Are Religious People Idiots?

[Husseinisdoingfine]

I'm going to delete this question and repost it later due to its controversial nature, but it’s something that’s been on my mind for a while.

If someone personally identifies as a Jew, Christian, or Muslim, does that say anything about their intelligence? When I was much younger, I used to be highly critical of people who followed traditional religions, because I couldn’t understand how someone could adopt a belief system simply through osmosis from their parents and sincerely believe it to be true.

I put this question aside for some time—until recently, when I befriended a Pentecostal pastor from Ghana. He explained to me that, according to his understanding, God flooded the Earth in the Noah’s Ark story because human women were mating with 20-foot-tall cyclopses and producing genetic abominations.

I don’t want to come off as edgy or dismissive by labeling all Jews, Christians, or Muslims as unintelligent. There are clearly many intelligent people who believe in a personal God. If someone holds a PhD in a STEM field from a top university but still attends church regularly or performs ṣalāh (ٱلصَّلَاةُ) five times a day, does that make them stupid? I don’t think so.

Moreover, religion has given rise to rich mystical traditions—such as Sufism (Islamic mysticism), Hasidism (Jewish mysticism), and Hesychasm (Eastern Orthodox Christian mysticism) —and produced great spiritual thinkers and mystics like Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Joan of Arc, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Ibn Arabi, Al-Ghazali, and Rumi.

At the same time, there’s empirical evidence suggesting that people with higher levels of education tend to be less religious. Around 40% of scientists are religious, but only 7% of elite scientists are. Among philosophers, less than 1% identify as traditionally religious. (See the video below for a source on these statistics.)

By the way, when I say “religious,” I’m particularly referring to those who adhere to Abrahamic religions. I’m mainly talking about normies who follow a traditional religion in a straightforward way—attending church, mosque, or synagogue, praying five times every day, and adhering to prescribed practices—and are totally unfamiliar with mysticism.

 

Edited July 16 by Husseinisdoingfine
Reason for edit: I wanted to add more to my post

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

If someone holds a PhD in a STEM field from a top university

The problem is that that doesn't make someone intelligent.

[Someone here]

4 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

I couldn’t understand how someone could adopt a belief system simply through osmosis from their parents and sincerely believe it to be true.

Just like how you adopt your mother tounge language.  How do you do it ? You don't. It gets injected into your psyche since being  infant . A newborn or infant mind is like a sponge. You can absorb anything. Whatever you get indoctrinated into becomes the only truth . Once you grow up you obviously start doubting. Make no mistake about it but not a single religious person in the world have not have doubts about his religion at some point . But then fear kicks in and blocks your mind from thinking.  Because "God will burn you forever if you reject the said religious beliefs".

[Terell Kirby]

20 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

If someone personally identifies as a Jew, Christian, or Muslim, does that say anything about their intelligence? 

We can sometimes look down on religious people if you've developed yourself enough to see its limitations.

At the end of day, what any human identifies as serves a specific niche in their survival programming, unique to each individual and the culture they grew up in. Some eventually transcend it as a result of higher consciousness, but even the ones that don't-it doesn't necessarily negate their inherent potential for higher intelligence.

Cultural /societal programming can be a real and significant hurdle to reaching higher intelligence. Less about what that person identifies as, and more about what cultural and societal (maybe even genetic) factors that are limiting them transcending that identity.

Edited July 16 by Terell Kirby

[Salvijus]

There's wisdom in opening your heart to form a connection with the grace of the founders of religion. That would be of huge support in your spiritual development. Tho scriptures have distortions and corruption in it, it's still a viable way to establish a relationship which serves your highest best. 

If you don't have a sheikh, devil is your sheikh. If you're not under the influence of grace, you're under the influence of darkness. There's no neutral ground. Therein is the wisdom of religion even if the texts have been distorted somewhat. Besides in this new age the pure undistorted teachings becoming more public aswell which is nice. That will make religion even greater in days to come. 

Edited July 16 by Salvijus

[Aaron p]

As an ex hardcore evangelical Christian, yes, they are idiots. But I don't know if it would be fair to say that they are just idiots.

There are many lovely, lovely religious peeps. A lot of them have legitimately good intentions and at the end of the day...and it helps a lot of people. If the options are 1-Being a homeless drug addicts, and 2- Going to church to gain a sense of higher purpose. Then you know the obvious choice. When someone's at that level, more rudimentary spiritual frameworks usually helps them the best (it's associated with order, stability, structure, morality, health, etc.). 

There are many cool religious people. So are they idiots? Yes. But they're lovely idiots, just don't get too involved with them (they can be a bit unpredictable and dangerous).  

 

 

 

Of late, I'm trying harder to avoid terms like idiots, morons, dumbasses etc. these are very judgemental terms. Perhaps a better term could be...dangerous rudimentary spiritualists.?

[hyruga]

I joined a church about 3 years ago. The church mates were wonderful people who care and let us talk about our woes and share our joy. We have regular outings to go hiking or go eating. There's so much fun and love. 

A few of them were ultra religious but they do all things for God and everything that happened for them is due to God's timing and lessons for them.

 

[Nemra]

They take epistemological blindness to a whole new level — and they are proud of it.

Edited July 16 by Nemra

[Salvijus]

1 hour ago, Nemra said:

They take epistemological blindness to a whole new level — and they are proud of it.

Assuming all religious people have no epistemology is an epistemological error itself. 

Edited July 16 by Salvijus

[Nemra]

1 minute ago, Salvijus said:

Assuming all Christians have no epistemology is an epistemological error itself. 

You didn't understand what I said.

Your reaction is very telling.

[Leo Gura]

Intelligence is very domain-specific. You can be intelligent in one area of life and a fool in another.

Few people are intelligent across the board. That requires exceptional development.

Epistemtic and metaphysical intelligence is very rare and specific because nobody teaches it. You can only develop it on your own.

Edited July 16 by Leo Gura

[Salvijus]

6 minutes ago, Nemra said:

You didn't understand what I said.

Your reaction is very telling.

If I understood you correctly, you say religious people are epistemologically blind. Which is itself an epistemological error from your side. If you meant something else than sorry. 

Edited July 16 by Salvijus

[Nemra]

Just now, Salvijus said:

If I understood you correctly, you say religious people are epistemologically blind. Which is itself an epistemological error from your side. 

They are. You are wrong.

[Salvijus]

Just now, Nemra said:

They are. You are wrong.

Well you don't know that. Therein is your epistemological error. 

[Nemra]

Just now, Salvijus said:

Well you don't know that. Therein is your epistemological error. 

I know. I'm talking from experience.

12 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

By the way, when I say “religious,” I’m particularly referring to those who adhere to Abrahamic religions. I’m mainly talking about normies who follow a traditional religion in a straightforward way—attending church, mosque, or synagogue, praying five times every day, and adhering to prescribed practices—and are totally unfamiliar with mysticism.

Read the above carefully.

[Salvijus]

 

Quote

Read the above carefully.

3 minutes ago, Nemra said:

By the way, when I say “religious,” I’m particularly referring to those who adhere to Abrahamic religions. I’m mainly talking about normies who follow a traditional religion in a straightforward way—attending church, mosque, or synagogue, praying five times every day, and adhering to prescribed practices—and are totally unfamiliar with mysticism.

So you're saying there are people who are not perfectly enlightened among religious groups. Okay, I'll give you that. 

[Nemra]

1 minute ago, Salvijus said:

So you're saying there are people who are not perfectly enlightened among religious groups. Okay, I'll give you that. 

If a person is religious or still clings to a religion, they are epistemically blind.

Though I would like to think that enlightened people aren't religious, but who knows?

[Rafael Thundercat]

Religion is Survival, and of course there is intelligence in Survival, but not the sort of inteligence able to understand Reality deeply. 

[Salvijus]

5 minutes ago, Nemra said:

If a person is religious or still clings to a religion, they are epistemically blind.

Though I would like to think that enlightened people aren't religious, but who knows?

What is thought provoking is that there are many examples of enlightenment people being religious. Perhaps an epistemologically perfect person would still perceive religion as valid? I personally would argue that yes, that is indeed the case. 

Edited July 16 by Salvijus

[Ulax]

@Husseinisdoingfine I’d argue Religion is popular because it meets a lot of core human needs well. For example, needs for belonging, and meaning. 

Needs which can be hard to meet outside of a religious framework.

And the meeting of those needs can really direct and corrupt a person’s thought processes. 
 

I also agree with Leo that all these academic titles doesn’t really signal that someone is highly rational and has thought about these issues in deeply unbiased manner. Someone could have a phd in molecular biology but never have seriously sat down and contemplated theological and philosophical questions at a deep level. 

Edited July 16 by Ulax