According to once source, Mormons have higher-than-average IQs (and this remains true even if you’re looking only at non-Hispanic whites). Considerably higher, as far as averages go. Of course, the even juicier part for me is that Episcopalians are even higher. Higher than smug agnostics and atheists, even. So now I have a response next time some atheist talks about atheist IQ’s. And I myself can be smug against those people that are spiritual-but-not-religious, who are a few pegs further down than Episcopalians or Atheists. The Jewish are, of course, higher than everybody else.
It’s interesting to contemplate what makes some religions do better than others on these sorts of tests. That’s in large part because there are two ways that religions gain followers. They are born or they are made. So for instance, it could be true that Baptists have lower IQs in the aggregate because it is a theology that is most attractive to people with lower IQs. Or it could be that they have lower IQs because of the population of people born into the faith. The possibility, involving the other two, is that smart Baptists leave the faith. My impression of Baptists is that a disproportionate number of them are made and not born. On the other hand, I know comparatively few former Baptists, so it’s less like say the Church of Christ (The ICC, not the Congregationalists) which by virtue of its inflexibility seems to hemorrhage people that can’t buy into it full freight. While Baptists are often known for being liberal, liberals like my former roommate can still find a place within the church and still be Baptist. The numbers don’t reflect any distinction between the conservative Southern Baptists and the mainline American Baptists. Because of this and its non-centralized leadership, it’s less either-or than say the LDS or Catholic churches. So my former roommate Hubert can still be a Baptist while still being a socially liberal Democrat.
My own Episcopal Church definitely falls into the category of one you are born into. The only converts we really get are disaffected liberal Catholics and they can be really hard to pry loose from that church even if it’s driving them crazy. Meanwhile, Episcopalians are constantly leaving the church for either Catholicism or conservative protestantism depending on whether they are High Church or Low Church sorts of folks. So when it comes to Episcopalians, it comes down to who is left. Apparently it’s a disproportionate number of the smart people that end up hanging around. My guess is that, despite the fact I’m not myself a very good Episcopalian, I am representative of a fair selection of its membership. TEC is liberal enough that it’s almost not worth leaving whatever our theological uncertainties. A lot of those that leave for more conservative protestant churches are often those whose minds cannot handle infirm theology and want to go somewhere where they are simply told how it is. The same is probably true, to a lesser extent, of those that leave for Catholicism. Meanwhile, those that stay behind are disproportionately likely to have the intelligence to contemplate the vagueries of the church and can handle the contradictory views within the church. And given Episcopalianism’s and Anglicanism’s well-heeled history, they were probably starting from a relatively high set-point anyway.
Catholicism, which is relatively middling, is another interesting case. It’s definitely something that most adherents are born into. Those born into the faith include a lot of Italians and Irish who are not known for being particularly intelligent (in the non-Hispanic white population) and those that came here back in the day were not (as far as I know) likely to come from the higher classes out there. I don’t think that former Catholics are as likely to be disproportionately from the more intelligent or less intelligent sectors of the rank and file. They do seem to be getting a lot of high-profile conversions among intelligent conservatives that want religion but don’t want low-brow protestantism, though I do not know how significant it is to the population at large. I know at least one protestant-raised guy that converted to Catholicism and he’s pretty smart. I know a number of Catholic-raised folks that left the church and they’re pretty smart, too. Then again, I think it’s safe to say that I know a disproportionate number of smart people.
I’ve got no good reason for the Mormons to do as well as they do. They don’t have an especially well-heeled history. Theirs is a church that’s hard to leave but also hard for someone with any serious theological doubts to stay into. The former Mormons I know are disproportionately really intelligent. Maybe it goes back to the polygamy wherein men of limited intelligence were simply excluded from breeding. The church I suppose is large enough that inbreeding was not as big an issue as I would expect in the FLDS. Then again, is the LDS church of old that much bigger than the FLDS church of today?
Or maybe the numbers are just goofy and flawed. They’re taken from something called the NLY97 test. It’s possible that for Catholics, for instance, a disproportionate number of test-takers came from superior Catholic schools and so they ended up higher than they should have. Ditto for Episcopalians. So these numbers could all be useless. But what fun would posting on that be?
Spiritual women are more promiscuous than are non-spiritual women. The study differentiated between “spiritual” and “religious” and though the article focuses on spirituality, the pecking order seems to be spiritual over non-spiritual, irreligious over religious. Their theory:
“Believing one is intimately tied to other human beings and that interconnectedness and harmony are indispensible may lead one to believe sexual intimacy possesses a divine or transcendent quality in itself,” Burris writes. “In fact, ascribing sacred qualities to sex has been positively associated with positive affective reactions to sex, frequency of sex, and number of sexual partners among university students.”
Sounds blissful.
I have an alternative theory.
Being an atheist is undemanding but also unpopular and for a lot of people unfulfilling. Being a member of an organized religious provides you with a packaged set of beliefs but comes with a bunch of rules you have to follow. Call yourself “spiritual” and not “religious” and you can do whatever the heck you want with less in the way of social consequences and you can find meaning in whatever the heck you want to find meaning in. So if it feels good you can make it not about feeling good but about connectedness and all that jazz. The rules are typically more generous when you make them up as you go along. You get gratification from all ends.
That these people would correlate highly with people that engage in promiscuous, unprotected sex is hardly a surprise.
A bit of religious inclusivity argumentation in Denver makes for an interesting discussion.
On the one side, we have a little girl. Probably too little to understand much of what’s going on, but not too young to be used as a pawn by the cynical.
On another side, we have the parents of the little girl - in this case, biological mom and lesbian partner. Who, reading through the lines of the various news stories, probably (a) lied on their initial application to the school, (b) were pushing to tell other kids about how it was “not wrong” to be gay, and (c) did enough that the school administration’s attention was called to the situation.
On another side, we have other kids in the class. Who probably are too young to care, but again were probably turned into pawns being made to discuss the “two mommies” situation.
On another side, we have the other kids’ parents. At least a few of who, sending their kids to a private, religiously based school, were (at least statistically speaking) likely to have a problem having to have the “well this is why Daisy having two mommies is not a good situation” discussion with their 4- or 5-year-olds.
On another side, we have the school administration, likely caught between church doctrine, the lesbians, the other parents, and trying to work things out so as not to cause untold misery to a 4 year old girl. More on that in a minute.
On the final side, we have… well, I personally would have stronger words regarding them, but let’s just call them “the usual round of outspoken, opinionated advocate groups who happen to have a deep-seated and preexisting hatred for the Catholic church.” The ones who the lesbians enlisted for an attack.
The school came to a decision, one which I believe was probably the best they could come up with. It’s obvious that the “two mommies” were pretty outspoken about their lifestyle choice. Whether you consider it moral or immoral, the Catholic Church believes it is immoral, and it was obviously causing enough consternation at some level or other that they believed having the kid exist in the school long-term would be seen as a “signal” that they were condoning the behavior in question. On the other hand (and having been through it myself, I can say from experience that it does indeed suck), uprooting a kid in the middle of semester causes hell. Social cliques are formed, and the kid gets hit with the “oh that’s the interloper” stigma. Bring a kid in at the beginning of a new school year, along with the usual classroom shuffling, and there is much less in the way of social integration trouble. So the school made what I consider a generous offer: the kid could stay through the end of school year, giving the lesbian moms >6 months to study and investigate and apply to new schools and be all prepared for next fall.
The response from the lesbians was to enlist the usual hate groups. I consider this saddening, and not a little indicative of ulterior motives on their side.
As far as churches go, Will’s spoken of his friend being kicked out of one for being in an unmarried, cohabiting relationship. Some new-age-ey churches say “gay, straight, bi, poly, whatever the hell you want.” Some protestant churches are openly dealing with schisms surrounding their ordination of openly gay individuals. Some churches struggle with the married-vs-unmarried priesthood concept. Some churches are dealing with the whether-or-nots of ordaining women. Chances are if you look hard enough, you can find a church that doesn’t care on your “particular” issue of choice.
Generally, however, a church or church-based entity is going to be subject to different rules than society. There are things society condones/tolerates/”puts up with” that they may say are immoral. They may ask you not to bring these up within their doors. They may pull you aside and say “for the good of your soul, you really shouldn’t be doing that.” Occasionally, if someone is really, really insistent on making a public jerk of themselves about some point or other, they may ask them not to attend church services. If you are working for them or applying for a job with them, and it comes out that you are consistently doing something they consider seriously immoral and are unrepentant about it, they may refuse to hire you or even let you go.
In the case of a 4 year old girl in Denver, her “two mommies” apparently made the situation untenable enough that the school/church’s response was, “please find another school for your child.” The sad side of me says it sucks to be the little girl. The cynical side of me says, given what’s being “left unsaid” by both sides, that most likely the little girl is an unwitting pawn in a very, very cynical ploy by the “two mommies.”
