Why Do Intelligent People Still Believe In The Jehovah’s Witness Religion? (page 5)

joey jojo

Zizek trilemma:

Loyalty- - - - Honesty - - - - Intelligence

You can have 2 qualities but not 3, because the third doesn't make sense. Helps explain people living under communist regimes and cults, and the mental tricks they need to cope.

LoveUniHateExams

Why Do Intelligent People Still Believe In The Jehovah’s Witness Religion? - because intelligence and stupidity aren't mutually exclusive.

People of low IQ don't have a monopoly on stupidity.

Put another way, intelligent people are more than capable of believing, saying or doing stupid things.

This forum is made up of mostly ex-JWs. Lots of intelligent posters here who at one time believed WT bullshit.

Drearyweather

If a person decides not to join the JW religion, does it mean he is intelligent?

Carmichael

If a person decides not to join the JW religion, does it mean he is intelligent?

That's the point I've been making all along, Drearyweather.

One can find an answer, often by simply turning a question on its head. There are stupid people who are atheists--I know.

I dated a guy who was an idiot, and he didn't believe in God. Neither did a single member in his family. All of them college grads. But the son, turns out, not so smart--or honest or good, either. And he made an active decision not to be a JW or to believe in any type of God too.

Choosing to become a JW doesn't not make one instantly stupid, nor does deciding to avoid them guarantee intelligence.

Personal values, which religion is, is emotion. Intelligence plays little part in these type of choices.

Part of the reason some on this site may find this hard to swallow is that the Watchtower taught us that choosing religion was an intellectual choice, and that we were "intelligent" for seeing the "facts" and "choosing the Truth" and "reject false religion." Intelligence played no part. The Governing Body was merely toying with us.

In reality--and this may be hard for some of us to swallow--we were just being emotional about what we believed in. We may have used our smarts to get out (hopefully), but there again, we didn't instantly become college grads upon coming out of a cult.

And we left a cult, too. We might like to think that we left a religion behind, because it's easier to swallow. But we didn't leave a religion or religion in general behind. We left a cult.

Especially if we were raised in the JWs, we don't know what it is like to be in a religion and to have religious beliefs and to adopt or reject them. We know only how to be in a cult and to leave one, and that's very different. We may hate all religion (and that's our right), perhaps mainly because JWs taught us to do that, but we may have never been in a religion, just a cult.

EverApostate

Intelligent people are in every religion. Does that validate any Religion they belong to? To the contrary, many people who are less intelligent refuse to believe the religious fairy tales and are neutral.

I think it all relates on a case to case basis. Every one in any religion would be having their own cause to stay in their religion. Like... Fear of life and death, Family tradition and fear of becoming an outcast if they leave, fantasies like heaven that they can cling upon.... and the list goes on

Simon

People often misunderstand intelligence. When we judge someone as being 'clever' it's usually in some particular field. But you can be an absolute genius in one field and a complete numpty in another. The net result is that clever people often seem uninformed and say idiotic things about things they are not experts in. That includes religion, where they may be a "lost soul looking for answers" just like someone else.

Sure, the fact that they have the capacity and dedication for learning one field would suggest they should be able to see through things, but there's no guarantee they have the motivation or understanding that they have the right information sources to learn truth from.

And don't forget, nothing about 'religion' in general has much at all to do with facts and evidence. It's almost entirely todo with belief but IMO is mostly a lifestyle / social choice that people make.

minimus

I’m not talking so much about “ clever “ people. I know of some elders that are very smart. They have wealth and may even have come into the “truth” later on in life. There are a few elders here and I believe they are “ intelligent “ too yet for years them remain as elders while laughing behind the Organization’s back over here.

Why Do Intelligent People Still Believe In The Jehovah’s Witness Religion?