"Intelligence" means that you can figure things out. It definitely means you can figure out that Mormonism is not true. Anybody who can't figure this out is not intelligent in the highest sense. Even lawyers, doctors, professors, etc. who are believing Mormons after 35 are not "intelligent" in the highest sense.

I use age 35 because it takes time for Mormons to overcome their programming. If they have gone on missions, to BYU, etc., they can be given some extra time to figure everything out. But if they haven't figured it out by the time they're 35, they aren't intelligent in the highest sense.

People with high incomes are too busy to do internet research. Thats why there are so many mormon dentists.

Internet research.

Bwahahahaaaha

Let me get on the internet and see if I should stick my Johnson in a frying pan.

No, this stuff is so f’ing ludicrous you don’t need the internet or a book.

Smart people are more easily duped.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/01/why-smart-people-are-more-likely-to-believe-fake-news

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/30/psychology-explains-why-people-are-so-easily-duped/

https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2044-8333.2012.02054.x

This bias toward smart people unfortunately keeps the tithing dollars rolling in from professionals and smart businessmen.

I wouldn't know since I don't read good no more and want to do other things good too

A belief in mythology that purports to answer the big questions of life works for many people. The trouble is when the belief becomes more important than anything else, and overrides common sense and humane behavior.

It's probably a natural response once your shelf has broken, to look back at all the red flags you ignored and feel so blind and so stupid. I was horrified the more I looked at it from outside, the more obvious the sham became. I think it is important to be charitable with ourselves and those still trapped inside as victims who have had something terrible done to their mental state.

They are not less intelligent for not "figuring it out". Because 1. How can you solve a puzzle that you don't realize is there? A lot of tbms were raised in the church, meaning indoctrinated and emotionally abused from very young to the point where things they are told are taken for granted and just accepted later in life. There can be no examination of facts if you have not been taught that is even possible for you to do. Was I less intelligent when I first read the CES letter and felt my faith slipping away and worried for 2 days that Satan was trying to possess me? Did I go up a few IQ points when I became an atheist?

And 2. Most theological belief is emotionally based not rational or based on evidence. You can talk and present facts and evidence to someone who believes something based on faith until you're blue in the face and not even touch them where they're at. Because it's about how they feel, the personal experiences they've had, and how they connect with their community and the world in this emotional level. We all have our biases and emotionally rooted beliefs, stuff that we argue for because we feel more than we can logically defend it. It doesn't mean you lack intelligence. They're two different categories.

For instance, 35 is an arbitrary number. There is no data to support that someone at 34 who leaves the church is more intelligent than someone at 40 or 50. You just made that up based on your personal feelings and biases.

I agree with you that religion is emotional vs. rational. IMO it's a way for people to organize and make sense of their world. The problem with the Mormon church is that it's so very intrusive and controlling.

>> How can you solve a puzzle that you don't realize is there?

I can really relate to this. Sometimes the truth takes a long time to emerge.

Spot on:

A few days ago we had a snowstorm, the morning commute packed down the 2 or 3 inches of snow into a nice sheet of bluish ice.

The car behind me driving at high speed lost control at every corner and turn, sliding into the curb and then bouncing back from the impact. The driver would then spin the tires in reverse at full RPM, and repeat the same maneuver over and over again until they reached the freeway.

You could tell the driver was late for work.

Emotions rule behavior, and until one gains control of their emotions..........then emotions rule behavior.

It's gotten to the point where I really dread seeing tricked-out Honda Civics on the highway. The drivers are invariably young idiots who dart in and out of lanes with little room to spare. It never seems to dawn on them that if you're going 70-80 mph, you need a lot of stopping distance if something goes wrong. They think they're immortal.

Well, let’s start putting some data together.

How old were you when you left?

I wonder what all those highly intelligent people past and present who believe in things patently untrue could do if they only had access to that higher sense? Perhaps it is ESP. Just think what they could do for the world. Too bad only so few had and have access to that higher sense.

Sheesh. If only I were an expert on intelligence and could grade it based upon beliefs.

Nice phrase. "Intelligent in the Highest Sense".

With all the proclivities we have, like it or not, we don't have all that much control over our intelligence even with all our book smarts and life experiences. So, what on earth would be the true definition of "intelligent in the highest sense"?

I come from a TMB-to-the-Max Mormon family. This includes a lot of higher education, PHD's even, and great career success. And, great testimonies. Yea, even unshakeable testimonies-- with a side of condescendence in a couple.

Seems like finding your way out of a house of mirrors, but, I'll give a crack at solving the definition.

Compartmentalization. One thing has nothing to do with the other thing we tell ourselves. This goes in that drawer and that goes in the one next to it. And don't open them both at the same time. Like, ever. Mental botulism is a real threat, you know?

For me intelligence in the highest sense has to include some fearlessness. Not being afraid of your self any more. Opening all the draws, dusting every thing off, and putting everything back in the same drawer. My life began when I did that. Whole at last even if half baked.

No one is perfect at thinking--not even Einstein though he was pretty damn good---so the risk is in the drawing of conclusions.
The conclusions should never become untouchable, on a pedestal. That would be dumb. Which is the opposite of smart.

Your right hand does indeed need to know what your left is doing.


And for everyone who thinks they are highly intelligent, the test is, if you believe the phrase, "All will be explained in the hereafter," you are an idiot even if you are Dr.Idiot, PHD.

The lack of the ability to distinguish between Facts - Truth and claims-myths - Lies seldom goes unpunished.

Maybe not so much a 'lack of ability, but rather a lack of desire to distinguish very uncomfortable fact from cozy fiction.

Why 35? Interesting that you would pick 35 (out of the air) because that was when I transformed from questioning to believe (find reasons to follow the Church leaders and teachings) and questioning to defend myself and family (from the Church leaders and teachings).

I was one of the "golden converts" that joined the Church when I was 20 in university (lap 1). Through the ensuing ~15 years I came to realize that I had to protect myself from Church leaders and teachings that were damaging my mental health.

So I'm 35. I'm informally "less-active." But can I just leave the Church? NO. I have to stay to monitor the Church. My wife knew no limits when the Church was asking (telling ... demanding).

My wife was one of those members who volunteered for everything. She was always the "first and the last" -> the first to signup and the last as well when they declared that they didn't have enough people. Only when I said firmly "NO" would she stop. Yes, I even stood in meetings to voice objections.

I wonder how much the Church cost in tithing? However, tithing helped restrain my wife's inspirational spending. She believed that she received guidance from the Holy Ghost in anything even something as trivial as taking the children to KFC for lunch. Fine. But if there is more month and money, then tithing will not be paid.

So I stayed in the Church until I was 52. If I left earlier my children would have been used as "weapons" to punish me. I would have had no influence if I left them to my wife and the Church.

And they would have been unrestrained. My children knew that their mother felt no restraint in punishing them to protect them from Satan.

Only when our youngest was 21 was a really free to go.

This is a compelling post. "Intelligence," or wisdom, requires optimizing several different equations at the same time, not making precipitous changes regardless of the consequences.

That other people cannot see what you are doing is irrelevant. They are the ones deficient in intelligence.

Well at 35 you can become president.

I would use the word incurious rather than unintelligent. I am extremely curious about everything so I figured out the fraud when I was 18 in 2004. I have family that is probably more intelligent than me but not particularly curious, they are still in and are approaching their 70s.

Another issue is emotional fragility, if someone is trauma bonded to the church they will be too scared to look at or accept the facts, no matter how smart or curious they are.

A cogent argument, very nicely stated.

Your username is not familiar to me. Please hang around!

I’ve seen the poster on another board, but they had an E in there.

Thanks! I was on this board daily back in the mid through late 2000s.

I sort of stopped worrying about TSCC for almost a decade, but some mistreatment by my TBM family has made me want to try to get better acquainted with why their ethics and world view are so profoundly screwed up.

I have been recently trying to even more thoroughly understand the cult dynamics and the unending evil of JS and BM, so here I am back on the board after not posting for about 13 years.

Just be sure not to cross Lot's Wife...

She can be a real B*T*H and scorched earth is her usual MO.

So now you can't say you weren't warned!!!!!

Asator, don't pay Jesus no nevermind.

He's just angry about that little incident on the hill a couple of millennia ago.

What about in the lowest sense ?

The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Sunk Cost Fallacy in a nutshell, describes our tendency to follow through on an endeavor if we have already invested time, effort, or money into it, whether or not the current costs outweigh the benefits.

For me, the costs to my children of me remaining silent about the fraud, far outweighed the social benefits of keeping my doubts to myself, which is the point at which I resigned and suffered the consequences of becoming a pariah in my own family, tribe and community. My freedom and my children’s freedom was Well worth the trade off in the end.

You can be intelligent in some ways and stupid in others. All religions are ridiculous but I know many highly educated,successful people who are active in a faith of some kind.

And where would golfers be without their peculiar faith to buoy them up?

Maybe belief in miracles is par for the course 'mongst humans?

I think that's unfair. There are a lot of smart mormons that correctly assessed that leaving the church wasn't worth burning down their life. I left the church at 18, so it was easy for me. However, somebody who has a marriage, children, job, etc that rely on belief in this church, might be more willing to turn a blind eye and play ball. That decision, though maybe lacking in integrity or authenticity, is not a stupid one.