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Podcast
Are Athiests Smater Than Christians
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Transcript
0:00
Hi, I'm Dave DeWitt.
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Today I'd like to talk about the question, are atheists smarter than Christians?
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A friend recently asked me if atheists are smarter than Christians.
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Actually, I think he asked, why are atheists smarter than Christians?
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Anyway, I found the question intriguing, so I wrote down some thoughts.
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As we encounter the liberal progressive agenda in, say, novels, movies, TV programs, or the
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public school system K-through-college, we're indoctrinated with the idea that atheists
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are smarter than Christians.
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Atheists are usually depicted as scholars, thinkers, heroes, scientists, other well-adjusted
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people.
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Christian leaders are often depicted by some wacko handling snakes, some legalist nutcase,
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or some idiot walking around screaming nonsense holding a Bible to his chest.
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And the average Christians are usually portrayed as unintelligent, uninformed people who naively
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follow the wackos.
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Today's liberal progressive agenda ignores the scores of hardworking, moral, family-oriented,
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sound-minded, smart Christians involved in local churches, pari-church ministries, and
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missionary organizations all over the world.
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And these people, because they have a moral and theological foundation in the truth, are
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smarter than smart atheists.
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Having said that, it is indeed true that many atheists are smarter than many Christians.
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It's probably even true that the average atheist is smarter than the average Christian.
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Biblically, that should not be true.
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So why is that?
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Well, first we should define a Christian.
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I shall here use the word Christian to identify a person claiming to have salvation by having
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received Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, as described in John 1, 12, and 3, 16.
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Their sincerity or lifestyle is not a consideration here.
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My definition would eliminate cults like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses because they
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add to the Bible biblical salvation.
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It would also not include people who are just part of a Christian country like England
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is Anglican, Greece is Greek Orthodox, and so on.
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Second, we should define an atheist.
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There are two kinds of people who call themselves atheists.
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Most common are those who say something like, a good God would not allow all this suffering.
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These are just God-haters, not true atheists.
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The true atheists are anti-supernaturalists.
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They believe there's nothing but the natural world.
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Not believing in God is just a byproduct of their anti-supernaturalism.
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For example, their commitment to naturalism is why atheists do not believe in miracles.
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But they usually make the mistake of not distinguishing between what's the mystical and the miraculous.
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Miraculous miracles are contrary to nature events, but like natural events, miracles
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are described as having public objective historical verification, like Moses crossing the Red
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Sea and the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
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Given the predominance of evidence, these events are true beyond reasonable doubt.
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Mystical events are reports of experiences that are private, subjective, and without
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historical evidence, like Muhammad receiving the Koran from the angel Gabriel, or Joseph
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Smith receiving the Book of Mormon from the angel Moroni.
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Atheists are smart to not believe in mystical claims, but they're not smart to equate unverified
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mysticism with verifiable miracles.
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Third, we should define smart.
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The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines smart as having or showing a high degree of mental
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ability.
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They offer synonyms like intelligent and bright.
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The New Oxford American Dictionary defines smart as having or showing a quick-witted
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intelligence.
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They define intelligence as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge.
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We also know that the ability to acquire and apply knowledge comes from being rational.
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We're all born applying reason to observation to make sense of reality.
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When people stop applying reason to reality, we get their mental help or psychological
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help.
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So, I would conclude smart is the mental ability to gain intelligence by applying reason to
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life's observations.
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The Bible does not say atheists are smart.
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The Bible does not discuss atheism per se because there's no evidence of atheists in
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the ancient world.
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During the times the Bible was written, about 1500 BC to 100 AD, most people were polytheists
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with some pantheists in the Far East and the Jews who were monotheists.
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But there's no identifiable atheists.
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Most identifiable atheists appear in Europe in the 1600s, about 100 years after the Protestant
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Reformation.
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However, even though the Bible does not address atheism, the Bible has many statements that
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can be applied to atheism, like Psalm 53 and verse 14, a fool has said in his heart there
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is no God.
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The one who says there's no God in Psalm 53 is probably a polytheist, not an atheist.
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David calls him a fool because he does not believe in one sovereign God.
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What the fool has in common with the atheist is they both deny the existence of a sovereign
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God.
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Conclusion, it's foolish to deny the existence of a sovereign God.
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Application, atheists deny the existence of a sovereign God, so they should not be smarter
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than Christians.
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Proverbs 9.10 says the fear of the Lord's the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge
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of the Holy One's understanding.
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Repeatedly, the Bible connects wisdom and knowledge to the fear of God, and that leaves
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out the atheist.
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But an atheist is not someone without religious fear.
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An atheist is someone who fears something other than God.
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Since the mid-1800s, that fear increasingly comes from evolution, which has become a religion.
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Evolution is not smart because there's no observation of it anywhere.
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But evolution causes atheists to fear.
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They're afraid of things like global warming, overpopulation, the extinction of animals,
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and the exhaustion of the planet's assets.
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With evolution as their religion, they fear things like the traditional family, opposition
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to abortion, regulations of sexual expression, and securing national borders.
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They fear those things and those who support those things because they believe those things
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are destroying progress to a global utopia.
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It's not about preserving the planet, it's about preserving themselves.
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Conclusion, atheists do not fear facing a holy God, but they do fear humans and what
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they can do to destroy the planet and keep it from becoming a humanist global utopia.
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Application, not smart to fear what man can do while ignoring what God can do.
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The atheist is conflicted because God has given us a general revelation of himself in
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two places.
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One is the natural world, as Paul describes in Romans chapter 1.
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For example, the more we learn about the living cell, the further away we are from scientific
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explaining how it got there.
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The second one is our conscience, which Paul explains in Romans chapter 2.
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All humans have a conscience that points to what is right.
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Atheists retreat into things like technology to ignore their internal moral compass.
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Conclusion, it's unwise for atheists to ignore the evidence for God and nature and their
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own conscience.
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Application to ignore the evidence of God and nature and our conscience is not smart.
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Since the Bible says atheists are not smart, why does it seem like atheists are smarter
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than Christians?
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First we need to recognize that smart atheists are not smarter than smart Christians.
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Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, and Christopher Hitchens are not smarter than Athanasius,
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Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Isaac
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Newton, Jonathan Edwards, Ludwig von Beethoven, C.S. Lewis, or Charles Ryery.
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Some smart Christians are smarter than smart atheists.
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Also, if we define smart people as those with a high IQ, those people tend to get educated
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by a doctrine, kindergarten through college, whose agenda is controlled by the liberal
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progressive mentality.
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If you put yourself under an indoctrination, you're likely to be converted to that doctrine.
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The progressive education doctrine generates most of our atheists.
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Atheists do not become smart people.
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Smart people are indoctrinated into atheism.
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But why is the average atheist smarter than the average Christian?
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We've seen that smart atheists are not smarter than smart Christians.
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Also, an application of the Bible says atheists are not actually smart at all.
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So why is the average atheist often smarter than the average Christian?
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I suggest the answer is clear and significant.
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Many Christians are mystics and atheists are not.
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Mysticism makes smart people into dumb people.
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Mysticism is like a drug that drains away intelligence.
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Whereas Christians should always be smarter than atheists, the reality is many are not.
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The main reason is many Christians have exchanged the belief in the revelation recorded in the
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Bible for a belief in mystical mental messaging.
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Instead of going to the Bible for a sufficient answer to what God's told them to do, many
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Christians say, God called me, God told me, God led me.
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Mostly they're referring to mental telepathy, some imagined mental messaging, which they
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claim is from God.
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That belief separates Christians from reason and reality.
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Conclusion What do we know about smart atheists and smart
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Christians?
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Oh, we know that smart atheists are not smarter than smart Christians.
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We know that atheists do not become smart people.
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Smart people are indoctrinated into atheism by the liberal progressive education agenda.
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We know that by applying the Bible we can determine that no atheist should be smarter
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than any Christian.
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We also know that often the average atheist is smarter than the average Christian.
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Why?
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Because atheists are not mystics, and many Christians are.
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All over the world and for all recorded history, rational people have been smarter than mystical
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people.
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Atheists tend to be smarter than Christians in the same way rational people tend to be
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smarter than mystical people.
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Well, thank you for listening.
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A longer paper on this subject with footnotes for the quotes are available on our website
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relationalconcepts.org.
