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Goodbye Jesus

Intellectually Curious/gifted Among Us?


Aiyana

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Similar story as yours, Aiyana. Reading at high school level in second grade, skipped third, tested out at 134 IQ.

I smelled a skunk in the whole jesus thing in my early teens and got out as soon as possible (mom wouldn't let me quit 'till I was 18). Never looked back.

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I remember reading something by Plato at the lunch table at work. This was probably 1993. This attorney in the office saw me and said "I never saw anyone read Plato at lunch." Yep no doubt it is unusual. That is why I mostly keep to myself. Now I take every opportunity to leave and go somewhere other than the office to eat lunch.

 

I do the same. I would never allow my co-workers to see me with a book of any kind, much less Plato. You would be automatically branded a weirdo just for reading a book. 

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Ah, this is an issue that is near and dear to my heart.  Like several here, I value the life of the mind and the exploration of the underlying causes behind our respective de-conversions from Christianity, as well as understanding religiosity in general.  Perhaps unlike most here, I am not opposed to religion in general.  Despite not actively believing in the supernatural, I practice my family's Hindu religion (and it's not just to please my wife., I deconverted several years ago and returned to my old religion before we even met).  I am, however, virulently opposed to Jesus and Christianity, and I find Christianity to be the most vile of all ideas because it teaches religious conversion and condemns non-believers to eternal conscious torment.  So please don't take anything I say to be an endorsement of Jesus.

 

RogueScholar's comments do not surprise me.  I know that he teaches science courses, and thus must have a fairly high level of scientific expertise.  I find anecdotally that a surprisingly large minority of successful scientists didn't perform well according to the standard metrics by which students are assessed.  I find that my own public school and collegiate career was marked by mediocrity.  I can't remember what my SAT score was exactly, but 1200 sounds in the right ballpark.  I got A's in high school and mostly B's in college, as well as a 620 on the physics GRE (that's not a good score, btw).  That said I've rarely been accused of being slow-minded.  And since earning a PhD in astrophysics last year, I seem to have everyone fooled into thinking I'm some genius, so I guess I'm doing something right, huh?  I wouldn't go so far as to say that evaluation metrics are completely worthless.  After all, a lot of high school students who get bad grades really are just unintelligent people who will and should support themselves by physical rather than mental labor.  But we have to keep in mind that there are some people, such as RogueScholar and many others I know (to an extent even myself), who are able to perform mentally-intensive tasks very competently, despite that the standard academic evaluation metrics would not have predicted this.

 

Regardless, to the extent that a person's self-assessment of his/her own intellect is at all valid, I would definitely classify myself as someone who puts an above-average importance on intellectual pursuit.  Having said that, it's interesting that unlike so many deconverts, my conversion to and deconversion from Christianity had almost nothing to do with the religion's factual problems.  I have always known that the evidence for evolution is effectively irrefutable, and I'm of course quite well-versed in Big Bang cosmology.  I didn't convert to or deconvert from Christianity because I gave a rat's ass what it said about science.  To me, it was all about how my decision would personally affect my life.  I thought that Christianity would give me a satisfying ontological and ethical framework, i.e. that it would answer that all-important question, "what does this all mean?"  I thought that it would provide me with solemn religious practices.  Instead I got idiotic rock concert worship, and a clear indication that I would have to adopt a foreign culture in order to truly be a Christian.  I've always been aware of the ahistoric claims of the Bible, but for me that wouldn't have been a problem if it actually delivered on the claims of being able to change the believer's heart and provide a moral grounding that was consistent with human conscience.  This, to me, is the greater failure of Jesus.

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I am mediocre to subpar in the intelligence department. I was a terrible high school student and my ACT scores were embarrassingly low. I believe I was probably allowed to graduate because I had joined the military although I do not think I can provide robust evidence in support of this notion. My high school GPA was about 1.8 or so and when I eventually went to college, I had to take a year of developmental classes in order to get into the standard courses. My ability to visualise problems is limited and I constantly struggle to the conceptualise said problems. The highest IQ that I ever remember scoring was about 100. I managed to break free from religion. I have no data regarding intellect and religious affinity. My opinion is anecdotal at best and incredibly biased but I cannot help but think that indoctrination when you are young is quite important regardless of innate intellect.

 

I know someone who had a less than 1.0 GPA in high school but was an electronic wizard and averaged about $60k a year working in electronics in the 80s. I think ACTs, GPAs and IQs are just numbers that people should not let determine their lot in life.

 

I forgot to mention even though my GPA was also about 1.0 i've consistently made a lot of money over the years - minimum six figures and my best year I made almost $400,000. Not bad for a drooling moron, eh?

 

 

Yep, yep. lol. I think tenacity, motivation and passion are at least as important as IQ when it comes to career success. Of course, I never had any of those things either. lol. :-)

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Independence of mind is probably more the issue than mere intellectual development.  I know of very well educated fundamentalists.

 

Of course, intellect and education do not necessarily correlate either.

 

As for me - you can all make up your own minds about the level of my stupidity, the degree of my lack of empathy etc...

 

In fact, you probably have done so already...

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I've never been called gifted. I was in the upper third of my class but nothing special about me. I do feel that I'm a deeper thinker than the average. At about age 18 I began to have a deep interest in understanding the purpose of life. It seemed to me that few ever asked that question. I sometimes ask what I think are very logical questions and get little or not response even from my wife who is perfectly rational in other matters.

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Some great comments following my prior post. I think I'm out of one ups for the day. I want to place emphasis on the fact that I do not "feel" stupid and I hope that's not what I conveyed in the prior post. However, I know that I have struggled with things than many of my peers, colleagues and acquaintances find easier to learn and understand. Last year I clearly remember a recitation session where I was struggling to create and solve something known as a pharmacokinetic model. One of the students in my cohort even came out and stated, "I don't know why you find this stuff so difficult." I ended up spending a significant amount of time going through notes and discussing issues with teaching assistants. Then one night, it just hit me and I had this incredible moment of clarity. Unfortunately, getting to this breakthrough took more work than my fellow peers. While I've done well with my innate intellectual capabilities, I have to be honest with myself and admit that I am not among those folks who have "natural" intellectual capabilities. Basically my thesis was that I'm not among the "gifted" folks but I was still able to break free from the reigns of religion. In other words, you don't necessarily have to be "smart" to reject religious ideology, but you certainly have to be informed, open and honest with yourself.

 

I do want to be clear that my contributions to scientific advancement have been quite minimal and my understanding in many areas is quite limited.

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I'll have to say: I'm a guy with average intelligence. I have read all that I could get my hands on, but I have described this elsewhere; being blind before the Internet meant you had limited access to books made for us to use, and often that was religious or self-help-ish in nature. Often, not always.

But I have always been curious. The Wife says, and She's right, that I can't let it go. My mind can't do that. If I try to repress something that's niggling at me, it's likely to come up in dreams.

I did a lot of enforced cognitive dissonance for a couple years in my early 20s. I later tried to conform again for quite a few years. But since the late 90s, I have had no quarrel with homosexuals and a lot of other groups the Christians have problems with. I am decidedly not gifted. I make a below-average income, and in my own field of work I am far from being a star. Sure, I'm good enough at it that the employer finds me useful year in and year out, with few complaints. My intrests always have been extremely eclectic.

I think that Christians might think it's just the super intelligent, or the people who imagine themselves super intelligent, who leave Christianity. But that only goes along with their anti-intellectual narrative. My intelligence doesn't stack up at all to that of William Lane Craig and other apologists I have read.

I've never been a person to "keep my head down."

Just not very dogma-friendly. I guess, considering other dogmas society has tried to feed me over the years, dogmas I have ultimately rejected, it should not surprise me that I would ultimately leave Christianity.

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I'm in the gifted, sensitive, melancholic crowd.  Growing up with agnostics helped me, since I was allowed to have questions.  I like questioning things.  I like finding easier ways to do things.  I'm suspicious over people's financial motivation, so of course I'm suspicious about churches and their insistence on tithing.  I can't be forced to do something I don't want to, so have never tithed.

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Every iq test I've ever taken was 140-150. According to CAT tests I was 4 grades ahead. However my grades don't show it because I'm a slacker. B student with no effort whatsoever.

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My IQ is around the 140-145 range; my school district didn't believe in grade skipping so I was stuck in unchallenging settings and got bored with school well before high school, and by then I just didn't care about anything.  When I had religion thrown at me - since I wasn't raised with it - I responded emotionally rather than intellectually.  Once I began focusing the intellect the whole thing fell apart - a lot of things about it didn't ring true right from the start but it took around 17 years to disregard the fear and self-programming and let go.

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I was like Scottsman, high IQ but hated school and homework (until late college when I suddenly took off running and did really well). Got sucked into Christianity at age 11 by my childish fear of monsters. Got out about 6 years ago.

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I was considered gifted as a child. I was in gifted classes through Grade 6 in my small, rural southern school. They got rid of the gifted program after that and I was mainstreamed into regular classes in Grade 7. My family moved to a large suburb when I was about halfway through Grade 8. I took general ed, middle track courses in high school and didn't apply for admittance to AP or College courses. I didn't want the responsibility and my high school was overcrowded, so all courses were dictated by GPA. My GPA hovered around 2.5, mostly because I skipped a lot of class to read and listen to music on the second floor of the library. ;)

 

I ended up going to night school during my junior year and graduated a semester early. I took the ACT as a junior and scored a 32 on it. Which is pretty high, considering that I didn't finish all sections. I had a perfect score on the Math section too. That was surprising because math was worst subject in high school. I never went beyond Algebra. My high school was a pilot school for a new math curriculum in my state and that curriculum sucked a huge donkey dick, imho. I wasn't stupid; just confused by the new methods that required me to visualize every fucking step and then write an essay about it. The tests showed that I understood the concepts and was very competent.

 

I took a year off between high school and college. Worked some bullshit jobs, partied a lot and helped a friend with a music website. He got me into a lot of concerts, we met a lot of bands, interviewed some of them and I started DJ-ing. Thought that my life as headed down that path, but I applied to college on a lark and got in. I went on to get two degrees in STEM areas, which is considered to be a feat when the person doesn't possess a penis, lol.

 

These days, I prefer creative endeavors and deep discussions. I write a lot of fiction, read a lot of just about every subject area, and love doing hands on projects involving technology and cooking. I like to think that I am a bit beyond and above the people that I encounter on a regular basis, but that is probably wishful ego fulfillment.

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Had a chemistry set as a kid. Had a monthly subscription to science booklets. Made many different projects with the 101 electronic projects kit as a teen. Was the only nerd at the time to take 4 years of electronics in my high school. Built the Graymark Binary Clock in that class. :-)

 

http://www.esssales.com/graymark/elect-projs-s4-500.html

 

Got interested in ham radio (intense radio electronics geekery) and achieved the highest license possible. Repaired some fairly esoteric electronics equipment in the military. Learned a number of different computer languages over the years and earned two IT degrees.

 

Have made radio contacts via ham radio satellites orbiting the Earth.

 

So very geeky intellectual though never had the patience to take an IQ test. Afraid I might not pass. :-)

We have frightening similarities! Who knew geeks and nerds would eventually be cool? I built a novice transmitter from scratch and scraps when I was in the ninth grade; people thought I should be playing football or some shit. 

 

Advice to kids - do not take an IQ test if you can possibly avoid it. Those with low scores will never have a challenging curriculum, and those who score very well will constantly be pushed to "reach their potential" by teachers who have no clue.

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I'm about average, I'd reckon.

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Hard to know what to say here. Intelligence has been linked with a lot of things, but I'd say that more important things are conscientiousness and curiosity. All that being smart ever did for me was give me bad study habits and social isolation. On the upside, once I do find someone interesting to talk to, those relationships are way more fulfilling. I do want to take a legit IQ test someday out of curiosity but, as florduh said, there's always the risk of taking it too seriously.

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Had a chemistry set as a kid. Had a monthly subscription to science booklets. Made many different projects with the 101 electronic projects kit as a teen. Was the only nerd at the time to take 4 years of electronics in my high school. Built the Graymark Binary Clock in that class. :-)

 

http://www.esssales.com/graymark/elect-projs-s4-500.html

 

Got interested in ham radio (intense radio electronics geekery) and achieved the highest license possible. Repaired some fairly esoteric electronics equipment in the military. Learned a number of different computer languages over the years and earned two IT degrees.

 

Have made radio contacts via ham radio satellites orbiting the Earth.

 

So very geeky intellectual though never had the patience to take an IQ test. Afraid I might not pass. :-)

We have frightening similarities! Who knew geeks and nerds would eventually be cool? I built a novice transmitter from scratch and scraps when I was in the ninth grade; people thought I should be playing football or some shit. 

 

Advice to kids - do not take an IQ test if you can possibly avoid it. Those with low scores will never have a challenging curriculum, and those who score very well will constantly be pushed to "reach their potential" by teachers who have no clue.

 

 

One of my teachers always wanted us to play baseball instead of our usual loitering....probably because the baseball field was further away from him. :-) I've always enjoyed nerdhood, though most of the time it's a solitary practice for me. Dungeons and Dragons brought us together, though. :-)

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Hard to know what to say here. Intelligence has been linked with a lot of things, but I'd say that more important things are conscientiousness and curiosity. All that being smart ever did for me was give me bad study habits and social isolation. On the upside, once I do find someone interesting to talk to, those relationships are way more fulfilling. I do want to take a legit IQ test someday out of curiosity but, as florduh said, there's always the risk of taking it too seriously.

 

If you're smart enough to consider taking an IQ test then you're probably a flippin genius and don't need to. :-)

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I'm about average, I'd reckon.

I call bullshit on that statement, RNP!  I'd reckon you're smarter than the average bear.

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