| Prejudice against the religious
I have to confess to a fair amount of bias against religious people. They just often don't seem very bright to me. When I engage them in debate on religious topics, their reasoning is typically atrocious, usually resorting to circular reasoning or simply just declaring their faith.
Is it right for me to think like this?
In my blog I have a missive against racism, based on the simple mathematical principle of variance. It seems this should also apply to the prejudice I am discussing here.
Basically, whether or not religious people are, on average, less intelligent than others, that does not say a lot about any single religious person. The fact is, human intelligence varies greatly, within nearly all groups. There are enough smart religious people for it to be worth the effort of my giving religious people the benefit of the doubt.
I know this, intellectually.
But, I resent the influence that religious zealots have on society, and this causes a considerable anger that helps feed this bias. Clearly, I need to work on practicing a degree of initial patience, when I encounter those who are burdened with excessive religious belief.
What is your opinion on religious folk?
Do all things with love. |