by besty 48 Replies latest jw friends
snare&racket - "If we simply were content with an ancient collection of jewish mythology and the answer "god did it" then the excited, eager young minds of the world would not be building proton accelerators and hunting bosons...."
Hard to argue with that one.
"Religious people are less intelligent than atheists, according to analysis of scores of scientific studies stretching back over decades".
Intelligent means having or showing mental keenness. Intelligent usually implies the ability to cope with new problems and to use the power of reasoning and inference effectively.
A JW is discouraged from mental keeness or critical thinking when it comes to their beliefs. Unfortunately you have to be dumb or dumb yourself down to accept teachings that can't be proven except to say 'have faith.'
Jehovah's witnesses are a good example of dumb. They are best described as belivers with a very selective viewpoint and terrible memories. How many times can the WTBTS get away with massive flip flops on core beliefs and hardly anyone notices or cares? As a bible based religion why do JW's fail to see the inconsistences in their beliefs?
Speaking only about my personal experience:
Religion dumbed down me.
Science makes me feel what religion promised to me (and never gave me).
BESTY:
Hah. That means our IQ increased significantly when we left the JW religion.
Religion demands contrived synchronicity which in turn demands thought-stopping passivity.
"Unity in doctrine" does not translate into "unity in Christ" who instead seeks dynamic, active and passionate disciples that embrace the unabridged gospel instead of religion.
As Russell ironically observed: "The endeavor to compel all men to think alike on all subjects, culminated in the great apostasy and the development of the papal system, and thereby the gospel, the one faith that Paul and the other apostles set forth, was lost - buried under the mass of uninspired decrees of popes and councils." p.1572 9/1893 WT
One the one hand the Watchtower claims to despise Nicaea, yet embraces the ethnocentrism born there, to the detriment of the unabridged gospel.
“Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.” - Émile Zola
The best definition of intelligence to me is:
- Intentional ability to reorganize existent information to create new knowledge.
The best definition of religion:
- I believe because it's absurd.
Pull my finger!
I suppose such a study glosses over people like Isaac Newton, Leonhard Euler, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Werner von Braun, John Glenn, Michael Behe and others like them who were and are of exceptional intelligence and retained a lifelong belief in God. Some of these people were not conventionally religious in that they did not attend a church or otherwise were members of an organized religion. Nevertheless, their belief and faith in God never wavered.
Speaking on a personal note, I am also a believer and always have been. I like to think that since I possess two college degrees (one in mathematics) and am involved in public education, I would be considered to have above average intelligence. Similarly, I have met other people during my education, which includes studying at three universities, who were also believers. Some were students like me and others were faculty members.
If you want to believe that religious people are stupid, you can certainly find all kinds of data to support such a conclusion. Also, one can look through history and see the many horrible things religious people have done. But I think it is equally important to point out that those of high intelligence have also committed atrocities against humanity. Their learning did not stop them from formulating weapons of mass destruction, drawing up plans for genocide, swindling governments, societies and individuals and other crimes. This study reminds me of the old saying, “When you point a finger at somebody, it is good to remember you have three more pointing back at you.” Those eager to impugn believers would do well to remember this.
Quendi
It's quite understandable that religious people will be offended at the results from this meta-analysis.
Surveys are all about taking averages. This meta-analysis is clearly not saying that there are no intelligent people that hold religious beliefs. It would also be naive to draw a conclusion from these studies that all non-religious people are geniuses. However, when we look at the average intelligence of these two populations it seems reasonable to me that we'd see a difference in IQ.
I have no doubt that there are highly intelligent people that would categorize themselves as religious. With that said, those highly intelligent religious people should be able to quickly reason that this meta-analysis is not assailing their particular level of mental astuteness.
I'm an agnostic but my personal opinion of these studies is that they are meaningless. As Quendi points out, there are plenty of brilliant folks throughout history that were theists. My personal beliefs as an agnostic do not make me any smarter than a theist, or an atheist. Presuming otherwise would only demonstrate foolishness . . .
