Are Defenders simply incorrigible?

[_EAllusion]

I'd have to read the study to see what it found out. 6-11 points actually is a major gap in standard IQ measures, so I'm not sure why that mentioned as if it were a small difference. You'd still be talking about overlapping distribution curves with a lot of overlap, so stereotypical thinking would be silly, but it's not as though a gap of 11 points (at the high end) doesn't show up in functional trends.

[_MCB]

The analysis would have to look at the differences in belief between low-IQ believers and high-IQ believers.

I really think that religious fundamentalism does impair thinking, and therefore IQ in some. As well as simple lack of information, or refusal to learn from such disciplines as psychology, science, and history.

Of course, I tend to be an environmentalist.

[_Some Schmo]

This conversation of the correlation between intelligence and atheism reminds me of the debate over whether Einstein was an atheist or not. It always struck me as a silly argument (from both sides). Just because Einstein was obviously very intelligent didn't mean that he was mentally/intellectually infallible.

What does either side really gain by winning that argument? I've met way too many exceptionally bright people that believed in god to know that there's something else going on besides a lack of intelligence to account for god belief.

[_Buffalo]

As usual, the two people on this board with the strongest background in cog. psy. are in agreement.

Even though I am not an atheist, I respect much of what they say.
Religion does not have to put a damper on intellect. In fact, one can have the best of both worlds. It just requires humility, faith, the ability to state one's beliefs in the simplest form, and a good conscience, rather than a panic to please God.

Your degree of access to the P values (or the T values or the F statistic) does not, in reality, change these numbers. This may come as a shock to you.

True. Something, with a large sample, can be statistically significant, but the reason may be obscure and the absolute difference may be minimal.

I agree - and in fact I would suspect that as you take into account religious people with a more nuanced outlook (small "L" liberal Christians for instance) the difference between their IQs and those of atheists would either be statistically insignificant or very small.

[_sock puppet]

Bump.

Are there any defenders that want to take a head-on whack at the mountain of damning evidence against JSJr/Mormonism? Trying to balance the enormous weight of negative evidence against with ... well, no evidence supporting it?

You defenders all like to nibble on the occasional crumb that falls off the edges. Why not take it all on?

Is it that you can keep your faith if you just look at the bark on trees, one tree at a time, and that you know if you take a few steps back and look at the forest, whoops, there goes the old testimony?

[_Simon Belmont]

No one said anything about causation, but atheism and intelligence are positively correlated, while faith and intelligence are negatively correlated. How you interpret that is up to you.

So what? The instances of the color yellow and male-pattern baldness might be positively correlated.

Correlation does not equal causation. Elementary statistics.

[_sock puppet]

No one said anything about causation, but atheism and intelligence are positively correlated, while faith and intelligence are negatively correlated. How you interpret that is up to you.

So what? The instances of the color yellow and male-pattern baldness might be positively correlated.

Correlation does not equal causation. Elementary statistics.

Simon, there was another thread started for this hijack about intelligence. Go there if you want to discuss such topic, that is not within the ambit of the OP of this thread.

But it is funny that in response to my bump, you a defender quickly took the hijack bait rather than try to deal with the mountain of damning evidence head-on. Chalk up another defender who dares not the feat.

[_Kishkumen]

So what? The instances of the color yellow and male-pattern baldness might be positively correlated.

Correlation does not equal causation. Elementary statistics.

Simon is right. Besides, it doesn't take a bright person to figure out that there isn't an infinitely powerful Caucasian geriatric male with a white beard pulling the strings of the universe.

[_Simon Belmont]

Simon, there was another thread started for this hijack about intelligence. Go there if you want to discuss such topic, that is not within the ambit of the OP of this thread.

But it is funny that in response to my bump, you a defender quickly took the hijack bait rather than try to deal with the mountain of damning evidence head-on. Chalk up another defender who dares not the feat.

What I don't get is this:

These issues have been brought up and dealt with ad nauseam (that's for you, Kishkumen). Yet critics and anti-Mormons keep bringing them up again and again as if they haven't been resolved. They have. More than satisfactorily in my case.

[_asbestosman]

You defenders all like to nibble on the occasional crumb that falls off the edges. Why not take it all on?

I do not have the knowledge to address it, and I don't care to. I think Don brought up a sketch of some good points. Don, I would say, actually does have some knowledge on many of these issues.

Is it that you can keep your faith if you just look at the bark on trees, one tree at a time, and that you know if you take a few steps back and look at the forest, whoops, there goes the old testimony?

No. Perhaps, it's comforting for you to believe that about us? It sounds eerily similar to the idea that people only leave the church because they were offended or want to sin. It was milk strippings in your case, wasn't it?