I think finding a link between religious belief and IQ is false dichotomy.
Being intelligent doesn’t mean you are rational. Look at Bobby Fischer.
Not to me surprising that most of these individuals have some sort of spiritual perspective, but the writer seems to really stretch interpretations of Christianity to include some in that category on scant evidence or a beyond broad definition of what counts as Christian.
I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed...
..at least I know not to click on any link that takes me to “The Examiner”!
I avoid it for the same reason I avoid sex with Paris Hilton - you’re going to catch something that will take a while to clear out!
I ignore junk like this. They say Hillary Clinton has a high iq based on this or that ( no actual test score) or they give tests scores for people who have been dead for hundreds of years- all liberal heroes. Junk
1 Corinthians 1:26-
“For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise,. . “
Happened to read this message just before getting online this morning and it offers some basis to explain why:
come! come and win the friendship of My Holy Spirit to become collaborators with Him, for He will graciously initiate you into Our mysteries by opening your mind and your eyes to understand and perceive the Imperceptible yet graciously offered to you at no cost;
I believe there are very few true atheist because the belief in absolutely nothing is not conducive to, nor an example of, intelligence. It is a however a trait that psychopaths and sociopaths tend to share and many of them score quite high on IQ test, but their social skills and table manners tend to be terrible.
8+6=10?
Albert Einstein:
Your question [about God] is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations.
With all due respect, not everyone in the world has taken an IQ test, and even those who have have not necessarily taken tests capable of discerning IQs at the one-in-a-billion level. (For example, the ceiling of some common tests is around 160, corresponding to not even one-in-a-million, meaning, >7,000 people in the world, out of seven billion people total, could get perfect scores on such tests.) The identities of the ten highest IQ people in the whole world aren’t known. So this article is meaningless.
Given that greater than 80% of individuals generally are religious, this means that atheists (and deists) are statistically over-represented in the ultra-high IQ population.
That list is WAY off!!
Where’s Jay Carney, Harry Reid, Alan Grayson, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Sheila Jackson Lee, Maxine Waters, etc.?
Then you find science and begin to question the belief in god and possibly refute god.
Then if you live long enough, you begin to question the limits of science and find faith in god.
I have a high IQ, so so I have been told. The last "IQ" type test I took was the GRE back in college. Scored high enough to get me into Mensa, and even the TOPS.
I tend to be "athiestic" or at most "agnostic", at least officially, when I discuss politics or science. I think bottom line, religiosity is a choice.
I did have a boss, an MIT Grad, brilliant, who was an athiest, and a Conservative. He was a believer in a "religious" gene in humans. That humans felt the need to believe in something greater than themselves. Because of that, Conservatives tended to believe in God, but Liberals, who choose to be Godless, HAD to believe in something, so they substitute The State. Makes sense to me.
Creator (1985)
Dr Harry Wolper: “I tell you Sid, that one of these days we’ll look in to our microscope and find ourselves staring right into God’s eyes, and the first one who blinks is going to lose his testicles.”
I’m a big fan of science and even fancied myself a scientist once upon a time. It’s fun and fascinating and worth every minute of time invested, mostly. Science, however, doesn’t explain or actually attempt to understand much of anything. Science is mostly about observing things and giving them names.
For the people who dont understand what IQ is, imagine comparing the inteligence of two people as the same as comparing the fighting capacity of two martial arts warriors in battle. A higher IQ would represent a higher muscle strenght, not technique or karate skills. Who would win the fight? any of them. IQ is only measuring your Complex Abstraction ¨lifting¨ capabilities, how much complexity can you hold in your brain at any given time, not your actual overall inteligence.
It does not represent by any means if a person deserves awards or respect or love or if it is spiritual or even sane or coherent or wise or educated.
I believe religion is a place where a person goes when he/she cant find the answers that he/she needs anywhere else. Every person is different, so every person needs different answers, and some need a lot while some others just need a few.
So i would think the tendency is that smarter people in general is able to find the answers he/she needs without having to recur to religion.
But the definition itself of a god is very ambiguos. Two differnet persons who believe in god will probably say to each other ¨we are two believers¨, but the actual concept or idea they have about god in their minds will probably be completly different.
I have my own explanation or idea of what i am, what my soul is and so on, but i dont consider myself a believer.
The thing is, the only thing i need to be recogniced as a believer is to call all my ¨explanations¨ as ¨God¨, wich is just semantics AND to follow all the social conventions that been religious imply.
What is the difference between ¨The explanation of everything¨(in the most broad sense posible) and ¨God¨ besides letters?
My personal conclusion its than a person been religious or not depends on his/her personality, lenguage and social enviorement. Its a cultural thing.
A person who doesnt need answers nor the social support of his social enviorement religious mates, will break free to do whatever he actually needs to do with his mind , hearth and body.