Instead of testing IQ, should people just have their levels of religion...

[Desiree]

...tested and get the same result? The level of religiosity so often indicates the level of intellect; the more religious a person is, the less mentally proficient they are. Some of these people may be intelligent but because they are burdened with preconceived religious perceptions, their intelligence is wasted; it’s like a situation where they have the tools, but the tools are useless because they lack the skills to use them. Religion prevents these poor people from developing the skills they need to use their mental tools.

[MsStevie]

How about testing level of intelligence by how much time someone spends at R&S bitching at people....

[RedHeadAngel]

I have no religion at all - and I have a PhD.

What I have is a true and sincere personal relationship with Jesus Christ, my LORD and Savior

so, in a way, I agree with you

[tigris]

Not true. People can be religious and intelligent. There are examples.

Also despite it's not supposed to, a lot of intelligence tests also test factual knowledge, literacy in a certain language which are unrelated to intelligence (try scoring high in a chinese intelligence test without speaking the language...). Most intelligence tests aren't that terribly useful.

[TheFreeThinker]

That's a harsh generalization without evidence to back it up.

[Winters]

Oh, poor poor Desiree... at it again with your agenda-driven comedy.

The level of religiosity does NOT indicate level of intellect. What you describe is false. There are a couple of studies that attempted to measure this, but the methodology used is flawed which makes the study too arguable and ultimately inconclusive. No biggie, this is like most studies.

For instance, there's one that shows that religiosity rises as income and education decrease. The problem is that intellect actually isn't associated with income level; there's a skew produced by volume that isn't factored out due to improper sampling from each income segment. Further, level of education is more reflective of finances than intellect (this has been proven over and over since the 1930's).

The fact is - and the world bears this out - that intellect and religiosity have no interactive correlation. There are just as many "smart people" at the top as there are at the bottom of the income ladder, and those who are religious exist at every level in roughly the same ratio. The only observable variation exists when you constrain geography to a high degree, and that variation has been seen going up AND down.

Unless these studies do a much more complex job of measurement and do so at a higher frequency interval, they will be hopeless in measuring anything with accuracy.

I'm but one of hundreds of thousands of great examples. I am a steadfast Christian with a moderate financial demographic. However, only 4 years ago, I was considered very wealthy. So, when should we have had me in a study? Also, I have an IQ of 174, a bachelor's degree and I was thrown out of high school (did not complete). So, what would a study tabulate me as?

God bless you, and give it up sister.

[OpernKatz]

The free thinker is right... This generalization is patently wrong and will do absolutely nothing to strengthen your case against religion (and I'm saying it as an atheist myself).

Those who want to dispute the idea that even smart people can be religious can just look up Isaac Newton, George Lemaître, or even Ken Miller, the geneticist who led the case against creationism being taught as science at the Dover trial a few years ago... He is a Catholic and a damn good scientist to boot.

I'd agree with Richard Feynman when he mused that it is possible for many good scientists to reconcile science with religion, but it is difficult. For atheists to lump all religious people together as a product of inferior brain capacity is... dumb and shortsighted all at once. And worst of all, that sort of verbal spits robs you of any high ground in discussion like this. If you act like the most radical of them do then you are no better and no more rational than they are.

[seed]

Man, You atheists just can't keep hold of Your manners for very long. We could test for RUDENESS.

[michael]

I'm a mental defective, so I just can't remember. Could you please tell me if you've ever asked a question here that wasn't an ad hominem against some religion or another. I cannot recall seeing a single rational argument coming from you in all the time I've been here. From what I can gather, your intelligence is good only for thinking up creative insults. Have you ever considered doing stand-up? You could make a living by being nasty and having no one take you seriously. Just a thought.

peace

[Numbers&13773125]

I think that's a little harsh, but very LOLZ

ummm it's more like people from cities are more progressive, and people who moved to the cities when they were founded weren't farmers; they had skills, plans, dreams, ideas, etc.

You could also argue that level of arrogance is directly related to IQ