Poll of the Day > Do you personally know any super smart super religious people?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have read lots of studies which state that usually as a person's i.q. or educational attainment go up that belief in religion usually go down.

Smart

Religious

Pick one
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I know some very successful and wealthy religious individuals that have made some very smart business moves and investments. So yes they are out there.

Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

what do you mean?

CwebbMichSac4 posted...

Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

what do you mean?

There's no such thing as smart religious people. You're either one or the other.
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Erik_P posted...

CwebbMichSac4 posted...

Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

what do you mean?

There's no such thing as smart religious people. You're either one or the other.

Completely untrue.
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Of course. Just because they're wrong about one thing doesn't mean they don't possess any intelligence at all. A lot of priests/rabbis/etc are very well educated. And there's plenty of devout, faithful people who are smart in other ways.
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Being a believer does not mean you have a lower IQ; likewise, it doesn't mean that the more knowledge you gain over time that your faith wanes. This may be true for some people, but not all.

It's unfair to generalise people on the basis of their faith.

To think that religious people cannot be intelligent is absurd.
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Erik_P posted...

CwebbMichSac4 posted...

Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

what do you mean?

There's no such thing as smart religious people. You're either one or the other.

Yes because I'm not a close-minded jackass unable to accept anything other than their own opinion.
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Even Richard Dawkins acknowledges he is less than 100% certain in his conviction that there exists no supernatural creator. He relies heavily on the evidence of evolution and the apparent lack of evidence of any sort of gods.

I forget how he worded it, but I know he identifies as agnostic even though most people label him the world's foremost atheist. Which makes perfect sense. There's a severe lack of evidence to support the existence of deities, but there is also no definitive proof that they don't exist. Takes almost as much faith to say "God does not exist" as it does to say the opposite.

I say "almost" primarily because atheism/agnosticism have science to support them, whereas religions just have faith and bibles.
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Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

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I know a couple of them that are very well educated, and having a religious background, I know many who are pretty smart and contribute to society in a positive way.

I've also met some stupid ass atheists too, including one that didn't know there are white people in Africa
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Muffinz0rz posted...

Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

I have to go to the er now after cutting myself on this edge. Thanks

KStateKing17 posted...

I've also met some stupid ass atheists too, including one that didn't know there are white people in Africa

Hey, you can't ask people why they're white
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Personally? Nope.
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An old friend of mine is a total fundamentalist and also a super intelligent math whiz and engineer now.

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Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

To be fair, there probably are some scientist who are religious. I'd imagine for them, they pursue the science field to better understand the works of their maker. Though I'll imagine some folks draw the line somewhere cause at some point certain religious beliefs are too bizarre for even science to explain.
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Not a one.

I do know people of faith who are intelligent but they tend to be moderately religious out of upbringing rather than actual belief.

That crosses the whole abrahamic religious spectrum too from Christians to Jews to Muslims.
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No, but then again the place I work is filled to the brim with scientists. I don't know more than a couple super religious people in general.
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Yup, she was a homeschooled crazily religious lady but was crazy good at studying and math.
Like she would spend hours on hours doing math homework.

Erik_P posted...

CwebbMichSac4 posted...

Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

what do you mean?

There's no such thing as smart religious people. You're either one or the other.

For someone claiming that a gigantic percentage of the population is a bunch of morons, this isn't the most thorough or well-articulated argument.
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Erik_P posted...

CwebbMichSac4 posted...

Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

what do you mean?

There's no such thing as smart religious people. You're either one or the other.

For someone who takes such a strong stand against discrimination, you sure seem to be doing a lot of it yourself in this topic.
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Yes

darkknight109 posted...

Erik_P posted...

CwebbMichSac4 posted...

Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

what do you mean?

There's no such thing as smart religious people. You're either one or the other.

For someone who takes such a strong stand against discrimination, you sure seem to be doing a lot of it yourself in this topic.

That's not discrimination.
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I think there should be a poll.

lol what are you people doing responding to Erik's bullshit?
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Not smart but wise.
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InfernalFive posted...

lol what are you people doing responding to Erik's bullshit?

Shockingly enough, this is one of the few times I've seen an Erik post that actually aligns with my views.
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Yes, but I do believe there is a correlation between intelligence and irreligiousness.

I also believe there's a correlation between religiousness and happiness, though.

Erik_P posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Erik_P posted...

CwebbMichSac4 posted...

Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

what do you mean?

There's no such thing as smart religious people. You're either one or the other.

For someone who takes such a strong stand against discrimination, you sure seem to be doing a lot of it yourself in this topic.

That's not discrimination.

dis·crim·i·na·tion
dih-skrim-uh-ney-shuh
noun
Treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favour of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit;

Examples of discrimination:
-Believing black people are naturally predisposed to crime simply for being black
-Believing Muslims are evil simply for being Muslims
-Believing religious people cannot be intelligent simply due to their religious beliefs
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There is a friend of my dad who worked as an electrical engineer when I was growing up that was insanely smart and religious. We went over to his house once to check out a computer he built (built as in soldered a motherboard together, not bought parts and assembled), and had pizza for dinner. His whole family said grace and ate the pizza on good china with a fork and knife. It was...odd...
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nope
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Cacciato posted...

I think there should be a poll.

Oh fuck, did I respond to an @smallville topic again?
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Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton

InfestedAdam posted...

To be fair, there probably are some scientist who are religious. I'd imagine for them, they pursue the science field to better understand the works of their maker. Though I'll imagine some folks draw the line somewhere cause at some point certain religious beliefs are too bizarre for even science to explain.

Until recently, almost all of the great minds were religious. Just from my own field of mathematics, we get folks like Decartes, Pascal, Erdos, Ramanujan, and plenty more. One of the greatest hospitals in the world is called "New York-Presbyterian Hospital." And that's not even going back further in history, where virtually everyone in the West was Christian, the Middle East was full solely of Muslims, and the Far East held still other religions. Christians (especially Protestants) often were the first to introduce schooling to an area or make it more accessible. Philosophy used to include what we now call theology. It's only a recent thing that academia has frowned on religion, actually.
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@BlanketPI

Arguments have been made that many great thinkers were only religious to avoid any social or professional ostracism inherent with being a non-believer. It was significantly more frowned upon even as recently as a couple of decades ago to claim you were atheist/agnostic. In some places/eras, you could be shunned, driven out of town or worse.
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Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

you're such a fucking loser lmao
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Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

u forgot something bro


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Yes, including a dean of a law school, several science professors, etc. I also know a lot of really stupid atheists. And that's even true among Evangelicals who are more literal in their beliefs, such as Ben Carson who was a leading neurosurgeon despite his wonky beliefs.

CwebbMichSac4 posted...

I have read lots of studies which state that usually as a person's i.q. or educational attainment go up that belief in religion usually go down.

Which is a rather silly bit of propaganda.

Grendel Prime posted...

Arguments have been made that many great thinkers were only religious to avoid any social or professional ostracism inherent with being a non-believer. It was significantly more frowned upon even as recently as a couple of decades ago to claim you were atheist/agnostic. In some places/eras, you could be shunned, driven out of town or worse.

However, keep in mind that when belief was more widespread and culturally ingrained, it also wouldn't be strange for nearly everybody to have at least some level of belief although levels of belief can greatly vary.
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I personally know many in the medical field that are of varying religions along with professors and attorneys. I think the difference is they don't constantly advertise it.

But the problem is defining super religious. Some do strictly adhere to diet and sacred days but they can get along with others that do not.
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Duck-I-Says posted...

Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton

Thankfully you don't need to believe in God to believe in gravity.
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Erik_P posted...

Thankfully you don't need to believe in God to believe in gravity

Are you seriously saying Isaac Newton isn't smart?

Erik_P posted...

CwebbMichSac4 posted...

Erik_P posted...

Smart

Religious

Pick one

what do you mean?

There's no such thing as smart religious people. You're either one or the other.

That's a very unsmart thing to say. I know some very smart religious people.
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I'm smarter than 99% of you and I'm pretty zealous. Not on a day-to-day basis, but I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Jesus freak. Started off atheist nerd. Ended up theist meathead. Couldn't be happier.
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GrimCyclone posted...

I'm smarter than 99% of you and I'm pretty zealous. Not on a day-to-day basis, but I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Jesus freak. Started off atheist nerd. Ended up theist meathead. Couldn't be happier.

I can't remember are you the guy that brags about your mediocre highschool grades?
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@Grendel Prime posted...

Arguments have been made that many great thinkers were only religious to avoid any social or professional ostracism inherent with being a non-believer. It was significantly more frowned upon even as recently as a couple of decades ago to claim you were atheist/agnostic. In some places/eras, you could be shunned, driven out of town or worse.

Those arguments are pretty bad with people like Pascal and Ramanujan, who continually poured out their faith whether through their actions or their work. I didn't mention people who were just marginally Christian (and Ramanujan was not Christian, anyway). I picked people who, rather than just letting religion sort of sit in on their life, actually continually devoted themselves to their beliefs. True, there were some who probably did it to fit in (Thomas Jefferson, for example), but that's by no means the entirety.

As for atheism being a reason to cast people out, that's really not as true in academia as you're purporting. Atheism (or really pantheism or political religions, in reality) was accepted in academia as early as the turn of the last century (1900) or perhaps a little later. G. H. Hardy, for example. Don't forget, Socialism was conceived by and most supported by academia, who then tried to drive the masses to join in, and sometimes succeeded. Socialism was functionally a religion, in and of itself, and was certainly godless.
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Yes. He holds a Ph.D. in Astrophysics.
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I can honestly say that almost every intelligent person I've ever known in the course of my real life (ie, not the farcical dream world that is the Internet) at least professes to be religious in some way. Some may be mostly lapsed while others are relatively relaxed or secular about things, but none of them would ever really claim agnosticism or atheism.

Granted, I don't live in the South, the Bible Belt, or other stronghold of fundamentalism, and I don't know a ton of really hardcore Bible-thumping Christians or Honor-killing Muslims, but I'd actually have an extremely difficult time pointing to a single person I know whose opinions or intelligence I respect at all who openly and actively professes to be atheist.

And I live in the Northeast - here and LA are supposed to be the two most godless parts of the US.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

And I live in the Northeast - here and LA are supposed to be the two most godless parts of the US.

Why LA specifically? If I remember right, the west coast in general is fairly godless (barring Alaska).
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