intelligent less likely to believe in god, page-225

What is intelligence?

Is it being able to live in harmony with nature as indigenous groups did for many years without the need for change, or is it being able to change the environment to suit our own needs?

Is it passing down knowledge through everyday living, therefore ensuring mores are ingrained in the young in such a way that to live is to know and understand one's existence?

Or is intelligence being able to teach our children a more thorough understanding of the science of the universe, therefore ensuring each successive generation searches harder to decode the secrets of our existence?

Call me simplistic but I don't need to know what the latest scientic belief is. Today I read that we may be from outer space, tomorrow there may well be another scientific opinion. I like the idea of the stabilty of having a set of values and living them, not for just today or tomorrow or until the next expert tells me I'm wrong.

I believe in God (for want of a better name) not because anyone has conditioned me to believe this. I follow no religion but have had 'spiritual' experiences, therefore I feel connected to something greater than myself.

Can science really explain away all such phenomenon as near death experiences, astral projections, spitit apparitions etc as being the fantasies of an oxygen-starved brain?

Why is it that nearly all indigenous groups through history have God-like belief systems?

Can they all be wrong?

I guess we will all know the answer when we die, or none of us will.

In the meantime enjoy our moment in time, we'll soon all be gone (relatively speaking) and the world will belong to others to muse over the meaning of life and whether God is watching their every move.