single actual fact to back it up.  The more you look at religion and question things the less sense it tends to make.  Even when a relgion has a actual fact based reason for a tradition it is normally so old and out of date that it doesn't apply today.  

For example the Jewish aren't allowed to eat the rear half of an animal because it is dirty and evil and not kosher.  The only reason people used to think it was evil was when they butchered an animal they would hang it by its hind legs and start with the meat by the head.  Often they would get to the meat at the rear of the animal and it would have spoiled.  They thought it was evil so they forbid eating it.  Now in this modern age we can keep meat from spoiling and eating a rump roast or something isn't dangerous.  So why keep the tradition?

Religion is full of these useless traditions.  Most of them don't even have a good historical reason like that one.  When I look at religion and realize that apparently I'm going to h**l because I have no problem having a burger on Fridays during lent I kinda get the feeling that god is a spoiled little brat who throws a tantrum whenever he doesn't get his way.  I could go on for days with other examples of things that just make no sense but I think you can see my point.  It is kind of funny in a way that religion is kind of like philosophy in a way.  The problem with both is that being pure speculation you can't possibly come away with anything but the same thing you put in, just worded differently.  The difference though is that religious people have no problem making something up and pretending that it is a real fact.

Anyways I got a bit to rambling, I think that a lot of these educated and respected people have come to realize something similar.  Except politicians, for them I think it is just that they see religion as a tool, like a campaign ad.  The reason they don't believe in a religion is once you do you can't shamelessly use it as a propaganda tool and that just isn't good politics.  Well those are my thoughts, hopefully there was something useful in there and best of luck with your schooling.