Of 10 highest IQ's on earth, at least 8 are Theists, at least 6 are Christians

www.examiner.com...

Andrew Magdy Kamal - apparently the highest IQ ever recorded, at 231.734. This was accomplished last year (2013) just before he turned 17. This includes an adjustment made for his age (which is done routinely for minors), so only time will tell if he maintains his position, but he is listed in Record Holder's Republic for Highest IQ and Highest IQ average, and it looks pretty good. He is a he is a staunch conservative and a member of the Republican Tea Party. He is also the founder of the Coptic Orthodox Messianicans Group. Andrew Magdy Kamal hopes to use his talents and intelligence to spread the news of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus Christ) his hero, and he lives in Michigan.

Abdessellam Jelloul - apparently the highest IQ ever scored by an adult in the "advanced IQ test" was by Jelloul, who scored an adult IQ of 198. This was in a 2012 test which included 13 dimensions of intelligence (analytical, spatial, logical, memory, musical, linguistic, philosophical, moral, spiritual, interpersonal, intra-personal, bodily and naturalist). Unlike other tests, the advanced IQ test includes more measures that other tests cannot assess. I tweeted Mr. Jelloul a question about his beliefs in September of last year, and he graciously replied to me that he does "believe in God, a Supreme Architect of the universe" (see a screenshot of this tweet in the slideshow).

Christopher Michael Langan - has a verified IQ of at least 195. Langan achieved a perfect score on the SAT, but dropped out of Montana State University after concluding his professors weren't qualified to teach him anything. ABC's 20/20 measured his IQ (as an adult) to be between 195 and 210. Langan has indicated in his writings numerous that he believes in God, for example, in William Dembski's book "Uncommon Dissent", he wrote: "...since Biblical accounts of the genesis of our world and species are true but metaphorical, our task is to correctly decipher the metaphor in light of scientific evidence also given to us by God".

Many times on ATS and other forum I have heard theist and Christian ridiculed, accused of being unintelligent and you have all read the post and topics I am talking about.

I personally believe that belief in a creator opens pathways in the mind.

A reason to believe
www.apa.org...

Predisposed to believe

If we are predisposed to believe, what is the difference between those whose brains are Predisposed and those who are atheist?

People also have a bias for believing in the supernatural, says Barrett. In his work, he finds that children as young as age 3 naturally attribute supernatural abilities and immortality to “God,” even if they’ve never been taught about God, and they tell elaborate stories about their lives before they were born, what Barrett calls “pre-life.”

“We’ve had this long history of believing that the things of the spirit are in one camp and that science and technology are in another camp,” says Plante, professor and director of the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara University and president of APA’s Div. 36 (Psychology of Religion). “If anything, this work reiterates that we are whole people; the biological, psychological, social, cultural and spiritual are all connected.”

That said, most researchers don’t believe that the cognitive tendencies that bias us toward religious belief evolved specifically for thinking about religion. Rather, they likely served other adaptive purposes. For example, because people are quick to believe that someone or something is behind even the most benign experiences, they may perceive the sound of the wind rustling leaves as a potential predator. In evolutionary terms, says Atran, it was probably better for us to mistakenly assume that the wind was a lion than to ignore the rustling and risk death.

But this tendency also set us up to believe in an omnipresent God-like concept. Taken together, it’s easy to see how these cognitive tendencies could allow our minds to create religions built on the idea of supernatural beings that watch over our lives, says Atran, director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris.

So a survival instinct?

If believers have this and unbelievers don't and this was part of our psychological makeup, is something missing in those that have lost it?

www.apa.org...

I personally believe we have lost much of our god given natural instincts.

Instinct, imagination, spirituality, is it all necessary for us to evolve further?

I think a belief in a god has little to do with intelligence, and much more to do with programming!

if his IQ had actually anything to do with how smart is he, he would at least be able to understand that the Messiah never said he is God and never said anyone should worship him.

nice going there anyway, keep it up.

In explaining this relationship, the CTMU shows that reality possesses a complex property akin to self-awareness. That is, just as the mind is real, reality is in some respects like a mind. But when we attempt to answer the obvious question "whose mind?", the answer turns out to be a mathematical and scientific definition of God. This implies that we all exist in what can be called "the Mind of God", and that our individual minds are parts of God's Mind. They are not as powerful as God's Mind, for they are only parts thereof; yet, they are directly connected to the greatest source of knowledge and power that exists. This connection of our minds to the Mind of God, which is like the connection of parts to a whole, is what we sometimes call the soul or spirit, and it is the most crucial and essential part of being human"
Christopher Langan


Andrew Kamal
Intelligence: IQ: 231.734: Andrew Kamal. At the age of 16 Andrew Kamal scored 295.67+222+205+240+196 on the Cattell Cultural Third Assessment, Binnet SB Fifth Edition Scale, Cerebral Society's IAW Scale, A.C.E. Viper IQ Scale, and Mensa Autistic Children Gifted Scale, respectively. The collective score was 1158.67 for an average of 231.734. Mr. Kamal's ambition is to become a neurosurgeon.

born with Aspergers and savant syndrome,
www.onlineprnews.com...

WOW I find the fact he was born with Aspergers and savant syndrome, truly fascinating,

originally posted by: generik
a reply to: Stormdancer777

might want to fix your title, and or learn math. 6+8=14 not 10. and since an atheist doesn't believe in any god and christians do believe in a god, you can't have some of them being both an atheist and a christian.

out of 10 - 8 are Theists

out of 10 - 6 are Christians

where did you get 14?

originally posted by: generik
a reply to: Stormdancer777

might want to fix your title, and or learn math. 6+8=14 not 10. and since an atheist doesn't believe in any god and christians do believe in a god, you can't have some of them being both an atheist and a christian.

Of 10 highest IQ's on earth, at least 8 are Theists, at least 6 are Christians

Read it again

Eight of 10 are theist, 6 of which are Christian.

a reply to: demus

my mistake i misread theist as atheist.

Even if my 140 something IQ seems a bit low compared to those dudes, I'm agnostic. I believe in the metaphysical existence and multi-dimensions but I'm too skeptic and open minded to simply say that I believe in deities or don't believe in any.

And like someone said before me, I don't think IQ is the main deciding factor in religious and political views.

In fact, I can't even say if IQ alone is a good way to calculate intelligence.

Of course a 17 year old believes in God- wait until he gets into the real world and has to support himself and deal with women, etc.

But the real issue is what's the average IQ of voting christians? I would say for American protestants it's probably around 90.

Personally, my IQ has increased since I stopped believing in God and have become more logical.

Hirata posted the following to his Facebook on October 31, 2013: "Today's experience: saying the Lord's prayer with a homeless couple on Colorado Boulevard. It may not feed or shelter them, but I hope that it made a difference in their lives." So he is clearly both a Theist and a Christian.

Well, at least he is smart enough to acknowledge how ineffective prayer is compared with actual hard work or charity. If there is any power in prayer, it is from the human mind itself, which generates an electrical field extending beyond our skulls with the potential to affect the matter around us.

VERY good thread!

I personally believe we have lost much of our god given natural instincts.

I don't think we have 'lost' anything; we have just learned to silence the voice of our inner spirit that tells us when we are on the wrong path- or we never go deep enough into our soul to hear it in the first place.

I hear people say they want peace, yet they choose sides on whether Ukraine/Russia is in the right; Israel versus Palestine, etc. You can not serve two masters; you are either for promoting peace through peaceful means, or you are for war and violence.

Whether you are religious or not, if one were to live by the teachings of Jesus we would not be on the path we are now.
Take away all the 'fluff' and adjectives and what did He teach? Love. If one were to live their life looking at world events from a center of love, how would our perspective change?

originally posted by: VoidHawk
I think a belief in a god has little to do with intelligence, and much more to do with programming!

I don't know when you read their bios you find theist with little programing, but I understand your take on the subject, I am really interested in spirituality as a survival instinct and always have been, yes I do believe in a creator.

Now, are these high IQs stimulated by the depth of their spirituality?



So if the majority of mankind decides he no longer needs spirituality that same spirituality that help our minds expand and evolve, where does that leave us?

a reply to: Stormdancer777

I personally believe that belief in a creator opens pathways in the mind.

I hold the same belief, and may even have participated in some of these pathways.

If we are predisposed to believe, what is the difference between those whose brains are Predisposed and those who are atheist?

I am presently struggling with this very subject. The first thing that comes up is, spirituality comes naturally to a "Spirited" , souled, being, and not true for the opposite.

Its almost as if they are actually two separate species, one that can hold a soul, and one that can not. As I do not posses the intelligence sited above, I must site that this train of thought I hold could have come from one of those pathways you mentioned, well, did.

I suppose in a Atheists mind there is nothing but himself, herself, nothing higher and no mystery they can hold in their hands that can not be explained one way or another. The notion of a spirit world is dilutional and unprovable.
Sad really in the fact that they really are alone. An Athiest, a real one, who would accept the possibility of something higher than themselves, is a contradiction.

I would hope some Atheists, which their are many here on ATS, would stop in and share.

Now here's a problem. In the referenced story in the OP we are led to a second site that the author uses as his proof about one of his subjects. In that is another list of "smartest people". Some of the people on that list have a higher IQ than the people on the list in the OP but aren't included.

This is a problem.

What we have here is a cherry-picked list of mostly theists who support the author's belief system, not a actual list of the "world's ten most intelligent people".

It is very interesting that of the 10 highest IQ's 8 seem to be from or in the US. Really? Out of over six billion people on the face of the planet, the majority of the smartest are from the US? Sorry, not buying this.

It never fails... point out Christians with high IQ's, and just sit back and wait for the comments diminishing the value of a high IQ.

In today's world, it is apparently not possible to possess great intelligence, logic, and rationality, if you also hold a belief in God. Yet, if these highest IQ's belonged mostly to atheists, and agnostics, it (high IQ) would be heralded as evidence that only the stupid, irrational, and illogical believe in God.

Funny how that works, isn't it?

As I understand it, Hitler had some pretty intelligent scientist working for his cause too. There's no accounting for sanity. What is it they say? "It a fine line between genius and insanity".

originally posted by: demus
if his IQ had actually anything to do with how smart is he, he would at least be able to understand that the Messiah never said he is God and never said anyone should worship him.

nice going there anyway, keep it up.

I have said this before, Intelligence and information, are not the same things. The brain even of a high IQ person is still subject to the same pitfall of a computer, "Garbage in, Garbage out".

originally posted by: VoidHawk
I think a belief in a god has little to do with intelligence, and much more to do with programming!

I came in to say this. I never for a second linked intelligence with belief in a higher power. In order to question the existence of a higher power you need intelligence. And to do it the most refined way possible (currently the scientific method) requires probably more intelligence. But neither of these things means that someone with high intelligence is going to do that. Also keep in mind that the higher your intelligence the better you get at defending your beliefs no matter how ill-formed they may be.

One more thing about the 17 year old kid, he's 17 he doesn't have the life experience to question god yet unless he lived a rather abused childhood (doubtful looking at his accomplishments). Give him about 13 or so years then come back and ask if he still believes.