Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

[fido123]

Sorry for the misunderstanding.
A super correct way to put what I'm trying to say would be: Many Christians I know, therefore I assume there are many others like them, were taught the Bible as children and never looked for any other answers and simply answer everything with what they were first taught."

[MixMasterLar]

That's most every religion dude

[meno_rocks123]

I'm Christian. I believe in God, Jesus, Creation and all that stuff. it doesn't make me generally any less smart than anyone else. I personally love to figure out how the world works and how everything works out.

PS: took two IQ tests today and got 140+ on both. (fyi- I'm a genius)

[TC_=MaxXFreaK=]

i think anyone can be smart if they study and load their brains with books and things, i dont think it has anything to do with religion.

[devonin]

PS: took two IQ tests today and got 140+ on both. (fyi- I'm a genius)

The surest sign that you aren't a genius is that you seem to think that scoring high on an IQ test makes you a genius. And further, 140 on an IQ test isn't actually that high, and while perhaps indicative of being "gifted" is a far cry from "Genius"

Depending on which official test you take, you need as high as a 148 to qualfiy to join MENSA, and their traditional cutoff is that you must be in the top 2% of the population.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by devonin

The surest sign that you aren't a genius is that you seem to think that scoring high on an IQ test makes you a genius. And further, 140 on an IQ test isn't actually that high, and while perhaps indicative of being "gifted" is a far cry from "Genius"

Depending on which official test you take, you need as high as a 148 to qualfiy to join MENSA, and their traditional cutoff is that you must be in the top 2% of the population.

I'm not sure what sort of the shape the bell curve takes exactly, but I always heard that over 130 was considered genius.

But yeah, online tests aren't good representation of true intelligence. Then again, there isn't any really truly good way to test intelligence.

ps

i think anyone can be smart if they study and load their brains with books and things, i dont think it has anything to do with religion.

This person doesn't understand the difference between intelligence and knowledge.

[devonin]

I'm not sure what sort of the shape the bell curve takes exactly, but I always heard that over 130 was considered genius.

I've heard of IQs down below 60, and I've heard of IQs up into the 190s.

140 is generally the minimum for entry in MENSA, so if you consider all MENSA members to be geniuses, then I guess that isn't a terrible bar to set, but if I were going to assign "Genius" to any subset of the population, it would have to be smaller than the top 1.0% and since MENSA ~= 140 ~= top 2%, I have to set my bar higher than that.

[meno_rocks123]

Originally Posted by TC_=MaxXFreaK=

i think anyone can be smart if they study and load their brains with books and things, i dont think it has anything to do with religion.

That's absolutely the point. Everyone can be smart, some just don't choose to learn things. I know at least 6 people who can't add or subtract. I'm just lucky. I don't work hard in school (I rarely take notes, do optional homework, and I never study. I get concepts really easily and absorb information and it doesn't go away. I know someone who gets straight A's every year (they're considered to be the smartest kid in the school) and they aren't actually all that smart. They work hard to get concepts, they study and it pays off.
I could see religious people generally being "less smart" than atheists because I even don't agree with some of the stuff I'm taught, but I still learn it. the problem comes in when people don't learn things because they're against their religion (I've seen it happen).

tl;dr version(although the longer one is better and I might leave something out here)- some people are naturally smarter, some aren't. The people who aren't naturally smart work hard and they can be smart. Religious people are just as smart as atheists but I could see there being a problem when someone refuses to learn something because it's against their religion.


EDIT:

140 is generally the minimum for entry in MENSA, so if you consider all MENSA members to be geniuses, then I guess that isn't a terrible bar to set, but if I were going to assign "Genius" to any subset of the population, it would have to be smaller than the top 1.0% and since MENSA ~= 140 ~= top 2%, I have to set my bar higher than that.

I can see the logic there, and I'm ready to say I'm "gifted" instead of a genious, but the fact is, I'm 15 right now and my IQ has gone up ~15 in the past year-and-a-half

[windsurfer-sp]

Far to broad of a statement for me to ever consider being close to true. The group of people represented in "religous people" is far to broad and subjective to come close to being able to be analysed.

People chose religion half way through their life, were they always unintelligent or did the process of choosing religion transform them into unintelligence?

I understand there is some form of statistical correlation found. I am not in a postion to dispute its credibility. If all the argument has is some form of statistcal correlation then I dont see it as being a good one.

Grandia: Some people will ignore things because of their beliefs, this makes them ignorant not unintelligent.

[aperson]

Originally Posted by meno_rocks123

I can see the logic there, and I'm ready to say I'm "gifted" instead of a genious, but the fact is, I'm 15 right now and my IQ has gone up ~15 in the past year-and-a-half

I scored 146 on a large, rigorous IQ test when I was in kindergarten and 144 on another one in 2nd grade. It doesn't matter if your IQ went up in the past year-and-a-half, that's variance. It also doesn't mean you're a genius if you have an IQ above 140. The truth is that lots of people that don't go anywhere with life have high IQs; just because you have pattern recognition skills doesn't mean you're set for life.



This topic is also incredibly stupid. I've met smart and dumb Christians, Atheists, Muslims, Buddhist, Baha'i, and others. Just because a large amount of undereducated people are brought up with strong, religious family doctrine doesn't mean all followers are that way. When people stress that correlation does not equal causation, they really can't stress it enough... Mainly because ignorant people don't understand the implications it has and like to leap over as close to causality as they can from any correlative study.

[devonin]

This, I think, is the main reason why Grandiagod was surprised to find this thread moved into CT. I'm pretty sure he didn't think these results were especially rigorous or accurate, it was just a chance to poke fun at Chardish.

[fido123]

Originally Posted by MixMasterLar

That's most every religion dude

I was using Christianity as an example. I think in my original post it stated that.

[lord_carbo]

Originally Posted by meno_rocks123

PS: took two IQ tests today and got 140+ on both. (fyi- I'm a genius)

Internet IQ tests are a bitch.

FYI, mine is I believe around 118 realistically, give or take.

Concerning IQ tests in general: there's definitely a noticeable correlation between just what I'd consider smart and one's IQ. I would not deny that. However, all they do is test most forms of cognitive thinking and are not good determinants as to how people apply it daily or even in situations which call for it. There are kids with higher IQs in my grade and it feels like not many kids in my school or people in general have the capacity to think critically and at least the attention span and rationale to skim through facts and make deductions from them before making uninformed conclusions. Additionally, Squeek has even accused me of cheating when he was posting lots of abstract brainteasers in TGB because I solved them faster than I probably should have. Yet my IQ is 118. Stunning. Is it accurate? As far as I'm concerned, yes.

Don't look at IQs as objective measurements of intelligence to oneself, rather, as decently reliable measurements of logical interpretation and pattern recognition. Just look at autistic savants.

Just for a bit of background, Internet IQ tests are completely, completely unreliable. Don't trust them at all. I just have a feeling that if you got 140's on two IQ tests in the same day, that they were taken on the Internet. Sorry bud.

Originally Posted by devonin

This, I think, is the main reason why Grandiagod was surprised to find this thread moved into CT. I'm pretty sure he didn't think these results were especially rigorous or accurate, it was just a chance to poke fun at Chardish.

Well, if he wasn't looking for an actual discussion, he was trolling, which is bannable.

[Verruckter]

Not in the GBin...

[commander_toast]

I'm christian and I belive God created the heavan and the earths and thas what i stick with

[Verruckter]

Originally Posted by commander_toast

I'm christian and I belive God created the heavan and the earths and thas what i stick with

This behavior is exactly what makes atheists beleive they are smarter (not trying to criticise you, just saying). It's the lack of open-mindedness, taking everything as it is and not questionning it.

Wether or not this is really a sign of lac of intelligence, I don't have the required information to say yet.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by chardish

Well, if he wasn't looking for an actual discussion, he was trolling, which is bannable.

99% of what goes on in TGB is bannable if you're going to be a doodiehead like that. Hell, even staff behavior in TGB is against the forum rules a lot of the time, some of them even breaking Gbin specific rules.

Also, did anyone find it funny that the thread about religion gets taken seriously and moved to a serious forum, while the similarly functioned thread about race was left in TGB and actually locked and moved into the Dead Zone?

[Verruckter]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

99% of what goes on in TGB is bannable if you're going to be a doodiehead like that. Hell, even staff behavior in TGB is against the forum rules a lot of the time, some of them even breaking Gbin specific rules.

Also, did anyone find it funny that the thread about religion gets taken seriously and moved to a serious forum, while the similarly functioned thread about race was left in TGB and actually locked and moved into the Dead Zone?

riligiun is impurtan

[lord_carbo]

Originally Posted by Verruckter

riligiun is impurtan

If you believe the notion that if nonbelievers receive eternal punishment while the opposite is true for believers, and that god is omnipotent and omniscient and by result is infallible, then yes, religion is very important.

Originally Posted by Afrobean

99% of what goes on in TGB is bannable if you're going to be a doodiehead like that. Hell, even staff behavior in TGB is against the forum rules a lot of the time, some of them even breaking Gbin specific rules.

Not really.