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-- the more religious you are, the less intelligent you are.
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you guys wanna tell me you never met a smart person who believe in god? or a complete moron who didnt ??? you should get out more. just because someone has faith in the afterlife doesnt mean hes stupid. grow up.

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Originally posted by Aquarian Knowledge has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. Intelligence is your ability to reason, not to hold information.

id agree with that.

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Originally posted by Aquarian Oh and by the way, the I.Q. system is a joke. The only thing it can do is give you extremely vague estimates...In any case, the only true indication of intelligence is opinions, and no such testing system could be implemented because of political correctness (or simply because everyone is brought up to think 'all opinions are equal'). A credible \"I.Q.\" test would have questions like: \"Are you religious? ()yes ()no\", or \"What is your stance on this political situation?\".

yes, IQ tests arent a reliable means, though they are the closest we have. but your examples of what would be a credible IQ test are quite laughable to be honest.

real IQ tests are those that can be solved without needing prior information or specialist knowledge. most of the tests ive done relate to patterns. any test that requires you to have a good understanding of, say, maths or language isnt a proper test imo.

back on topic, i still dont see how you can equate faith with stupidity.

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Originally posted by St_Andrew We both have the same evidence, but we interpret it differently?! You mean, you dont accept all evidence as evidence? For example the order of things in the creation accout totally contradicts with proven science, how could you interpret that differently?!

I assume that both you and Trance Van Dyk are talking about creation as it's stated in the bible.

If this is true, and that is an assumption, then the best statement I've heard in years is by an historian who was studying Sodom and Gaamora, that all things in the bible, while they may be based on some part of history, are also written in parables, or in a manner that they are meant to be taken not as historical fact but as a matter of a story based in truth. So while the account of the creation may have been stated that the world was created in 7 days and that man was created by god and that Adam was the first man, this is meant as a story that teaches us something about our nature and the ability of man to choose from right and wrong and the ability of an almighty being to create a world such as ours.

Now while there are many people who state that if you believe in Science you therefor can not believe in God, there are many who believe in science that do believe that God exsist. These people are not dumb or unintelligent, they just have Faith. Faith is not something that can be measured, and it doesn't make any one person less inteligent than the other.

In fact if you take faith and apply it to other parts of our life you will see that we all have some amount of faith, including many scientists. We have faith that Gravity exsists, and while we can not define gravity, and we can't see gravity, we can feel it, but is it really there?

Also the universe, you have faith that the pictures that are taken from our telescopes are real and that people aren't making them up, or that our sun isn't distorting the images.

Also many inteligent people who don't believe in god, believe in Aliens, we have faith they exsist even though we can't prove it beyond a resonable doubt.

So no, the more religious you are has nothing to do with your inteligence.

My $.02

Brian G.

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Originally posted by garlick We have faith that Gravity exsists, and while we can not define gravity, and we can't see gravity, we can feel it, but is it really there?

agreed with everything apart from this. we can measure gravity

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN yes, IQ tests arent a reliable means, though they are the closest we have. but your examples of what would be a credible IQ test are quite laughable to be honest.

How so? They are the only accurate measure of intelligence. Or is it simply because you disagree with them?

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real IQ tests are those that can be solved without needing prior information or specialist knowledge. most of the tests ive done relate to patterns. any test that requires you to have a good understanding of, say, maths or language isnt a proper test imo.

Pattern interpretation is very vague and too dependant on situation. Your ability to reconize patterns is very dependant on your current state of mind, and a vast multitude of outside factors ranging from your social life to what you ate for breakfast. IQ can only be calculated as a range, and even then, the amplitude of the "spikes" would still vary from person to person, mainly based on their social situation and/or health. I know people who have taken IQ tests (relatively good ones) and have had similar scores every time. I, on the other hand, have taken those same tests and have had scores ranging up to 30 points apart.

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back on topic, i still dont see how you can equate faith with stupidity.

Faith (at least in the context of religion), is completely illogical. Regardless of wether it's right or wrong, it cannot be an intelligent belief.

Why is faith illogical? Believing in something higher than yourself and than the "physical reality" around you is illogical? You know, all wacko scientists' collegues thought they were illogical but yet they are reknowned because they believed in themselves and had faith in something that couldn't be explained...yet.

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Originally posted by Lepanto Why is faith illogical? Believing in something higher than yourself and than the "physical reality" around you is illogical? You know, all wacko scientists' collegues thought they were illogical but yet they are reknowned because they believed in themselves and had faith in something that couldn't be explained...yet.

It's illogical because there is no reasonable evidence to support it. The arguments behind it are purely emotive. As for science, the arguments behind it are purely rational.

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Originally posted by Aquarian It's illogical because there is no reasonable evidence to support it. The arguments behind it are purely emotive. As for science, the arguments behind it are purely rational.

you don't know too much about science do you? you think that we know alot? LMAO. a hundred years ago people claimed the same thing and look how different we look at health and science and evolution now? Science isn't more concrete than the "Let there be light"

One of my most intelligent friends is also a fundamentalist Christian, so I don't think that innate intelligence is any guarantee that you won't go down that path. It's pretty easy to believe in anything you want so long as you have the ability to compartmentalise what you know and stubbornly refuse to waiver in your belief.

Naturally I think that religious fundamentalism of any kind is "dumb", but, that said, you don't have to be "dumb" to believe in it.

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Originally posted by garlick In fact if you take faith and apply it to other parts of our life you will see that we all have some amount of faith, including many scientists. We have faith that Gravity exsists, and while we can not define gravity, and we can't see gravity, we can feel it, but is it really there?

There's a difference between real, testable and verifiable faith and completely blind faith. Everytime I've thrown a ball up in the air it's fallen to the ground, so my "faith" that it will fall the next time as well is grounded in demonstrable experience. The faith people have that God exists and created the world in seven days is not grounded in any sort of verifiable, objective reality at all and so cannot be compared to the sort of "faith" we have in the empirically verified tennets of gravity.

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Originally posted by Aquarian As for science, the arguments behind it are purely rational.

Purely empirical actually.

Empiricism and rationalism, in philosophical language at least, are the exact opposite of each other.

New research and new discoveries have ruled out old theories and made place to new ones. You can look back at the science of 100 years ago and laugh at it precisely because it's advancements have been due to rational thinking and not emotive thinking. You just confirmed my point.

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Originally posted by Aquarian How so? They are the only accurate measure of intelligence. Or is it simply because you disagree with them?

no, becoz asking someone to provide an opinion on a political situation would almost always require some form of previous knowledge to make an adequate assertion. grabbing someone from the middle of the jungle and they are unable to tell you the best course for the US in iraq doesnt prove they are less capable than someone who studied political theory at university. you said as much yourself.

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Originally posted by Aquarian Pattern interpretation is very vague and too dependant on situation.

any IQ test is subject to that.

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Originally posted by Aquarian Faith (at least in the context of religion), is completely illogical.

i totally agree. but being illogical doesnt equate with a lack of intelligence imo. there is more to the make-up of the human condition than just a certain level of intelligence. i have thoughts/feelings all the time that are thoroughly illogical. doesnt mean im stupid. emotion is just as important in our decision making and life choices as our intelligence is.

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Originally posted by Renegade There's a difference between real, testable and verifiable faith and completely blind faith. Everytime I've thrown a ball up in the air it's fallen to the ground, so my "faith" that it will fall the next time as well is grounded in demonstrable experience. The faith people have that God exists and created the world in seven days is not grounded in any sort of verifiable, objective reality at all and so cannot be compared to the sort of "faith" we have in the empirically verified tennets of gravity.

people didn't make God up, if you know the history behind it and shit, God came to Abraham himself. A person who didn't himself believe in one diety. But that's besides the point. Gravity however is nonexistant on board the international space station. so if you throw a ball up there it'll just keep going. God doesn't know limits of time or days therefore if you look at it this way then it's perfectly normal that it would take him only 6 days. you're derailing this however.

at school alot of my professors in fields of physics and bio are all very spiritual and you cannot seperate science and faith. They look for a way to understand our world not disprove the bible.

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Originally posted by Lepanto people didn't make God up, if you know the history behind it and shit, God came to Abraham himself. A person who didn't himself believe in one diety.

god came to those nuts who killed themselves with koolade before taking that trip on the flying saucer in the sky as well '

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Originally posted by Lepanto But that's besides the point. Gravity however is nonexistant on board the international space station. so if you throw a ball up there it'll just keep going.

not true. the amount of gravity experienced is a great deal less than it would be on earth. and a great deal less on earth than it would be on jupiter. being relative doesnt lessen somethings existance. *cough* theory of relativity *cough*

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN where's the proof? they were prolly on the same thing you're on not true. the amount of gravity experienced is a great deal less than it would be on earth. and a great deal less on earth than it would be on jupiter. being relative doesnt lessen somethings existance. *cough* theory of relativity *cough*

hehehehe who said that there's no gravity? he said that the ball would always come down and i said it wouldn't theory of relatvity? ummm ...ok so i guess that's what einstein meant when he wrote it...it was about gravity lol.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN no, becoz asking someone to provide an opinion on a political situation would almost always require some form of previous knowledge to make an adequate assertion. grabbing someone from the middle of the jungle and they are unable to tell you the best course for the US in iraq doesnt prove they are less capable than someone who studied political theory at university. you said as much yourself.

I see your point. But for the sake of argument, let's assume everyone who takes the test is well informed on the subject. Then, it would be an accurate mesure. The religion example is also flawed, because there are a multitude of beliefs that are even less logical and could not be classified under religion. However, my point stands. We should simply say that intelligence is relative to the social situation.

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i totally agree. but being illogical doesnt equate with a lack of intelligence imo. there is more to the make-up of the human condition than just a certain level of intelligence. i have thoughts/feelings all the time that are thoroughly illogical. doesnt mean im stupid. emotion is just as important in our decision making and life choices as our intelligence is.

It doesn't mean you're stupid, but those thoughts and feelings make you do stupid things - hence why I said that a person's intelligence is constantly changing. If you were constantly in that emotional state, then you would be generally less intelligent, because that emotional state impairs your ability to reason. Hence with long-term decisions like religion and political stances. They're not definted by occasional and sporadic spikes of emotion, but by the general (or average) intelligence of a person.

Let me compare it to this; You can be a very intelligent person and say the dumbest things when you're drunk. But if you're drunk 24/7 every week of the year and every year of your life, then you're generally just dumb.

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Originally posted by Lepanto people didn't make God up, if you know the history behind it and shit, God came to Abraham himself.

Wait ... they didn't? You mean there's actual physically documented proof that God visited abraham??? What is it a video? A screenshot perhaps? Fossilized foot print? I must see this convincing evidence!

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Originally posted by Lepanto people didn't make God up, if you know the history behind it and shit, God came to Abraham himself.

Yes, thank you, I've read the Bible (well... the historical books and the Gospels at least).

It doesn't change what I'm arguing though: even if we could say, with the slightest bit of certainty, that a man name Abraham existed and that he claimed to have made a communion with God (which we can't) the fact remains that we still have no means available by which to validate the existence of this "God". I'm not saying that people just "made-up" the idea of a monotheistic God as it was probably the best, perhaps most rational explanation the people living in the mountains of Isreal 3,000 years ago could have come up with. They had the same questions we still have now, only they didn't centuries of the scientific method to refer back upon to answer these questions. Given the anthropocentric nature of humanity and given that these people had the need to create a force that would allow the scattered refugees of various communities to unite under a common world-view, a monotheistic warrior God was conceived.

I don't think they "made-up" this God, I just think it was a construction that was necessary and in tune with what these people understood (or, rather, didn't understand) about the world, in order to satisfy a present need. Every religion, when you think about it, was constructed with this sort of end in mind.

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Gravity however is nonexistant on board the international space station. so if you throw a ball up there it'll just keep going.

Which is precisely what we'd expect to find if the laws of gravity, as we currently understand them, are true. The laws of gravity don't state that "things will always fall downwards" it states that bodies will be attracted to other bodies of a greater mass. If there is no mass of size to attract the ball in the space-station, then it will "float" rather than fall.

I'm presuming that you understand this already, but - again - I'm just hammering home that fact that gravitational theory has been demonstrated by millenia of verifiable human experience, God has not.

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God doesn't know limits of time or days therefore if you look at it this way then it's perfectly normal that it would take him only 6 days.

What are you basing this on?

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at school alot of my professors in fields of physics and bio are all very spiritual and you cannot seperate science and faith. They look for a way to understand our world not disprove the bible.

There is value in religion and I still think that much can be gained from the reading of religious texts (so long as you're willing to take it all with a grain of salt, that is...). However, the fact remains that there is no possible way that the existence of God (as you've defined him, as a "being" that "exists" beyond the limits of time and space) can be verified and that the factual accuracy of these religious texts, as a result, can be called into question. I'm not doing this because I'm some sadist who enjoys shitting on the beliefs of others, I'm doing it because I think that my own intellectual integrity demands it.

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Originally posted by Lepanto hehehehe who said that there's no gravity? he said that the ball would always come down and i said it wouldn't theory of relatvity? ummm ...ok so i guess that's what einstein meant when he wrote it...it was about gravity lol.

hehe. im the first to admit that i have no understanding of quantum mechanics. but i still love it to death. someone correct me if im wrong, but in my understanding gravity plays a pivotal role in einstein's theories, including that one. relativity also predicted black holes, THE big name in gravity

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Originally posted by Aquarian It doesn't mean you're stupid, but those thoughts and feelings make you do stupid things - hence why I said that a person's intelligence is constantly changing. If you were constantly in that emotional state, then you would be generally less intelligent, because that emotional state impairs your ability to reason.

i guess i just think intelligence is the brute horsepower youre born with. the CPU if you will. letting something other than logic guide your actions, does not mean (to me), that you arent intelligent. im not saying we can adequately test an IQ, but i think an IQ is inherent, and isnt related to how you use it, but the overall *potential* you have for its use.

Religion is one of the strongest influences in any culture, Intelligence has nothing to do with religousness. They aren't even directly related. While it is true that it's illogical, the idea of a god is far too powerful to reduce to simple logic.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN i guess i just think intelligence is the brute horsepower youre born with. the CPU if you will. letting something other than logic guide your actions, does not mean (to me), that you arent intelligent. im not saying we can adequately test an IQ, but i think an IQ is inherent, and isnt related to how you use it, but the overall *potential* you have for its use.

That's not exactly false. Intelligence exists as two things: Intelligence by nature (what you are born with, under circumstances of genetics and health), and intelligence by nurture, which is basicly what society has made of you (it's also reffered to as 'incident of birth' in the field of psychology). You consider the first. But the problem with that is that there is no way of mesuring the first, because whatever test results we obtain will have been tainted by the second (because all humans grow up in a social environment). So the only thing we can mesure is the sum of both factors. Someone who had the neurological potential to be the greatest genius of all time could have grown up in a very restraint and conservative environment, and as a result, could have turned out less intelligent than someone who was born with a less-than-average brain but was brought up in a very intellectually stimulating environment.

ill go squeeze nicely onto the fence. i would prob argue that those with a lesser intelligence are more likely to believe in god, but those that believe in god arent necessarily likely to be less intelligent.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN ill go squeeze nicely onto the fence. i would prob argue that those with a lesser intelligence are more likely to believe in god, but those that believe in god arent necessarily likely to be less intelligent.

Thank you!


Aquarian made a good point as well.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN ill go squeeze nicely onto the fence. i would prob argue that those with a lesser intelligence are more likely to believe in god,

If you only consider the brain capacity that you're born with, that makes sense, but...

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but those that believe in god arent necessarily likely to be less intelligent.

It's not an association of religion with lesser intelligence, it's a definition of what intelligence is. They are less intelligent because they are religious. They might have been born with great intellectual potential, but they haven't used all of it. If Jimmi Hendrix had never learned to play the guitar - would you still say that he was a great guitarist? Perhaps in his nature, but certainly not practically.

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Originally posted by occrider Wait ... they didn't? You mean there's actual physically documented proof that God visited abraham??? What is it a video? A screenshot perhaps? Fossilized foot print? I must see this convincing evidence!

show me the proof of the big bang theory, perhaps the string theory as well ?

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Originally posted by Akridrot Religion is one of the strongest influences in any culture, Intelligence has nothing to do with religousness. They aren't even directly related. While it is true that it's illogical, the idea of a god is far too powerful to reduce to simple logic.

one of the only interesting things i've read in this thread so far.

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