This piece totally avoids the basic fact that both liberalism and atheism are a trend among intellectuals, so to be accepted into those circles many times one is A) inundated with a liberal and Atheist culture and B) must accept it to be considered valid among their peers. To not deal with this in the paper is a gross oversight due to the fact that the trend of the two has been strong since Marx and Nietzsche. The fact that liberalism and atheism exist in intellectual society can be as easily explained by cultural trend issues as it can be explained by the fact that intelligent people believe in it. To negate and absolutely leave out that their is a cultural trend at work invalidates the entire piece because it is a huge motivating factor in human influence and it is not cared for. The fact of the matter is there is group think at all levels of society, intellectuals may think they are not affected by it and some may not be, but the reality is their are trends among all groups and liberalism and atheism are trends among intellectual circles. This is junk and most likely self validating junk.
i am generally regarded as an intelligent person, but i personally believe that intelligence is a highly overrated quality. speaking generally, being surrounded by intelligent people is "better", but if i ask myself, i'd rather have my girlfriend faithful, sweet and caring, my friends funny and reliable and my co-workers expert and easy-going because being stuck in an office with an intelligent moron 8 hours a day is not something i wish for myself.<p>so, while it is obviously better to have a friend fun AND intelligent or a girlfriend sweet AND intelligent, in the end pure smartness is never the first quality i look for in people.