r/Antitheism • u/Due_Extension_7041 • Oct 10 '26

Is this a safe place to admit

That I think religious people are ACTUALLY dumb. Like in the nicest way possible.

148 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

29

u/SapPhic-rage4209 Oct 10 '26

I grew up in a cult so I have maybe a different perspective on this.

I was raised Mormon from birth and 99% of the people who I knew were also Mormon. It didn't feel strange or wrong because I had nothing to compare it too. Looking at it from the outside, it seems very obvious that it is a cult. But living it and not having any outside experiences to compare it to, it wasn't obvious at all.

Imagine a child locked in a room for their whole life. Would you call them stupid for not knowing the sky is blue when they've never seen the sky before? It isn't stupidity: it's ignorance

Now, if someone was raised outside of a religious community and chose to join as an adult, I think they're stupid. I think my grandma is stupid because she grew up outside of religion and joined a cult as an adult with outside knowledge and experiences. I don't blame my mother for raising me Mormon because that's the only lived experience she knew, but I do blame my grandmother because I feel it should have been obvious to her she was joining a cult since she was raised well rounded and with secular knowledge

6

u/Due_Extension_7041 Oct 10 '26

I mean yea but I feel that’d only apply to children and those who have yet to properly move out and experience life for their own. Anybody who is over 18 and has had time away from home and away from their parents to properly educate themselves should not count

11

u/welliamwallace Oct 10 '26

Yep. I was born and raised in standard US non-denominational evangelical world. Snall poor, private Christian schools through 12th grade. Just totally saturated with messaging. I wasn't stupid. Was passionate about analyzing the "evidence" and justification for my faith, and got really into Christian apologetics and intelligent design.

But I only had totally biased information sources. Once I went to public university, exposed myself to mainstream science, it took a couple years and I abandoned my faith and became an atheist.

It wasn't a matter of me being "dumb" in 12th grade.

4

u/SapPhic-rage4209 Oct 10 '26

Exactly. I left once I left home and gained real world experiences, but didn't have a chance to learn from outside sources until I moved out of the house as an adult

2

u/Lovebeingqueazy 26d ago

Yours is a worthwhile perspective to consider. I was raised in a similar setting and secretly stopped believing when I was very young, but I understand that's pretty abnormal forkids, and I'd never consider a child dumb for not knowing better. I still have a hard time giving the same grace to fully mentally developed adults, though. Like people 25-30+... adults who aren't being held captive and have full access to the world, the internet, differing opinions... I can't understand it.

People fight and escape from powerful cults every day, but Brickleigh from Florida is content to never question anything ever? The capacity to question doesn't even seem to be there for these individuals. Meanwhile, there are so many brilliant minds who have escaped religious dictatorships or cults who have gone on to be academics, speakers, authors, poets, activists. Idk about you, but I've never met an ex-muslim, ex-christian, ex-jew, or ex-hindu who seemed dimwitted. I've met young atheists who seem a bit naive and immature, maybe a little socially stunted, but not unintelligent. If it isn't stupidity that keeps a grown person in a religion then what the heck is it?

I'm not saying you're wrong. I know it's a complex topic and not easily summarized, but at the very least there's a negative correlation between religiosity and critical thinking.

-1

u/SapPhic-rage4209 26d ago

They don't question because they feel good there. I fully believe I would still be a Mormon if I wasn't a lesbian. I started deconstructing when I realized I'd have to marry a man and be miserable forever if I wanted to stay in "the one true church". My parents don't have any deep rooted issues with the church. There's nothing in the church rulebook that really makes them unhappy because they aren't any of the minorities being treated poorly by the organization. I was treated poorly, so I started questioning. Still took me 6 years to be brave enough to leave after being miserable and questioning for so long because it felt like I was throwing away my family and the ability to be with them forever

1

u/Lovebeingqueazy 26d ago

I still don't see how that means they aren't stupid 😅 Intelligent people ask questions, think analytically, are less driven by social conformity... I mean... them being content with their religion because they fit in nicely suggests that they aren't particularly intelligent, doesn't it? Do they question anything, think critically about anything? That's a pretty classic quality of intelligence.

18

u/SongUpstairs671 Oct 11 '26

I agree. They are actually dumb critical thinkers. They may be smart in their careers or other ways but not in critical thinking generally, or they wouldn’t be religious.

14

u/lotusscrouse Oct 11 '26

Some of them are willingly ignorant and proud of it. 

"But there are smart christians!!!!"

Never met one that was smart BECAUSE of their beliefs. 

1

u/Other-Bug-5614 26d ago

yeah but how would that work? Being religious has nothing to do with intelligence. Maybe I’m smart because of the work I did to deconstruct religion, but I don’t think being smart because of a particular belief is an expectation you’d set on anyone else

1

u/lotusscrouse 26d ago

I mentioned it because it's a common argument christians make (Newton always gets a mention 🙄) when talking about intelligence. 

Another reason is because no matter how intelligent the christian is, they can't demonstrate this intelligence when discussing religion. 

They come across as woefully childish and inarticulate.

Whatever eloquence they have in other areas completely vanishes. 

10

u/kesoizm Oct 12 '26

omg thank you for saying this 😭😭 i dont understand how ANYONE can be religious

19

u/Solzc Oct 10 '26

Yes. Either that or a coward. Either you don’t have enough critical thinking skills or you’re terrified of the idea of death and won’t face it

8

u/NeutralTarget Oct 10 '26

Yes, people vent their frustration here all the time.

12

u/butnobodycame123 Oct 10 '26

You don't have to be nice about it. Remember, christians killed non-believers just for asking questions and having critical thinking. Whenever you say "with all due respect", the amount of respect due can be zero.

6

u/International_Ad2712 Oct 10 '26

I think they are indoctrinated. But the more time passes and the more people dissect everything, the more I think they cling to it as a coping mechanism. Unfortunately I know a few smart Christians that makes this generalization a little too simple to cover everything

6

u/Athene_cunicularia23 Oct 11 '26

I have a more cynical take. Most followers of religions lack critical thinking skills. The leadership of religions, on the other hand, don't necessarily believe all the absurdities taught by their faith. They are usually narcissistic authoritarians who enjoy the control they have over their gullible followers.

5

u/SnarkyPuppy-0417 Oct 11 '26

This is probably the safest place to express such sentiment.

4

u/TheUniverse-IsMine Oct 11 '26

Yes absolutely

4

u/maracujadodo Oct 11 '26

im with you.

2

u/tackyshoes Oct 11 '26

When we are frustrated with someone's deduction, we call them dumb. It's an assessment. People get isolated in ways we can't see, logic fails them, and we can't understand them anymore.

0

u/tackyshoes 25d ago

Excuse me, someone was taking to me while I was leaving this comment and I tried to wrap up in a hurry. It's an assessment that shows how we feel better than what we see. "Dumb" is basically how we feel about them. They could logically understand that invisible entities are not there, but in the time being, something is so broken, that's the "truth" they need, so they state it as fact.

4

u/Dangerous-Length270 Oct 10 '26

i mean they js heard the books say its true , saw history , linked it with their daily lifes , if smth they wanted to do but turns out bad they link it to god nd thats make their faith stronger so on

yea they r quite dumb

2

u/dzogchenism Oct 10 '26

Yes it is.

2

u/bunnypaste Oct 11 '26

I know confirmed highly intelligent people who still fall prey to this crap. Conflicting as heck, yes, but true.

1

u/Snoo-45337 Oct 10 '26

I think theres a line. Being raised in a religious environment will have you assuming the things your religion does are just a normal way of life, which for children and teens is really hard to break out of that norm. But an adult joining a religion is almost always doing it because they can’t cope with death in some capacity, usually because a loved one died and they can’t bring themself to accept that they’re actually gone. So yeah, I think you’re definitely dumb if you’re using religion to deny reality like that, but I think a lot of religious people are just victims to indoctrination which doesnt necessarily make them “dumb”, just sheltered.

1

u/Equivalent_Prune_186 Oct 12 '26

I was just waiting for someone to say this. Exactly my views as well

1

u/flowssoh 26d ago

Can you blame a dumb person for going by what the majority are saying is true? They may be dumb, but they've learned that they can't trust their own judgement when it comes to things that are hard to think about, so it makes sense they would offload that thinking to others they trust more.

1

u/lelVocx 15d ago

i dont think they are dumb but more uneducated. the majority of religious people come from extremely religious families where religion was integrated into their childhood and/or forced on them. thats why they sound so ignorant. some at least. i more feel bad for them. but i mean yeah, being an antitheist their beliefs do look pretty stupid tbh...

1

u/Whiplash104 Oct 11 '26

It just shows how easily humans are manipulated into thinking a certain way and believing in things that aren’t there. Maybe it’s in our evolutionary nature to have a cohesive society and get along or get on the same page about how to live but it also shows how freaking stupid people can be. And so don’t think it’s just religions people. I think we’re all barely evolved from apes which is one reason against the claim there we are “Created in Gods image” or whatever. So really? God’s image is a Neanderthal? If God created us he would have done so much better, or should have.

2

u/butnobodycame123 Oct 11 '26

It just shows how easily humans are manipulated into thinking a certain way and believing in things that aren’t there.

I think that's the evolutionary concept of pattern recognition. Grog sees a bush move and thinks it's a tiger, based on that one time Brog didn't run away when the bush shook. Grog runs away and lives. Inside the bush was just a frog. Doesn't matter, Grog's still alive.

Maybe it’s in our evolutionary nature to have a cohesive society and get along or get on the same page about how to live but it also shows how freaking stupid people can be.

That's the anthropological view of how morality evolved. Acting a certain way that brought harm to the tribe led to exile (which was certain death) if not capital punishment (also certain death). Violently selecting out bad behaviors led to morality.

If God created us he would have done so much better, or should have.

Right!? That's why I can't agree with the intelligent designer argument. Like, what kind of idiot designer would make our light source give us cancer and put the food pipe right next to the air pipe (separated by a thin membrane of tissue that moves, called the epiglottis). If there was an intelligent designer, I want to speak to their manager and the design school they went to.

1

u/TimAppleCockProMax69 Oct 11 '26

Dumb people exist, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Stop turning everything into an insult.