I don’t think one can be really smart and religious at the same time.
[ …]
Look at it this way: if someone spent much of their lives worshiping Santa, elves, fairies, or even Zeus, and maintained in all seriousness that Santa delivers presents to Western children at nearly the speed of light each Christmas, you’d think they weren’t playing with a full deck. But somehow it’s okay if they do the same with Allah, Jesus, Muhammad, God, Vishnu, and the like. They can profess such stuff and still be considered “smart.” I can’t agree.
Coyne is tippy-toeing along a really fine line here though, generally, I feel about the same way.
About the Abrahamic god, it is possible to speak dispositively: He’s a fake, case closed, and belief in him has been an engine of appalling human misery. I share the view that nobody whose mind works properly can genuinely believe in the god of the Torah, the Bible, the Quran. But there is more in play than mere intelligence; there is character, too. I venture there are a very great many people — possibly even a majority — who don’t believe in the Abrahamic god in any of its several iterations — but lack the wherewithal, the character, to say so plainly. After all, though the “nones” are increasing rapidly, it remains the case that Christianity has succeeded in making it widely disreputable to reject their ridiculous god.
If you doubt that, come to North Carolina and listen to some idiot Baptist preacher denounce the wicked secular humanists. Nobody whose comfort level is the path of least resistance would even think of throwing a rotten egg at their nonsensical vaudeville act.