Religious People = Stupid

[brokenandtwisted]

Made you click.

Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

People with higher IQs are less likely to believe in God, according to a new study. (cont'd)

Link

I think this is cute...swivel would enjoy it.

I am an agnostic existentialist. Where would I be? My IQ is somewhere between 133 and 148 according to numerous eQuizzes (which are not accurate). So, I call bullshit on this study. IQ in my honest opinion is not an accurate way to measure intelligence, as I believe in multiple intelligences.

[Mandella]

LOL! Yes, you did make me click.

I'm too smart for religion, yo.

[Athena]

I believe this to be generally true, and will prove itself even more decisively now that ever-increasing populations have access to education through the internet. Education pokes holes in tradition, which is the cornerstone of faith, in my opinion.

It by no means suggests that atheists are automatically intelligent or that religious people are inherently stupid. In fact, the smartest man I know, my Godfather, is a devout Catholic. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Stanford Law, on a Rhodes (or Sloan, I can't recall) scholarship.

And, you're absolutely right regarding IQ. It's simply a measure of capacity. I've got an IQ that could get my into MENSA, but, because I do not actively pursue an education, I get blown out of the water by people with significantly lower IQs. The number alone means next to nothing - it's all about what you do with your capacity. By god, I need to get myself back in school. :p

Did you know that CEOs and other substantially successful folk tend to be in the roughly 110-130 range? It could be said that people can be "too smart for their own good"; so distracted by everything they see and are capable of pursuing that they end up accomplishing nothing. "Jack of all trades, master of none" syndrome.

Speaking of swivel, I wonder how he's doing. Three Things is not quite as engaging without him.

[brokenandtwisted]

Mensa...I should apply for membership. I took their test (if this stretches the page, I will delete the image):



Yeah I think the IQ "structure" is inherently flawed. I have friends in the arts who's IQ's are 90-100 and they are of the most intelligent people I know. Silliness...it just caters to logic and reason, nothing more. I have some of the most broken logic in the world at times too, and have still scored above average.

[Harley_Tech]

Made you click.

IQ in my honest opinion is not an accurate way to measure intelligence, as I believe in multiple intelligences.

Was the IQ test ever intend to test intelligence? Honest question.
My understanding is that the test is a measure of your ability or capacity to learn.

As a young person, I was tested a couple of times but don't have a clue what the scores were. I recall Mom being pretty happy about the scores, but that could be she was just happy I was not a blithering idiot.

I would have a hard time assigning much value to tests done when I was 8-10 years old.

R

[brokenandtwisted]

Was the IQ test ever intend to test intelligence? Honest question.
My understanding is that the test is a measure of your ability or capacity to learn.

As a young person, I was tested a couple of times but don't have a clue what the scores were. I recall Mom being pretty happy about the scores, but that could be she was just happy I was not a blithering idiot.

I would have a hard time assigning much value to tests done when I was 8-10 years old.

R

To my knowledge, yes it is for measuring intelligence. If it were for "intellectual capacity" I doubt it would receive as much criticism as it does. Intelligence quotient (IQ) is basically the "indication of the amount, degree or level of intelligence" by definition. If it's simply for capacity, I'm not sure.

[RevAnne]

Another interesting thing about IQ- I once asked a professor if IQ changed over a lifetime and she said no, unless there was some kind of brain damage or damage from drug use or something like that.

I asked because when I was a small child my IQ was said to be in the genius range. I sure don't feel like one.

[Pete Bondurant]

my IQ was said to be in the genius range.

That is very interesting, because my I.Q. was said to be on the firing range...all over the floor....the walls....the ceiling...

[RevAnne]

That is very interesting, because my I.Q. was said to be on the firing range...all over the floor....the walls....the ceiling...

LOL

[michelle]

Forrest Gump anyone...:)

[Countess Olenska]

Another interesting thing about IQ- I once asked a professor if IQ changed over a lifetime and she said no, unless there was some kind of brain damage or damage from drug use or something like that.

I asked because when I was a small child my IQ was said to be in the genius range. I sure don't feel like one.

Same here. I had the completely battery of testing. I scored lowest on manual dexterity but was on the upper end IQ wise. I think your current IQ would be relative to what you do with your brain. I score lower now simply due to the fact that I don't use half the skills scored. Jesus, tongue twister....
I don't think you have to "use it or lose it" but I do think that you get rusty, much like trying to take up roller skating after a 10 year break.

Anyways, It's more fun to play dumb. :D

Religion and Intelligence....hmmm. I would be an Atheist Existentialist...does that even make sense? There is no god, we exist for the sole purpose of existing. General statements about intelligence are not black and white. I've met many a smart dumb person. I've met many a dumb smart person.....Religion is a crutch, a comfort for those not comfortable with just existing. I don't think it makes someone stupid to look for solace in faith. It's just not for me but feel free to choose for yourself.

I just don't agree, is what I am trying to say.

[Heather]

I believe it. I think religious people who don't understand things have a way of saying "God did it" and brushing it away. If you don't have that reasoning, it leaves you more open to actually find answers.

[CPL CHUD]

I'm an idiot and I don't believe in God. Where does that leave me?

[Waldowas]

For some reason intelligence seems to be quite a hot and sensitive topic compared other human skills and properties like e.g. physical stregth. It's totally ok to compare physical differences and even have a very large area of life dedicated to open competitions based on them called sports. But if we start to measure and compare intelligence and especially start to compare various groups like sexes or ethnic groups surprisingly many people start to feel uneasy and often raise up all kinds of complaints.

The correlation between high IQ and low religious intensity seems indeed to hold in most studies made on the topic, but which is perhaps even more interesting that even knowledge about the contents of religious tenets and doctrines is better mastered among the non-religious people than religious ones themselves which sounds a bit ironic

Divine Ignorance: America's Religious IQ Lacking

(AP/CBS) A new survey of Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths.

Forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn't know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the body and blood of Christ.

More than half of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the person who inspired the Protestant Reformation. And about four in 10 Jews did not know that Maimonides, one of the greatest rabbis and intellectuals in history, was Jewish.

"We're a nation of religious illiterates," Boston University Professor Stephen Prothero told CBS News chief national correspondent Byron Pitts. "We have a lot of people who really love Jesus, but don't know much about him. We have a lot of people who believe and hope that the Bible is the word of God but they don't really bother to read it."

Source and more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/...n6907477.shtml