The Political Asylum

Michele · Guest

I thought AL and Adrien would find this interesting...

Quote:

Geek’ brings to mind a long list of traits- Glasses, obsession with science, a high IQ. Recently, however, a new trait has come to light to add to the long, esteemed list: Atheism. Despite being widely known, there has been very little in the way of explanation proposed for this phenomena. It is the purpose of this article to address this deficiency.

Although this trend is obvious to most people who have visited Digg or several other similar sites, perhaps we should take a moment to have a look at some of the statistics. On a Digg religion poll, out of a base of over four thousand votes taken, 45.56 percent are reported to be atheists. This makes them the single largest religious group on Digg, followed closely by Christianity, at 29.08 percent. Likewise, on Shuzak, a statistical examination of the 271 users who actually declared their religion showed the percentage of Atheists to be close to 70%. Now, both of these are at least fairly accurate, given that they are most used by those who have strong opinions about their religion. Now that we have shown that it is, in fact, a trend, the only thing that remains is to ask the question 'Why?'.

In order to attempt to formulate a theory on this topic, it becomes vital to define geek in the first place, not an easy task. So, we now ask the question, 'What is a Geek?'. There can be many kinds, Art Geeks, Music Geeks, Computer Geeks, Math Geeks, you name it. Geeks are the people you want to talk to when you need to know something but perhaps don't always want to invite to your parties. They are the people that collect information almost compulsively and nurture deep understandings of very obscure branches of knowledge. Geeks are people that live by their wits and believe in meritocracies and recognition not privilege or nepotism. They value our knowledge and appreciate those who can appreciate that and more importantly, add to it. They find great joy in learning a new thing, to extending our knowledge and sharing knowledge with another that can appreciate it. We are diverse, we are everywhere, we are different.

This leads at a cursory glance to the simple explanation of 'geeks tend to be different, so they look beyond the mainstream religious explanations'. However, several other explanations have been proposed as well, one of them being that given the social aspects of religion, a person who does not particularly care about socialization, or interpersonal interactions might find some of the allure gone.

Another explanation that has been proposed is that geeks tend to be interested in how the universe works. Upon looking into it, many find the complexity of the universe to be astounding. From the delicate and intricate dance of subatomic particles to the raging of stars thousands of times larger than our earth, the complexity and beauty of the universe awe many of those geeks who have looked deeply into physics. It might make sense to think that many such geeks simply find something as simple as a creator an overly simplistic explanation for something so elegant.

Yet another idea is that scientists (and geeks) tend to think in terms of logic. Because they are intelligent, they believe that their approach to problems is right. Religion has no place in science. Most of what we know is gathered from reading, watching and hearing various mediums. Since we choose what to read, watch, or hear, all three of these faculties are fundamentally biased. Since geeks have a strong bias towards logic, the end result is a disbelief in a higher power, which relies on faith.

A second aspect of intelligence is that a person who has grown up with the notion that he or she is more intelligent than those around (possibly a correct view) wants to get the most satisfaction from that intelligence. The quickest and most reliable way to be rewarded for intelligence is to prove someone else wrong (critical thinking). Such a strategy gives you an immediate result and also establishes a sense of superior intelligence. Being constructive is much less rewarding. So it is obvious that being critical and taking down other arguments is a much more appealing use of This leads many intelligent people to spend time attempting to disprove many established ideas that do not make sense to them.

The absence of proof does not mean there is no proof at all; but it does give a strong reason to doubt if there is any. Geeks have conditioned themselves to think logically, just as the religious have been conditioned to replace logic with trust in what they are told. What can be extracted from this is that geeks are not atheists simply because they may know "more" but also because they choose to think differently (whether or not they think superiorly is a question for another debate).

Of course, after all that, we still don't know the answer to our question. There is a limit to how much speculation can be done in a few hundred words. However, hopefully we have shown some possibilities, and set some debate in motion.

The above article was collaboratively authored by Rob, Jawad, Constantine, and Josh, with Ati serving as main editor and compiler. All of the authors are large-brained, opposible thum equipped hominids. Please visit this thread to continue discussion on this topic.

http://m4th.com/Articles/Why-are-geeks-often-atheists.php

AngryLiberal · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:58 am Post subject:

Firstly lets be done with the implications of this article: Yes Geeks tend to be Atheists, but this does not mean that Atheists tend to be Geeks. The article is right in pretty much everything it says but it ignores other groups of people who are typically atheistic.

I'm a fierce individualist, I won't stand for others telling me what to do, I'm also a loner. The herd mentality gene present in humans which makes us gregarious creatures seems somewhat subdued in my make-up. This makes religion very unattractive to me, I don't "want to belong". Couple this with critical thinking and you have a born Atheist.

I'm sure if you did a study on Hippies from the flower-power generation you could split them into two groups, critical thinkers and non-critical thinkers, the first group would be predominantly Atheist and the second group would be predominantly spiritual but hold beliefs outside mainstream religion. Diamond Lil might be a good case study for the second group.

Anyone who hates suppressing their own individuality & personal autonomy and who is a critical thinker is likely to become an Atheist.

Just to give you some idea how strong this burning desire for individuality and personal autonomy is my make up, even if the church could prove their God existed and he was going to pass judgement on my soul when I died, I'd still refuse to live my life according to bible.
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Goodbrit · Inmate of the Asylum Joined: 05 Nov 2006 Posts: 859

i misread-i thought this was about atheistic greeks
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adrien · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:49 pm Post subject:

Amusing, but I can't say I really recognise myself in their description.

First I had a look at this Digg poll. As I expected, it is mainly US : 1843 answer from the US (and not mentionning 1460 "unknown" whose stats closely miror the US ones), versus 368 from the UK, and only 44 from France. The global "48 % atheists / agnostics" is certainly relevant regarding the US figures. But given the small pool for the French stats, I'm not sure our 66 % atheists / agnostics are significant regarding the stats for the whole population (non-believers represent in France between 40 and 50 % - depending on the polls.) The proportion is even higher among the youngs, so my beliefs are far from being noticeable and "different".

Second their definition of a "geek" is extremely broad, and could apply to scientists as well as to Star Wars hardcore fans. I'm a scientist for sure, but am I a geek? I don't think so.

Now, as for their arguments: first, they mention "socialisation": they say that socilisation is an important aspect of religion - and I tend to agree with that -, and thus geeks being loners would not be interested by this aspect. I agree that as a loner the idea of communion always repelled me. But are geeks loners, really? I'd rather think they are on the contrary deeply attracted by communities, as long as they share the same interests. It may be that they somewhat replace a religious community by another one centered around their own hobby, but that sure does not apply to me.

Their second argument is the only point where I could broadly recognise myself. But believers could use the very same argument in favour of God's existence (the universe is so "elegant" and complex that it could not have appeared by chance). So it does not really apply to me either.

The third point is we would be subject to a confirmation bias, in which we would be influenced by reading only what support our preconceptions. In the case of geeks, this would reinforce their inclination towards rationalism, and thus atheism. And again, I don't really feel concerned by this argument, as my point of view on religion has been formed mostly by confronting it to religious people.

So maybe the last point, that atheism would be the consequence of a tendency "intelligent people" have to try and prove mainstream views wrong, would apply to me? Well, not really. As I said faith is not really a dominant trait in France, and I don't think it is possible to convince someone that their beliefs are "wrong". Well, I don't even consider myself that my beliefs are "right", and I always try to be constructive - which, contrarily to what they say, I find much more interesting and rewarding than trying to prove others wrong.

Now as for their conclusion - well, it amounts to say that geeks are atheists because they are atheist : it seems an evidence to say that believers and non-believers "choose to think differently" about religion.

Which is, in fact, the only point where I recognise myself : when they say that geeks and scientists "tend to think in terms of logic." As A.L., this coupled to my taste for loneliness explain much of my agnosticism. Probably a stronger tendency toward "critical thinking" would turn me into a real atheist.
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wakeyboy · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:28 pm Post subject:

I don't know about geeks being atheists, but I do find atheists to be rather dogmatic. Isn't that ironic?
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Michele · Guest

I'll reply more on this in a bit but just wanted to make clear that I wasn't singling out adrien and AL as geeks. I was just curious what they thought about the article because they are our resident atheists here and have been more scientific than others. Wink

After all, if you frequent a message board for social reasons you are either a geek or have psychological issues (seriously! this is based on research done on frequent chat users!) I'd like to think most of us here are in the former category.

Anyway, being a geek is a good thing. It means you're probably smart and in love with increasing knowledge. Who could fault that?

AngryLiberal · Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:02 pm Post subject:

wakeyboy · Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:57 pm Post subject:

adrien · Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:55 am Post subject:

Michele · Guest

Agreed. People who want to believe in God should just leave science out of it. And... atheists should not try to apply sicence to religion. It's never going to work, until God him/herself pokes his/her head through the clouds and says boo.

AngryLiberal · Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 1:41 am Post subject:

diamond lil · Inmate of the Asylum Joined: 02 Jan 2007 Posts: 825

The evidence isn't constantly shrinking. It hasn't been shrunk at all.
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A state owned pleasure dome decree

Oh gentle geezer, Oh blood. 'Tis not for you to hear what I speak. Dunfor has OD'd.
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adrien · Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 10:07 am Post subject:

diamond lil · Inmate of the Asylum Joined: 02 Jan 2007 Posts: 825

Maybe you should try and be rather less supercilious, adrien?
_________________
In Manchester, did Tony Blair
A state owned pleasure dome decree

Oh gentle geezer, Oh blood. 'Tis not for you to hear what I speak. Dunfor has OD'd.
theonlylil@yahoo.co.uk

adrien · Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 12:37 pm Post subject: