Why? My wife points out to me some very smart people in our ward who feverently believe. PhD's. Engineers. MD's, etc...

She is right. They are smart and they do believe. Is anyone aware of research into smart people being more or less gullible about myths?

I've read that refined reasoning capabilities can be used to justify one's beliefs more strongly. The ability or desire to question current beliefs seems to take something else besides intelligence.

People can be smart and embrace a false sense of security at the same time.

Sometimes the need for a sense of security (even thought it's totally false) can be so powerful that one's inner voice is completely stifled...

From Wikipedia:

"Various studies further suggest that intuitive thinking and inductive reasoning styles tend to increase religious beliefs, but also imply more conservative beliefs in general. Less religious people prefer analytical and deductive reasoning."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence

A lot of my TBM loved ones are very smart people. Buying the bullshit doesn't necessary make them dumb - it just means they interpret information differently.

Is your wife trying to say that TSCC is true because some smart people believe in it? Every corner of the religious market has smart people. There are very smart atheists. There are very smart Christians. There are very smart Muslims. There are very smart Jews. There are very smart Buddhists. Simply being prone to belief doesn't have anything to do with how smart you are. It just has to do with how you process the world around you.

Think of it like this: I'm a backyard astronomer. I pull out my telescope and look out into the universe and think, it is so vast and so beautiful and so complicated that there is absolutely no way anyone could have put it all together on purpose. My TBM friend looks through the telescope and thinks, it is so vast and so beautiful and so complicated that there is absolutely no way it could have come together without someone doing it on purpose.

People with letters next to their names and fancy titles aren't necessarily smart. You could spend too many hours right now just reading recent news items about the incredibly idiotic things spouted by so called prominent doctors, lawyers and engineers.

Intelligence is a multi-faceted thing, and its no innoculation against stupidity and ignorance. Avoiding the traps of false belief is about action and effort, humility, skepticism, humor, and courage. Anybody is capable of it, everybody is far from perfect at it. Its a life long stance and doesn't have much to do with whatever genetic inheritance with regard to brain function we bring into this world, which is largely outside our own control anyway. I've met some profoundly wise people who couldn't read, and I've met some brilliant idiots whose militant ignorance was just astounding.

Here's some info on the subject:

http://www.michaelshermer.com/weird-things/excerpt/

http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon441.htm

http://m.io9.com/5974468/the-most-common-cognitive-biases-that-prevent-you-from-being-rational

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Less direct but still applicable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=752V173e31o

http://www.freedomofmind.com/Info/BITE/bitemodel.php

http://packham.n4m.org/prozac.htm

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Also this can be said of EVERY religion. Brilliant people believe in Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, UFOs, and so on.

Arguably the most brilliant person living on earth, Steven Hawking, is an atheist. (That provides no evidence that atheism is correct, but it illustrates the point that smart people believing means it must be true.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2013 01:24PM by The Oncoming Storm - bc.

Thank you so much!

When DH and I left the church, the first thing his son did was to send us the link to mormon intellectuals share their testimonies.

He said he thought this one guys story was just like ours. It was so stupid I couldn't listen to the whole thing.

It was basically I learned the truth. I decided I was going to ignore it because I didn't want to upset my wife. It wasn't anything like my story!

I found the truth. I didn't care who got upset about it, I wasn't sticking with a church that had lied to me and about me for my entire life. If that makes me dumb, i'm fine with that.

Most of these people were raised Mormon. Most people retain the religious and political views of those of their parents.

Try going into a wealthy/educated neighborhood and get converts to the LDS church; it won't happen. Most missionaries only get baptisms from the poorer neighborhoods, the "humble & poor in spirit" folk.

Some of my wife's relatives are incredibly intelligent people. They are all believers.

How?

Well in this particular case, they are about as NOMish as you can get. They take the good, toss out the bad, and essentially create their own religion with Mormonism as the base.

They would NEVER admit this to anybody, even themselves, but that is how they resolve the problems with Adam and Eve vs evolution, REAL cosmology vs Mormon cosmology, etc. They take it as a religion and toss out the crazy Kolob stuff and all the rest that contradicts science.

I could never do that myself, but that's how they go on believing when they are intelligent enough to know not to.

Keep in mind, this is a specific example. As others have posted, intelligence doesn't mean that you can reject all religions. There are smart people in every religion on the planet. That doesn't mean that all religions are correct.

PhD here, and still attend. From outside appearances you would think I believe, but I don't.

That's the answer I gave my wife. "How do you know that they aren't just pretending to believe in order to maintain their family and social relationships? After all, it's what I did for a decade."

I'll just put this here:

“I know that most men—not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever, and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic problems—can very seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as to oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty—conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives.”
-Leo Tolstoy

I'm an Engineer. In school I was always at or near the top of my class. I think I subconsciously used the fact that I was right about so many things outside of religion that I must be right about religion also. Also, while Engineers are generally considered very intelligent, they rarely know much about subjects that would cause them to question Mormonism such as Anthropology or Biology. I'd be more impressed if there were a lot of very smart Biologists and Anthropologists in the church.

My TBM brother is a research scientist and has quite the ego so I don't doubt your assessment -- makes perfect sense.

There are 2 types of BYU religion professors.

1) Those who lie.

2) Those you get excommunicated & fired.

+1000

Could it be that in order to question, you need critical thinking skills?

I know growing up I always had a “BS” monitor on my head and always seemed to know when something was amiss while my TBM siblings did not, even though they did much better in school than I did. So perhaps it’s not brains that leads one to question but instead someone who doesn’t simply take things at face value but instead needs to find out for themselves if it’s true or not?

Dr. Sheldon Cooper would also like to know why smart people do dumb things.

:)

Just because someone says they believe something it doesn't mean they actually do.

I've never in my life met someone who really believed in jesus and the bible, for instance. I talk to people all the time who claim to, but their behavior proves they don't really.

One of my business school professors in college was a mormon.

I think now that he probably knew the fallacies and flaws that exist in the church, but that he was BIC and was deep in mormon culture, his family, etc.

I think people like him decide that the benefits of being in the church outweigh the drawbacks. I think that is especially true when it comes to their kids. They can't imagine raising their kids outside the church.

So they suck it up and pretend.

had a doctor and a lawyer in his congreation. I'm sure they were smart people too.

Many times people believe in something because the WANT TO BELIEVE. Then, later if they find substantial evidence of fraud or they come to NOT believe any longer, they may have too much to lose to actually take the step of leaving. At risk may be their spouse, affection of their children, friends, or possibly even their job if they life in Utah.

I have a an associate with doctorate degree and one of the smartest logical thinkers I know.

His reason for belief.. The church is true but run by idiots

Yes, it's often Daniel Dennett's "belief in belief" that motivates people to continue. In fact it's hard to tell true believers from those who just want to appear to believe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WhQ8bSvcHQ

Some people just want to believe that there is a higher puropose for our life and that there is a life after this existance where they can be with their deceased family again. So they use that little thing called faith, hoping against the evidence that there is something else. If it really helps them get through this life and it's hardships, they are willing to ignore any evidence to the contrary.

I remember reading somewhere (Carl Sagan??) that you should never underestimate the ability of smart people to believe in two conflicting ideas simultaneously.

Because the LDS church, and much of religion in general, asks the followers to suspend rational thought and criticism when it comes to the sphere of religion. The followers separate the two. Due to bias and/or conditioning they don't hold reality/science to the same standard of religion. Questioning religion = bad.

I'm not sure that belief and rationality are governed by the same cranial mechanisms. I think that they operate independently of each other, and thought is required to merge them. If you don't wish them to operate jointly they don't have to.

You could ask

Are there any Smart people who have joined the church in your ward?

or are the Smart people born into it and brought up in it, mission family, effectively 'trapped' IMO etc.

I laugh at the irony of intellectuals who believe in the church. After all, the church doesn't believe in them.