fayfreethinkers.com

I'm a member of Mensa (I just randomly answered the questions on their test and happen to get enough of them right...) and I joined their M-Atheist special interest group. It is far more active than any of the other groups. I think there is a collatlation between people who are non-religious and intelligence level, though I dont have statistics it certinaly seems to be the case.

How many Mensa members does it take to spell correlation?

I've never been impressed with Mensa. Showing your intelligence in your posts here goes a lot farther with me than simply stating you're in Mensa.

wow...I'm not here to impress you.

Westfall wrote:wow...I'm not here to impress you.

That's fine. I'm just the type of person who'll jump on something like that when the person is talking about intelligence.

Jeepers, Westfall, you do have to admit that spelling correlation: "collatlation" is a pretty big miss for a "Mensa member" with a spell checker option.

WEST
I think there is a collatlation between people who are non-religious and intelligence level...

DAR
I am pretty skeptical of intelligence tests, however, if I passed the Mensa test I think I would become less skeptical. Do you have a link where I can randomly answer questions on their tests and maybe get enough of them right?

But you raise a good question. Wiki has a blurb on this that will give you a little, controversial, ammo: Religiosity and intelligence.

D.

Savonarola wrote:How many Mensa members does it take to spell correlation?

I've never been impressed with Mensa. Showing your intelligence in your posts here goes a lot farther with me than simply stating you're in Mensa.

Ralph Rene was a member of Mensa...enough said...

kwlyon wrote: Ralph Rene was a member of Mensa...enough said...

DAR
My favorite example too. For those who don't know... "Rene was a vocal proponent of the Apollo moon landing hoax theory."

DOUG writes:
I've never wanted to me a member of Mensa because I grew up in an Hispanic culture, and "mensa" means "stupid woman" in Spanish. "Menso" with an "o" at the end is the male counterpart.

Growing up in South Texas, I heard people call a girl or woman "mensa!" innumerable times.

It's like having a genius organization with the acronym "D.U.N.C.E."

By the way, when I lived in Indiana years ago, I was acquainted with Steve Rider, who said he was the son of the founder of Mensa. He was a retired fighter pilot instructor (before they started the Top Gun school), but he claimed that he was not particularly bright. One day he brought his 6-month-old son (I think that's right) to meet a group of people, and the little tyke could already speak and identify a few colors. Pretty amazing. Most kids don't begin speaking until 18-24 months.

I was just wondering if there were any figures on this yesterday, because we were watching the movie "The Soloist" and there was a scene where Robert Downey Jr. (playing the role of a journalist) was interviewing a member of a Freethinkers group. RDJ asked the Freethinker character about why he was an athiest, and the Freethinker actor acted like a complete idiot, unable to give an answer, even making Jerry Lewis-like faces. I said, "Why are they making the athiests look so stupid?" Other person said, "because some of them ARE stupid." and I said, "In my experience, they're more intellectual than the average person; that's why they were able to think through the whole thing and become athiests."

I have never met an athiest who couldn't give an articulate answer as to the reason for their lack of belief in god, etc.

And the movie wasn't very good, either. Very predictable and plodded along.

Betsy wrote:I have never met an athiest who couldn't give an articulate answer as to the reason for their lack of belief in god, etc. And the movie wasn't very good, either. Very predictable and plodded along.

DOUG
Robert Downey, Jr., said in an interview in the New York Times that his experience in prison drummed out the "liberal" view in him. However, this doesn't mean he's at the other end of the political spectrum, nor does it tell us much about his religious views.

But the scriptwriter for The Soloist was probably just another biased, uninformed "spiritual" person.